“I have seen the enemy.
And he is us!”

Pogo Cartoon by Walt Kelly

Self-Karma as represented in the Michael Teachings, The Raven may say “nevermore”, but it is up to us to change our behavior.

Symbols and Color

• Background Image: Shattered glass shards make up the background of this card. Much of what represents a self-karma is something which often cuts at a person. Yet, these same pieces, when assembled by an integrated personality, can form a mosaic of a person’s talents and natural affinities.
• The Eight Ball: The Symbol of Chance, Variation and Randomness
• Alpha – Omega: Conditions built into Physical Plane by TAO
• Triality: Symbol of the path of traveling from positive, negative to neutral
• Hand Gun: As an object, it is the only tool every devised whose primary
  purpose is killing. It is both an instrument of karma and self-karma (i.e. shoot
  yourself in the foot).

Implications of the Upright Position or Positive Pole

Attachments are seldom easy to let go of, if for no other reason that they represent parts of ourselves we identify with (Card 34 – Passion negative pole). Self-karmas may be the magnetizing force which activates Maya (Card 69) for a person. Some Attachments, like some Maya, are quite pleasant for the Personality, and in some cases might even be considered luck. Self-Karma exists inside each of us. They emanate from a person’s instinctive memory (Card 42) and project a pattern out into the world. We may often use other people to help us reveal our self-karma, but it is unlike a karma which is directly related to a specific person or thing. Self-Karma results when an Ego succumbs to the rule of Maya and denies the Essence the opportunity to grow in a certain arena. Yet, those familiar elements or reliable talents or habits that have served the Essence in past lives may be part of a self-karmic ‘gift’ for a Personality to realize and use
as a tool to overcome some personal limitation or achieve some longed for dream. The concept of Internal Monads (IM), which represent the stages of Personality development within a lifetime can be thought of as series of self-karmic progressions which, when confronted and the Maya of each is seen and resolved, advances a person into the next level of self-awareness.

Card messages in the Illuminated position.

+ Attachment

(Bond, preference, habit, rule, talent, adherent, practice, predilection)

1. Attachment to patterns that give a desired payoff may evolve these into a talent! Aptitude in an endeavor is the payoff for repetition. Make sure to keep them alive with gratitude.
   
2. Friendships, loved one, ideas, faith, sacred rituals and beliefs are all useful attachments. They are the glue and the gravity which bond us to each other and station us on a ground of being. Each Self-Karma is a distinct pattern that may hinder or empower you. Someone’s personal pattern is dominating the conversation. Does this person contribute effectively? Corporate America loves a workaholic, spouses hate them.
3. A desirable attachment, one with much significance is called a bond. Reach out and make a new bond.
4. A prediction for greatness? Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach thought there was such a thing. Perhaps a long held dream, spanning many incarnations, is finally getting expression? Now however, expression must engage practice, enhancement and refinement. Practice may not make perfect, but it can manifest something into the real world.
5. Repetitive patterns may deliver a desired payoff or even evolve into a talent or skill set. Keep practicing.
6. An attachment to those you truly value, like: friends, family, and principles are support systems. You are strengthened by them and rely upon them for encouragement. These are mutual interdependencies and not to be confused with co-dependence. The former you draw power from. The latter drains power from you.
7. Aptitude is a skill or talent at which you naturally excel, and is part of you. If you have a natural gift, regardless of its economic worth in the marketplace, it is your talent to pursue! See how far it takes you.
8. Friendships, loved one, ideas, faith, sacred rituals and beliefs are all useful attachments. They are the glue and the gravity which bond us to each other and station us on a ground of being.
9. How many ‘preferences’ do you have that you ‘take as granted’? Were they cultivated by you? Learned from somewhere? Or part of yourself without a sense of origin? You might find it advantageous to know which is which and if you have them, or if they have you! If they do, it’s called an addiction.
10. Someone’s personal pattern is dominating the conversation. Does this person contribute effectively? It might be worthwhile even if it is annoying.
11. Every Self-Karma is a distinct pattern that may hinder or empower you. Corporate America loves a workaholic, spouses hate them.

Quotation Illustrating this concept…

• “How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” Wayne Dyer
• “Send that instant karma to me; initial it with loving care, yourself.” Yes – All Good People
• “Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.  ~Mark Twain
• “Habit is a second nature which prevents us from knowing the first, of which it has neither the cruelties nor the enchantments.  ~Marcel Proust

Implications of the Reversed Position or Negative Pole

On the negative side of Self Karma, it represents a long standing and reoccurring issue, habit, feeling, self-sabotaging or self-limiting belief that continually shows up in your life as patterns or strategies to avoid fears or perceived limitations. One of the most difficult paths on the Physical Plane is that of Addiction. I define it as a habitual pattern or use of a substance to achieve a state of some sought after relief. Furthering that definition, addiction is not something that is a mere preference, but as AA calls it “that rapacious creditor”, having captured your controls. The photo of a beaver noshing a tree, since it is genetically driven to get wood for its shelters, is voracious in its gnawing. So much so that when the inevitable fall occurs it can’t get out of the way in time. This aspect is often related to the negative pole of Self Destruction (Card -22). And while the mage is darkly humorous it demonstrates that when it comes to obsessive behavior – sometimes one’s own actions come crashing down upon our heads. Ouch!

Card messages in the Shadow position.

– Addiction

(Compulsion, urge, foible, dependency, craving, second nature, craze, mania, phobia, preoccupation, fetish, self-fulfilling prophesy)

1. When we are blind to our patterns, they have us. We are addicted to them. Use awareness to transform a habit from a mandate into an option. Otherwise you are stuck in a rut. Don’t dig yourself in any deeper.
2. When compulsion makes you do something, then you are no longer free. Face that urge and overcome it. It already preoccupies your mind.
3. If you are a person who engorges on food, alcohol, gambling or recreational drugs, will it be any wonder when your health begins to prematurely decline? Many habits have predictable outcomes. The only variables are how much and when? Time for a lifestyle review?
4. Too much of a good thing can still be too much. You might want to notice how many system supports have become personal indulgences? The only true statement about diet soda is die.
5. A personal pattern connects a fixated assumption and an emotional charge. Generally these are most seen as painful traumas. But occasionally, they are held as personal revelations.
6. Do you have a craving? It might be for something you need, but it could also be a hint of the soothing strategy you use to calm yourself. It is OK to have and urge. Be careful it is not a compulsion you’ll do anything to satiate.
7. How many ‘preferences’ do you have that you ‘take as granted’? Were they cultivated by you? Learned from somewhere? Or part of yourself without a sense of origin? You might find it advantageous to know which is which and if you have them, or if they have you! If they do, it’s called an addiction.
8. Whatever you cannot stop may have the power to stop you. Best check in on where your limits are. 
9. Someone’s personal pattern is dominating the conversation. Spot the who and what and the situation will change dramatically.
10. There are emotions trying to be felt but a fetish or phobia is activated to take your eye off the ball. Feel the feelings as they are while suspending the behavior trying to assuage your Ego.
11. Never doubt that self karma’s are not persistent. They usually have habit strength, identity, comfort, and even the brain chemistry of dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins reinforcing their existence in place. So while not to be too condemning of yourself for a “bad habit” or addiction, it does mean that you will have to work very hard and diligently to overcome all these associations. Get busy. Don’t make any more excuses.
12. Chief Features are often chosen by Essence to confront a Personality with a particular predilection. It can be a “short-coming” or a prompt to make one want to overcome some limitation. Either way, paying attention to these hurdles will assist you in realizing their aim. 
13. Self Help Guru, Wayne Dyer, keenly characterized the difference, and the potential interaction between karma and self-karma. “How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” If not clear, trials between you and someone else is karma, but any pattern of response is yours.
14. If the same patterns or outcomes seem to repeat, but with different people; this is a self-karma.
15. Preoccupied? What about? Are you obsessing or just distracted?
16. Whatever attracts you, it has you in its grip. No matter how wonderful the object of desire, it still takes away part of your self-control.
17. A rut is an unquenchable compulsion since it makes you do something beyond your willpower. Then you are no longer free. Face that urge and overcome it.

Quotation Illustrating this concept…

• Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.” ~Elbert Hubbard
• “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein.”  ~Proverb
• “People pay for what they do, and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become.  And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead.”  ~Edith Wharton
• “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.” ~ Carl Jung
  
•  “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.” ~New Testament: Matthew 12:25
  
• “Everything I ever let go of has claw marks on it.” Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace

Relevance within the Michael Teaching

So much of what can entrap a person in a habit or compulsive behavior we can list under the category of Self Karma. As the name implies a Self-Karma is primarily an unresolved pattern that has caused the development of an individual Essence to be held in a holding pattern. As such, when a Personality is imbued with that tendency, the objective is to resolve the underlying fear of unsatisfied need that perpetuates a set of behaviors or beliefs which hold that person in a circular stalemate.

Unlike Karma, which requires the presence of another person or object where there is a historical connection or cord binding the two in specific patterns or imbalance, a Self Karma is an issue one brings to the relationship and those attitudes and behaviors are played out with the other person being the one who is merely the trigger. This is not so imply that in a given relationship there are not many possible combinations of factors operating in parallel: agreements, monads, karmas, internal monads, review or rejection of imprinting and the activities of Chief Features.

Self Karma’s, like Karma, may feel intense and recursive. Referred to as one’s issues, patterns bearing particular themes may actually serve an individual whose taste or preferences are biased in such a way as to influence other life choices. In some cases Life Task may utilize these patterns as a supporting element in the pursuit of an outcome or style of Personality. Also, like Karma’s, these individual patterns are activated in a Personality by Essence. Narrowing the scope or number of Self Karma’s relieves the Personality from either extreme dysfunction and stress. However, at times when Essence determines that the progression of a Personalities growth has reached a certain stage or apex, it may introduce other traits that are in queue to be addressed. Those in the Goals of Growth, Acceptance, and Discrimination are most likely, in that order, the have Self Karma’s stacked in ways that the more they achieve parity or resolution, the greater the roll out of additional Self Karma’s.

Because the developmental cycle of a person, which falls under the Michael Teaching concept of Internal Monads, a Self Karma’s might appear, or if already present is enhanced by a stage of life transition.  For instance, one general example happens when a person is ready to emerge from imprinting in the Third Internal Monad and become more of themselves in the Fourth Internal Monad. Use the example of smoking (pot or cigarettes). In the early years when peer pressure is highest and risk taking behavior of adolescence looms high, a person who might not like the substance still do it to participate with their contemporaries. But when True Personality begins to surface in the 4th, the interest in those people will alter and the pull of that behavior loose its potency.

Self karma’s imply something detrimental and at the extreme destructive. Not necessarily. There are positive attachments called preferences or predilections, or tastes, and sometimes even talents. What causes these to come under this category is the rigid nature and automatic unconscious or default reaction which eschews awareness and analysis. Common phrases issued by those under the hold of a self karma is: “that is just who I am” or “that’s just what I do”, invoked as a deflection strategy to keep a person in the holds of that pattern. But these are not of the conscious Self but of the Ego working unconsciously from a desire to keep the safe and familiar in place.

Self Karma’s then are not evil nor sinful, but they are limiting and often stifling to one’s growth and evolution. Hence, the appropriate attitude to a Self Karma is not it’s extermination or elimination, but to understand its useful attributes and then having it become one of many options rather than a specific, predictable, and unchanging fall back position.

Hypnotherapy, Desensitization Therapy, Cognitive Therapy, and Emotional Freedom Work can be very useful in confronting the causes of any Self Karmic attitude or response.  Behavioral changes like exercise programs or learning new skill sets can overcome the grip of a recurring pattern by replacing it with another one that offers new ways of doing.  On some occasions, the brain’s chemical balance might have been genetically pre-configured or so greatly diminished by the stressful effects of these patterns; that supports like herbs, change of diet, and in the extreme anti-depressants, may be extremely helpful in supporting a change. Healing then requires a realignment of the receiver, which the brain is for the mind, and thus loosen the grip of that Self karma’s neural footprint. Adjusted biochemistry facilitates the emergence of alternative patterns. But pills or supplements alone do not make the change, they just increase the malleability of the old habit and loosen its grip upon you. Too often, people get on the drugs and fail to follow up with necessary spiritual, psychological, emotional or behavioral investigation required to bring about not just temporary cessation, but long term healing and advancement.

Remember, restoring choice to the Personality means equipping it with more than one default behavioral option or attitude toward a situation. Reversing this last statement, a belief, habit, response (in the case of a phobia), or attitude toward some set of circumstances may become a Self Karma when it becomes fixated and thus either overrules any other opinion or possibility, or so dominates other viewpoints within as to minimize them out of acceptance. There is no greater bread crumb of speech which may reveal a trail leading to a Self Karmic belief than the statement of response, “yes, but!” Try the frame of reference “that might be true, AND this is also the case.” You will undoubtedly notice that when more than one option, or two opinions in opposition are present, it is far more liberating to the mind and allows for the best use of your conscious ability to think rather than just praddle on reinforcing your own belief or position. (i.e. argue for your limitations.)

Famous Examples

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Specific persistent disease condition, unutilized talent or continuous yearning.

Cultural Meaning

They who can capture your attention and thus consume your time have you addicted to their substance. Framing that idea of addiction in this way puts into sharp relief an obvious factor but one that is often overlooked or not considered: the more time you spend doing anything the more you are attached to it! Of course, when someone loves what they do and is consciously devoted and even delighted by the use of their life force in pursuit of one of these preferred patterns (i.e. athletes, musicians, performers, inventors, activists, etc.) to name of few, then the idea of attachment takes on the flavor of something that is both wanted and has deliberate commitment. Imagine Van Gogh not being allowed to paint, or Michael Jackson not able to dance, or Thomas Edison not being allowed to tinker? They were bonded to these pursuits and they filled a vital niche for them.

But for many people, these predilections which make themselves visible in early life are often overruled by demands of family or culture or academe or survival deficiencies requiring them to be subordinated. Much of the way of talent, or a person’s authentic self, may have to capitulate and make do suppressing their nature urges or predilections. They then go underground; and instead of being forgotten they become distorted and the demands of their fulfillment persist. How they get fulfilled or manifest in their altered form may bring about all sorts of behaviors. If a person has been shamed for having various tendencies in the first place, the strategies one implements to get those suppressed needs met will tend to throw a person under the veil of secrecy in the pursuit of them. Or at the other extreme, consume the individual’s psyche so completely, that they engage in outright deviancy or extremism, both forms of Self Karmic and addictive attributes as to segment themselves into obsessive behavior.

Perhaps no other addictive pattern so informs the modern psychic sphere of human experience than the cyber or virtual world of the Internet. In itself, the Internet is the first manifestation of the Global Mind, useful because it avails to the use avenues of exploration that might have been at one time out of reach. Yet, on the darker side of this potentially liberating technology is the deleterious effects of neural abduction. The diversity of messages that can be sent across this medium can captivate like no other before it. The arousal or excitement of the brain can lead to greater understanding of many things. Or, it may so utterly hypnotize the user with the sheer speed, complexity and volume of information, crowding out actual deliberation and cogitation of ideas and input, by engaging the user in activities or following designed patterns (product or message oriented) that a person becomes lost in a maze. Children are particularly susceptible to this phenomenon and the rise of cyber-addiction is becoming as significant as actual substance abuse.

In a recent article in the Huffington Post one author defines the Four Addictions underlying all others:

They are:

1. The Addiction to opinions of other people. As a society, we’re addicted to what others think about us and how others’ views of the world affect us.
2. The Addiction to drama. Some people are drawn to and consumed by any event or situation that occupies their thoughts and fills their mind with negativity, which often brings attention to them in unproductive ways.
3. The Addiction to the past. These people have an unhealthy attachment to events or situations that have occurred in the past. They’re stuck in how things used to be.
4. The Addiction to worry. This addiction is comprised of all the negative and self-defeating thoughts that make us anxious, disturbed, upset and stressed, that hold us back in life.”

In many ways, these four addictions represent the inadequacies and thus the abdication of our personal power which protects and asserts our native right to be human. Hence, we might realize that Essence wants us to be free from the debilitating effect of these killers of imagination, hope, self love, and dreams which underscore our living and livelihood, and sustain the alcohol, drugs, food, gambling, or sex addictions which we use as medications. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, ADD & ADHD, Schizophrenia, and Depression plague a huge cross section of the human family more so than ever before recorded, or perhaps admitted to. Substance abuse and mental illness are but  symptoms or habitual effects and behaviors brought on by the four much deeper and fundamental causes which are the root cause of those symptoms. And these effects are caused by the tendency in human society to see “other” as different, flawed, and separate. Just as they do themselves. In actuality when because we can only love to the capacity we have to love ourselves, perhaps the Biblical injunction reprised by Jesus “love they neighbor as thyself” takes on a new context for understanding. Meaning, if we cannot love ourselves or do so conditionally, then that limited, skewed, or distorted love will be exactly what we give to others!

Review each of the Four Addictions with rigor and locate where you find them operate or appear in your life and the path to liberation, or as Michael and the Psychologists might formally term it “extinction” of that cause at the deepest level. When that happens the fears driving the four primary addictions will dissipate and a new world will be revealed from the inside out.

How can you distinguish a Karma from a self karma?

• If a pattern in your life seems to function regardless of who else is involved; this is a self karma.
• Any addiction that you fight with is a self karma.
• When you have an encounter with a specific person who calls forth from you behavior or emotions unlike anything you’ve had before, that is a karma.

by Stephen Cocconi © 2011, Updated 2024

For a Motivation Cards Reading or Channeled Consultation call: 209.768-4956 or email Stephen at channeling@themichaelteaching.com