5. Karma and Reincarnation – 6 to 10 – Lesson 5

Karmic Transformation for Ages 6 to 10

LESSON: Stories of Karma

There are some great stories that give us a good idea how karma works in the lives of people. Here are two stories, one from Tibet and one from the United States of America.

Story 1: From Tibet

In the first story a Buddhist monk is arrested for stealing a cow. He did not do it and in fact was a vegetarian so he had no interest in cows! He was put in chains and put into a pit in the ground. He stayed here for months, never once complaining or trying to defend himself.

A few days after he was arrested, the missing cow was found, but the man who had put him into the pit got busy with his life and his work and forgot about the poor monk. One of the students of the monk finally went to see the king of their country and told him the entire story.

The king was shocked and immediately went to free the monk. He apologized and told him that he would punish those responsible for him staying these months in the pit.

The monk looked at the king and thanked him, but begged him not to punish anyone else. He told the king a story of something that had happened to him in a former life. He explained that he had stolen a baby cow. As he was trying to get away with the cow, he was afraid his pursuers were going to catch him so he abandoned the cow near a holy man who was meditating. The holy man was unjustly accused of stealing the cow and was chained up in a hole for six days before he was let go.

The holy man told the king that he had been waiting many lifetimes for the chance to finally pay this debt. “I am grateful to your subjects for bringing me the opportunity to be free of this karma.”

Story 2: from the United States

The second story took place in earlier American times when a wagon train was crossing the country. A group of Native Americans attacked the wagon train. As the men fought, a woman who was going to have a baby was hiding inside one of the wagons. An Indian found her and in a rage took his tomahawk and hit her in the chest. Then he hit her again in the head and she died.

When the rest of his tribe saw what this Indian had done, they were furious. Some punched him in the chest, telling him that he would be punished. Warriors were never allowed to hurt women or children.

While this took place, the woman was near her body as angels came for her. She said she did not want to leave yet because she wanted to forgive the Indian for killing her. They told her she could not do that yet, and they took her away.

More than 100 years later, this same woman was in anther body, living once again. She had no memory of that previous life, but she had a terrible cough and it would not go away. She had been coughing for twelve years! One day she prayed very hard to be shown why this cough never went away. She had a feeling it had to do with a record from another lifetime.

Jesus came to her in her prayers and she told him she would go through any suffering to be shown what this record was. About six days later she got very sick. She had terrible pain in her chest and she kept thinking to herself, It feels like there is a tomahawk in my chest!

She was sick for three weeks. Finally she prayed to her Higher Self, asking if the feeling of the tomahawk was why she had her cough. All of the sudden she saw the whole thing happen all over again in her mind’s eye.

Then she saw herself go into a teepee where the man who had killed her was sitting. The teepee was a sweat lodge and he was there to try to have a vision that could help him feel remorse for his violent killing of the innocent woman. He saw her come into the teepee and he was afraid. He began to scream at her and beg her not to kill him. She told him that she was not there to hurt him but to forgive him.

She told him that he must never fight again. He told her he could not do that, he was a brave and he was meant to fight. She told him again, that he must not fight but that instead he should stay behind to protect the women and children of his tribe. He agreed. She forgave him.

From that moment on, her cough was gone. She got over her illness, years passed and it never returned. This is a true story of what a woman remembered and told the author of the book,Karma and Reincarnation.

There may be another earlier story about why the Indian got so angry and killed her. She may have hurt him in another earlier lifetime and when he saw her, he took it out in rage rather than forgive her.

When someone goes into a rage, their anger may affect things for a long time to come by setting off a chain reaction. Do you know what a chain reaction is?

When bad things happen

Sometimes when something bad happens to people they get angry at God and say, “How could God let this happen!”Have you ever heard anyone say this?

They are forgetting what their soul knows — that what happens is the result of causes they themselves put into motion at some time. What we do in this life really does matter. It matters to us now and it will matter to us in the future when we receive what we sent out. It also matters to all those who are on the receiving end of what we sent out.

Forgive and forget

Even if the people we may meet have been unkind or unjust to us, we can end it by forgiving them. If we hold on to our anger and hurt, it will never go away. Confucius, the great teacher of China once taught, “To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.”

Confucius

You may have heard the phrase, “forgive and forget”. This is true. If someone does something wrong to you and you truly forgive them, you forget it ever happened. If you remember past hurts, it is a sign to you that you have not truly forgiven.

Revenge

Many people seek revenge against those who have hurt them. Possibly the Indian who killed the woman in the second story was acting out of an ancient desire for revenge.

Do you know what the Bible teaches about this? It says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay,” saith the Lord.What do you think this means? Allow time for your child to respond.

LESSON: The Law of Forgiveness

When someone creates bad karma by hurting someone else, it is not our business to worry about their punishment, even if the person that got hurt is you! When people send out hurtful actions, the energy they sent out will return to them, some time, somewhere. Our job is to forgive the soul of the person who hurt us, and to move on. Jesus explains how this law works in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” When we forgive others, God forgives us.

When we continue to feel angry and unforgiving to someone, it keeps some of our energy locked up inside of us. We cannot use that energy in our work or in our play.

As mentioned in lesson two, you can talk to anyone who you need to forgive or who may need to forgive you. Sometimes the person you want to talk to is no longer living. If that happens, you can still write a letter and ask your parents to burn it. If you pray about it, the angels will take the letter to the soul it is intended for.

If you get into the habit of forgiving things right away, you learn to “pay as you go,” and not let things build up inside of you.

Visualization

As you give this prayer for forgiveness, you can visualize the powerful violet flame, as you see here. This flame changes sad, mad feelings into happy, free feelings. It can heal physical disease. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit. When darkness comes our way, we can use this powerful flame and put the darkness into it and it will be gone.

VIOLET FLAME

Feeling Guilty

Sometimes when we know we have done something wrong, we feel very guilty. Others may forgive us, but we do not always forgive ourselves. It is important to feel truly sorry when we have done something wrong, but it is also important for us to let go of it and move on.

Everybody makes mistakes. That is part of the great adventure of life. It does not mean you are bad or ruined forever. It just means you had a lesson to learn and you learned it from making a mistake.

Grace of good karma

Here are some stories of how good karma saved people from worse things happening.

One day an Indian master was sitting with his disciples around a bonfire.

The master Babaji picked up a burning log and held it against the shoulder of one of his disciples. The man yelled in pain and the others watching were horrified that their master would hurt one of them.

The master said that the man’s karma had been to burn to death and that he had saved him from that terrible karma by a small injury. Then he touched the man’s shoulder and healed him.

In another story, a girl named Jan was hiking in the mountains. She fell and hit her head against a rock. Her hiking partner knew first aid and knew how to help her. Someone else was in a car accident. The first person to come along was an emergency medical technician who knew just what to do.

In all these three stories the people had to have their karma return, but because of grace and good karma, the karma was not as bad as it might have been and they had immediate help.

Making Things right

What happens to us is for a reason and our choice is to thank God that the karma is coming back so we can make things right and move on. We make things right with our hearts and with our hands.

We learn to be more loving and kind to people. We ask their forgiveness when needed and we freely forgive others.

We help others around us by doing what needs to be done. If someone is sick, we help them. If mom needs help carrying in the groceries, we offer to help. If your little brother spills his milk, you can help to clean it up. If dad is raking leaves, you can offer to help.