how to identify deep relationship karma and use it to grow spiritually

At one point in my Spiritual journey I felt pulled apart by my relationships, I realized my relationships were not a source of comfort and joy for me. Infact, quite the opposite and more I delved into it, to my surprise it included all my relationships, friends, family, romantic, business partners, colleagues and bosses. At that point I came to an understanding I had very deep relationship karma and it was affecting every part of my life, rather negatively. So first I would like to share the signs of deep relationship karma for you to understand if you are going through somewhat similar path in terms of relationships, as stated below

1) All relationships seem difficult including family.

2) You keep meeting many people but they are all wrong for you. If you meet someone who seems right, its circumstantially difficult to be with them.

3) You end up giving more in every relationship, sometimes it may start feeling like a burden.

4) A lot of your relationships of yours turn sour after a point, even if you do everything right, however much you try to salvage them.

5) You have repitive patterns, like similar things keep happening in all relationships.

These are the most common signs of deep relationship karma. Once you realize you are going through it, though it is a painful realization, but the good news is you can use this relationship karma to completely shift your reality. Each one of us have been given things to overcome but with it we all are blessed with our own unique qualities and gifts through which we can really overcome anything in our lives.

Now when we have a mountain to climb, we must get the necessary gear to get to the top. Without it we will fail to climb it. So first we need a good team on our side.

If you truly believe and trust in God ( whatever your definition of God is ), they say God takes 50% of your karma, and in India we have always had a beautiful Guru- disciple relationship and it is said that the Guru takes 25% of your karma, so just by getting them on our side, we have done 75% of the work already . We still have to work on the rest of 25% but I will tell you just what I did to tackle that. Below are some of the ways you can completely clear your relationship karma.

- Be selfless in your relationships for a while because understand what is happening with you is a direct result of your actions in the past lives. I do not mean you should accept abuse from anyone. Draw healthy boundaries ofcourse but you might have to do more for a while in your relationships and at some point they will start to beautifully turn around or your karma will get over and those people will move away.

- Support other people who are going through similar issues, i.e. in this case relationship difficulties. The more you will be there for them, the more your own life will get better. When you are going through your own stuff, it might prove a bit tough to help others, take a break but never give up on people. Counsel, hear, help, pray with true intention and you will be surprised how it will affect your own life.

- Be a good human being not only to other humans but also be kind to animals, be in sync with mother nature. You can do karma yoga in any form whichever pleases you and whatever gifts you have. Like if you connect to animals, help them. If you want to help clean the beach, go for it. Just think of others instead of your own and the universe will also think of you. Do remember that your main intent should be to help, don’t force yourself to do anything to clear karma. It should be heart based, tats why you have the choice to help in whatever way you can.

Now you might ask me why do all this ? you are fine on your own, or you are doing by. First of all karma clears in layers so even if you think you are fine it will keep following you and keep punching you in the gut whenever it gets a chance. Second we have to gie it a thought why you and me have such deep relationship karma, that I was ale to writ this article and here you are reading it. It does bother us in some ways right. The main reason though is we have to Spiritually grow in someway, and if everything is hunky dory in our lives, we might not self analyze and grow as a person. So it our window of opportunity to heal all the parts of ourselves that need attention and become a better person. In this process we might touch many lives also, overall I recommend hustling over suffering.

WHAT CAN RELATIONSHIP KARMA TEACH YOU ?

How will you grow through this? Let me explain.

1) YOU WILL LEARN ABOUT UNCONDITIONAL LOVE ; By being selfless in your close relationships where you cannot even give them up, or escape, you will reach a stage where your love will become unconditional even if the other person is not returning the effort. Once your love becomes unconditional, the vibration of that relationship shifts and the other person will change. The challenge here is you learning the lesson of unconditional love and once you do you will realize the power of it. It can heal anything and anyone.

2) YOU WILL DEVELOP THE QUALITY OF SEVA (HELPING OTHERS ) : Sewa is one of the most important part of all spiritual practices and religions. Once you will be there for others, you will develop this quality and it will fill you with immense joy. You will not want to go back to your own lifestyle, that is how soul satisfying sewa is .

3) SACRIFICE/TYAG : The third most important pillar of any good life is based on sacrifice. Like when you decide to go vegan for the love of animals, you are sacrificing your sense of taste to an extent. If we all keep doing things for ourselves and refuse to do any sacrifices for each other, no relationships can thrive. Every relationship needs a little bit of sacrifice. Even when you have a dog, you have to get up early in the morning to take it out. You will learn this quality and it will change you entirely as a person.

4) NON — ATTACHMENT : if you have deep relationship karma, you will have losses for sure. The lesson here is non attachment, even if you do everything right, someone can still walk out of your life. So you will have to master Non — attachment in all relationships so that it does not affect you. Lord Krishna in Bhagwad Gita says “ Let go, do not cling om to the fruits of your actions ”, trust me nothing teaches non- attachment better than failed relationships.

5) SELF WORK : As your outer world is in chaos, you will be forced to look inside and ask yourself what is wrong with me ?Why is this happening with me? The moment you will ask this question, the universe will answer. Yes you will have to do self work and change yourself, once you stop putting the blame outside and change yourself, it will all miraculously resolve. Like they say “ as inside, so outside”.

6) PATIENCE : You will need immense patience as any karma clears in layers. You will think you have done it but another layer will crop up. I have cleared personal. Family and ancestral karma and still layers come up. We have taken many many lives to build it all, so don’t be disheartened and keep at it. If you learn the lesson of patience, which I am still struggling with a little bit, your life will become much easier and you will eventually reach equanimity. I recently heard this quote, ‘Patience is a shortcut to God — Nayaswami Haridas ” , and realized how true is it , if we have full trust and faith in God, why be impatient.

7) RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD/GURU : last but not the least, we all have to turn to someone when we are suffering and when we turn to God and guru and he answers and bring us respite or wisdom to deal with our suffering, our relationship with them flourishes and so do we.

I hope we all learn our lessons and use our relationships to heal and grow spiritually and blossom into beautiful souls. In suffering , we can find strength which we never knew we had and like I said each one of us have their own strengths and gifts and blessings to learn and grow. May Unconditional divine love ermeate our lives and we become beacons of light and hope for others.