How Do You Redeem Your Soul?

Finding the life answer to how you redeem your soul is a challenge. A redeemed soul sees itself as new and unblemished. To reach this state of innocence would be impossible according to the law of karma, for the cycle of sowing and reaping never ends. (Unlike sin, karma grips us even in the case of accidents and inadvertent mistakes – regardless of circumstances, an action is an action and has consequences.)

The problem is further complicated by the fact that each person performs millions of actions in a lifetime, and these overlap on all levels. Emotions and intentions are both tied in. The parsing of good from bad becomes extremely complicated, and the doctrine of karma makes the calculation harder rather than easier, because the mind can always find some tiny detail that was overlooked previously.

A redemptive God is the only being in the cosmos exempt from karma (or sin). Or to be more accurate, God transcends karma because he alone isn’t in the cosmos.

Clearly no one can repeal the law of cause and effect. In the East, using the terminology of karma, they say that evil acts pursue a soul across time and space until the debt is paid. Even death cannot abolish a karmic debt; this only happens by becoming a victim of the same evil you committed or by working off bad imprints through good ones.

At the level of second attention, however, this cycle is irrelevant. One doesn’t need to repeal the law of karma at all. Despite all the activity on the surface of life, a speck of awareness inside is not touched. The instant they wake up in the morning, a saint and a sinner are in the same place. They both feel themselves to be alive and aware.

This place stands outside reward and punishment. It knows no duality. When you have accomplished the task of finding this place, holding on to it, and living there, duality is gone. You are free from all bondage of good or bad actions.

Adapted from How To Know God, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2000).

Read more: Spirit, Deepak Chopra's Tips, duality, karma, redemption

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Angela N.

7:06PM PDT on Apr 22, 2012

thank you!

send a green star

Uma C.

12:59PM PDT on Apr 22, 2012

Will you ask " how can I redeem my self?" as if Creation, the flower of Creator's will needed a reason or excuse to exist. Life is an on-going process, a constant unfolding and there is no blank slate point where all is pure and simple. This would only exist if it were already a place existent in the field of reality and thus only recognized and experienced as a focus of attention until the attention is tuned to another face of reality. To assume that one's soul was a possession who are we to grant ourselves permission to experience it? If it could be lost or needed justification begs the question that if that is true who are we apart from soul and all the questions that opens up along the way. There is no "before" for everything to have come from as all true time is simultaneous apart from how it may appear from this perspective.

Camilla V.

11:41AM PDT on Apr 22, 2012

thanks

Danuta W.

12:14AM PDT on Apr 17, 2012

Thank you for the article

2:25AM PDT on Apr 3, 2012

Note: regarding my comment below

If you need to put someone in jail, do it to prevent further harm to the criminal and to others.

Not for vengeance!

2:21AM PDT on Apr 3, 2012

The law of karma can free you from karma.The Lord's prayer expresses it beautifully "Forgive us our debts as (AS -- to the same degree) we forgive our debtors."

Forgive the best you can and ask your Higher Power to forgive the rest of the way and to see to it that no one ever has to pay for any harm done to you, past, present or future, real or imagined.

What you do to others will be done to you. Forgive completely all those who have hurt you, all of them, with the help of your Higher Power, and you will be forgiven completely. Not only is this Christ teaching but it's also Huna and psychology. Un forgiveness carries bitter karma
and can cause physical and mental illness,

It's important to remember, pain is NOT un forgiveness. Pain is pain. To put a criminal in jail is not un forgiveness. It saves the criminal from heaping up even more karma. It also protects others from being harmed.

Walk karma free.

Victor M.

1:42PM PDT on Apr 2, 2012

There is no soul

Patricia H.

11:29AM PDT on Apr 2, 2012

thanks for sharing

Mari G.

12:16PM PDT on Mar 31, 2012

i believe there is a lot that goes into karma, mostly your intent and whats in your heart, if you help someone out for the sole purpose of having good karma then it works against you, if you hurt someone without realizing it and try to make an amends that works in your favor, if you are selfish and self-centered then there are consequences, if you are good-hearted and do your best to help your fellow man or anything else that is alive, the you will find joy in life; not saying there wont be hardships but that you will find joy. my beliefs is there is fate and destiny but how you get there is all fluid, there are so many roads to get to the same destination and the only thing set in stone is the milestones or whatever you want to call them. i also believe in reincarnation, not that you as a person comes back in a new body, but the energy that makes your spirit comes back to learn new experiences.