Past life karma. This concept has many faces and takes many forms; how we transform our present depends on how we choose to perceive and build our understanding of what past life karma means. Foremost, most of us understand that we must recognize what our past life karma is – whether it is derived from anger, jealously, extreme love, fear – and the actions that we committed to create these karmatic forces that causes us to be who and where we are today. But many stop there; once we understand the cause and effect, we do not venture further to transform our present but often times use it as an excuse when we reach a road block in our lives, both physically and spiritually. To reach true enlightenment, to be able to escape the bounds of negative karma, we must repeat to ourselves "there is a reason for everything, but not an excuse."

Having the knowledge, the reason why one is experiencing these karmatic road blocks is just the first step. What we do with this knowledge is what will lessen or eliminate the effects of negative past life karma. True, reaching this knowledge alone is a significant step, but it is not the only step; it is simply the door that leads to many paths.  From this one opening, we are presented with many options; one being we can simply accept our karma and simply do nothing or we can accept our karma and find a solution to resolve it. For instance, when Mother Mary lost Jesus within the temple, she could have blamed her past life actions of carelessness and selfishness that resulted in this lost. Although, to be clear, Mother Mary had no intention of leaving Jesus, like anyone, she was still presented with many options that could change the course of her life. Being a young single mother, she could have continued her life free from the burden of raising a child and being held accountable to the marital laws during that time period by allowing Jesus to fall into the hands of another family. But, instead of allowing this to happen, she owned her responsibility as a mother by committing herself to finding and raising Jesus on her own, and through these actions her karma of carelessness and selfishness was eliminated. Had she not done so, we would be without the teachings and life experiences of Jesus. Her love for her child and desire to deliver ultimate enlightenment to all overtook all other emotions of tiredness, fear, and burden. Granted, it took Mother Mary many lives to be able to come to this point of complete freedom of selflessness, but the lesson is, instead of accepting this was her fate, she was determined to remain on the right course to enlightenment.

If we are truly committed to enhancing our spiritual enlightenment and ultimately freedom from this earth, we must be conscious as to no longer using our past karma as an excuse, but rather the beginning of a goal. And when we fall into a karmatic event, we must not just take a moment to understand how we got here, but also how we plan to get out of it in a manner that lessens or eliminates that negative karma. When we fall into these situations, we should close our eyes, and repeat to ourselves "there is a reason for everything, but not an excuse."

Because, the difference between who you are and who you want to be, is what you do.