Relationships: Dharmic and Karmic

Dharma is a Sanskrit word meaning sacred spiritual duty, or allotted duty. Our dharma is the work we came to Earth to do, the reason we incarnated at this time and place, within our particular family, culture, language, spiritual tradition, nation, etc. And one of our most important tasks in life is to figure out what our dharma is, so we can do it properly. And one of the worst things we can do is to try to do the dharma of another person.

So dharmic relationships are those relationships that support and encourage the performance of dharma. Simply put, if we are in a dharmic relationship with someone, it means that we are walking side by side along the path of life with that person. We treat that person as an equal, we have the best interests of the other person in our heart, and our goal is to support and enrich the growth and development of that person. We don't try to control the other person, we don't objectify or manipulate the person to gratify our own senses, or to increase our personal power.

Karma is a Sanskrit word meaning action. When we say, for instance, that we have good karma or bad karma it simply describes the quality of what Mother Nature is bringing to us as the result of our past actions. This is simply another way of saying: What goes around, comes around. Or, as scripture reminds us: We reap what we sow. The interesting thing about karma is that it can take a LONG time between what we sow and what we reap... a very long time. It is even possible that what we sow in one lifetime does not come back to us until the next lifetime. But we should never doubt that it will come back, regardless of how long it takes.

Positive actions (good karma) will be rewarded (balanced) and negative actions (bad karma) will be punished (balanced). So a karmic relationship is one in which we are either creating karma, or balancing karma, with another person. Regardless of whether we are creating or balancing karma, it appears that we are in constant conflict with the other person, as though we are rubbing against them, creating friction, wearing away the rough edges on both of us. If we are in a karmic relationship with someone, the objective should always be to balance or neutralize existing karma, rather than creating any new karma.

This is why we have the New Testament recommendation to turn the other cheek. If we try to exact retribution for a perceived wrong, we simply continue to create new karma which must be balanced at some time in the future. And why is this so bad? Well, karma created while we are in physical incarnation can only be balanced or neutralized while we are in physical incarnation. In other words, we need a physical body to balance physical karma. So as long as we have unbalanced physical karma, we must keep on coming back into physical incarnation. We must be part of the wheel of life and death, the wheel of karma and reincarnation until it is all balanced and we are free.