Episode 22 – Karma – The Choices That Shape Your Life

A man who had been suffering for two decades, burnt out and unable to look after his newborn child, was given a first task that included switching off the news and social media for two weeks. When he and Pål-Esben spoke again, he felt hope for the first time in 20 years. And at Emory University, mice that had learned to fear the smell of cherry blossom passed that fear on to their offspring.

In this twenty-second episode, Amina and her teacher and guide, Pål-Esben Wanvig, talk about karma, not as reward and punishment, but as the memory of the consequences of everything we do. They explore why no one else can take your karma away, why 95 percent of it lies in your own hands, and why nothing could exist without it. It is part of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a podcast about the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to yourself.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

In this episode

• Why karma is not reward and punishment, and why blaming others keeps you in prison
• Viktor Frankl, the power no one can take from you, and building up the Viktor Frankl muscles
• Karma as the memory of every action, the autopilot, and the eight types of karmic memory
• Why no one can delete your karma for you, and Pål-Esben’s karmic cycle of jealousy in relationships
• Why nothing could exist without karma, available karma, and karmic pressure
• The 95 percent we resolve through new choices, and the crystallised karma that needs shamanic rituals
• What you feed your senses, and the client who found hope after two weeks without news
• Epigenetics and the mice that inherited fear, the field of polarities, and the university versus primary school

This podcast is for you if you:

• Seek real depth in your spiritual practice
• Want to understand yourself on a more fundamental level
• Are curious about shamanism but tired of superficial “new age” spirituality
• Have taken many alternative courses but still feel that something is missing
• Feel an inner longing for freedom, love and wholeness

In a time when so many get lost in external methods and promises of quick fixes, this podcast invites you back to the only place where true answers can be found: your own heart.

Listen above, or read the full conversation below.

Transcript

A warm welcome to the podcast “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. This podcast is a collaboration with our favourite magazine, the health and lifestyle magazine Medium, and is devoted to exploring the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to oneself. We follow Amina, a student at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School, as she goes through a deep primordial shamanic process of development together with her guide and teacher Pål-Esben. It is a raw, unpolished journey of discovery towards true joy in life, deeper meaning, and a life that truly feels good to live.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

Pål-Esben: Hi, Amina, and a warm welcome to a new episode.

Amina: Hi, Pål-Esben. Thank you, and likewise.

Pål-Esben: Thank you! And a warm welcome to you too, dear listener, because it’s for you that we make this podcast of ours: for inspiration, for motivation, to help you find insight and to tell apart a little what is reality and what perhaps isn’t quite so real, when it comes to the many esoteric, mystical topics that a lot has been written about and that many people have opinions on. We’ve tried to share our experiences around this, not because of something we believe, but because we’re trying to share our experience of what it is that changes life and transforms life for the better.

That’s how it has happened for you, Amina, and that’s what we’ve discussed through earlier episodes and are still discussing: the profound primordial shamanic process of development that we have at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School. Because that’s what we’re talking about here. It isn’t about spiritual sweets and snacks that you use for entertainment. And there’s nothing wrong with that, with going to a funfair, picking up a bit here and there and being entertained. But what we’re talking about is a life-changing, life-transforming process of development, which needs slightly different gateways, slightly different tools and a slightly different understanding from what comes under the heading of spiritual sweets.

And Amina, today we’re going to talk about an incredibly important and also exciting topic. And that is?

Amina: Karma. Karma and dharma.

An extraordinarily exciting topic

Pål-Esben: Karma. When we go into the topic of karma, it’s extraordinarily exciting. And for a human being who wants to create a more joyful and meaningful life, and perhaps a healthier life, it’s incredibly, incredibly important to understand what karma is: what the mechanisms are really about. Because you were also introduced to this topic right at the start of your process of development.

Today we’re going to talk about what karma is, and of course clear up many misunderstandings about what karma is. We’ll talk about karmic cycles, why karma is absolutely necessary for a human being to exist at all, why karma is completely crucial for a human being to be able to experience meaning, and why our universe couldn’t have existed without karma. We’ll talk about karmic cycles, karmic winds, karmic smell. So we have an incredibly exciting set of themes that we’ll try to look at a little in the short hour we have. Normally I would spend a long series of episodes of our podcast drilling into this, but we’ll do our best, Amina, to do it in just over an hour.

So: can you tell us a bit about what your relationship with karma was before you started your profound primordial shamanic process of development?

Amina: I didn’t know very much about what karma was. My understanding was that it was some kind of punishment: if I didn’t behave in a perfect enough way, I’d be punished, in a way. I hadn’t dived very deeply into the subject, but I remember that when I heard people talk about it, I thought all along: something doesn’t add up here. There must be something more. There must be something more than this.

As I was introduced through the training to what karma really is, that piece fell into place: wow, now I understand even more of what this is about, and how important it is. It isn’t about punishment. It’s about all my actions having some kind of consequence, either something I see as a positive consequence or something I see as a negative consequence. So you could say that the karma seminar I had with you, Pål-Esben, had a very positive consequence for me.

The misunderstanding: reward and punishment

Pål-Esben: Oh yes, that’s good. But not everyone likes what I say about this. It’s one of the things that happens when I go into karma and tell my students what it’s about: some of them get a bit sulky and irritated with me, because it means their actions have consequences.

The misunderstanding about karma in the esoteric world is often that karma is about some kind of calculation that has to do with punishment and reward. In other words, the battle between good and evil: that there’s some divine figure sitting up there in the clouds, or however people see it, handing out prizes if you’re good and punishing you when you’re not. That’s why a great many people have an idea of karma that’s about reward or punishment.

And that’s a challenge in the world we live in: we humans tend to look outside ourselves to find the causes of our suffering, our pain, our problems. It’s so much easier for us humans to blame our partner, blame the government, blame the economic situation in the world: to blame everything except ourselves for our problems and our pain. And that fits very nicely into this picture, where we don’t want to take self-responsibility for our own life, our actions, our feelings. It’s very easy for us humans to project blame onto others.

And then it’s very convenient if you have a definition of karma that says: yes, karma is about getting rewarded when I’m good and punished when I’m not, and there’s some figure out there who rewards and punishes me. That means I have no power over this; someone out there has power over me. So I’m a kind of puppet, and no wonder I have problems, because other people are punishing me.

That’s of course a challenge when we’re trying to find our way back to a joyful and meaningful life: we project blame onto everyone except ourselves. Then we take away our own opportunity and power to take responsibility for our own life. Because one thing is certain: we all have our karma, and the only ones responsible for our karma are ourselves.

How was it for you at the start, Amina, with the temptation to blame others for your problems, instead of taking responsibility for them yourself and finding solutions?

Amina: Before, I did exactly that. Before, everything was everyone else’s fault. I didn’t always point a finger and say “this is your fault”, but it was always like this: if that person hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have felt that way, and then this wouldn’t have happened. So I was tossed about like a ball, not just by my emotions, but by everything that happened to me. It was everyone else’s fault. If only they’d done it that way, so that I didn’t have to go through this, everything would have been so much better.

And I know there are quite a few people who react more strongly to this, to having to swallow the fact that we have power over our own life. We ourselves decide what we let affect us. I know a lot of people react strongly to that. For me it was a huge liberation, and it’s always a place I can go inside myself, today, and think: okay, how could I have made a different choice now? Where do I have, not blame, but where do I have… what’s the right word here…

Pål-Esben: Influence.

Amina: Yes, what influence do I have on this? Thank you, Pål-Esben. For me it was very liberating to dive into this business of karma, and it helped me a lot to take more self-responsibility for my life. That matters especially when you have children and live a life where things can happen. And not only when you have children: anything can happen. But whatever happens today, I don’t feel that it’s someone else’s fault. At the same time, you have to be careful not to overanalyse: where in my karma is this? What haven’t I seen? So it’s about finding that middle ground.

Responsibility is not blame: Viktor Frankl

Pål-Esben: Yes. And whenever we come to these slightly challenging and difficult topics, it’s important to do a bit of pre-framing around them, so they aren’t simply misunderstood. Because none of us is responsible for everything that happens to us. If you’re waiting at a red light and someone comes up behind you, drives into you and dents your car, that’s not your responsibility. But what is our responsibility is how we react to, and interact with, what happens to us, both in our actions and in our emotions. That’s our responsibility. Or rather: it can be our responsibility, if we take it.

In earlier episodes we’ve talked about one of my heroes, Dr Viktor Frankl, who was taken into a Nazi concentration camp, and who was a psychiatrist at the time. He famously said: “They could take everything from me. They could kill my family, they could torture me, they could do the worst things you can do to a human being. But they could never take from me the power over how I think, feel and act in response to what happens to me.” And that is what carried him through.

That is to say: of course, I have no control, or perhaps very little control, over what may happen to me. But I always have the power to decide how I relate to it. In earlier episodes we’ve talked about free will: this space between impulse and action, and how we practise and develop it. And I also sometimes talk about building up our Viktor Frankl muscles.

Most people in our society have been drilled from childhood, on autopilot, into believing that the world around them is to blame for the problems they have. Very few children are taught to take full self-responsibility for their emotions, feelings and actions, whatever happens around them. Because that’s not how our society is built.

Building up the Viktor Frankl muscles

That means that among the adults I come across, and there have been a few thousand of them over the last couple of decades, I very rarely find an adult who has built up their Viktor Frankl muscles to the point where Viktor Frankl was. Because believing that I can just say “now I’m going to do what Viktor Frankl did” doesn’t work. You can’t just say that today you’re going to lift 200 kilos at the gym when you’ve never lifted weights before. So this is something that has to be practised and cultivated.

And this has been a central part of your development. I often use this Viktor Frankl scale of mine: you might start somewhere between one and two, and then you gradually build yourself up, build the muscles up and get stronger and stronger and stronger. Gradually you get to seven, eight, nine, measured against where Viktor Frankl was. He’s the one who says so brutally and directly that even if they torture me, even if they kill the people around me, they can never take from me the power over how I think, feel and act in response to what happens to me.

You climbed up from perhaps one or two at the start, and now you’re perhaps up at eight, nine. You’re getting up towards the top of the scale. And of course it feels completely different, but this isn’t something that happens overnight. It’s hard, intensive, demanding work to build up these muscles. And afterwards we’ll talk about why this has to do with karma, of course. Isn’t that right, Amina?

Amina: Yes, absolutely. There’s been a lot of trial and error, important trial and error. And as you say, it’s been extremely hard work. A bit like when you train your muscles: you can get a bit stiff, and you get some growing pains. At times it’s been… I may have broken a bone along the way too. But it’s been an important part of the process. It definitely doesn’t come for free.

The trap of overanalysis

Amina: But going back a little: a question came up while you were talking just now. Because when I came into the alternative world, I was with people who believed, and I had this view myself too, that we should look inside ourselves in relation to whatever we come across outside our front door. A bit like what you said about waiting at a red light and someone driving into you. Or, for example, if you get bitten by a mosquito, that sort of thing. The idea was that whatever happened to us, we should go inwards to see: what does this have to do with us?

And I remember that for me it became very… I overanalysed it all the time: okay, what is that mosquito really trying to tell me? What is it I haven’t really seen? Actually, two years ago a man drove into the back of me while I was waiting at a red light, so it’s interesting that you bring that up. And I remember I really slipped into that mode: where does this sit inside me? Because in the alternative world there’s a lot of talk about mirroring. But I don’t know how we can weave that into what we’re talking about now, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: I don’t have much to do with the alternative world. It’s good that I have you to tell me what’s going on out there. You’re one of my informants on the madness going on out there.

But the only thing that’s important to understand in this setting is how I react and act in response to what happens to me. That’s the crux of it here. If you sit there overanalysing: why is this happening to me now, what’s the deeper meaning of my being run into? Then you tangle yourself up in a big, murky fog that’s hard to get out of. For me it’s about beginning, at least at the start, to build up these muscles, so that we become aware of these things, and so that we can actively and consciously begin to act on them. It’s a process of cultivation that we’ve discussed in detail in the earlier episodes of our podcast.

Own your own shit

So why are we opening with this topic when we’re now going to talk about karma? Well, gradually you’ll see why this is so important: what we call self-responsibility. Own your own shit, and don’t project the dirt and the blame onto others. Because that’s the only way a human being can transcend suffering and limitation and find their way back to more meaning and joyfulness. As long as you project blame onto others, whatever it may be, you’re sitting in prison. Because you can’t change everyone else.

And afterwards we’ll also talk about why your karma is your karma, and why the only one responsible for your karma is you.

What is karma? The word and the law

But first: what is karma? If we’re to define karma, it’s a word we find in Sanskrit, the ancient language of India. And if we’re to translate the word karma, we have to start from its Sanskrit root, which is kr. In plain words, kr means to act, to do. In English, the word is action. So we can also translate karma very simply, in the simplest possible way, as action, as doing. And it isn’t about the action itself, but about the consequence of your actions, which in turn creates a memory.

We can also simplify and say that karma is a universal mechanism, a universal law, which says that every impulse has a consequence. You could say this is the law of cause and effect: you have an impulse, and then you have an effect, which has a consequence. That means every action, every deed, has a consequence, either now or further ahead.

And if we’re talking about incarnations and that kind of thing, then we’re speaking linearly. In reality there’s no such thing as incarnation, since everything happens at once; we’ll talk about that in later episodes of our podcast. But for simplicity’s sake we speak linearly: we live one life, and then we die, and then we live the next life.

That means karma is a memory that builds up out of the consequences of all our actions. And not only what we do physically: it applies to every action we take physically, mentally, emotionally and energetically. Absolutely every action we take in a waking or sleeping state, consciously or unconsciously. And the consequence of these actions is what gets stored in what I so elegantly call our karma cloud, to borrow a term from modern computing.

So you could say that karma is the consequence that arises continuously, in a conscious or unconscious state, from the actions you take, consciously or unconsciously. And that sounds a bit scary: you don’t have full control over that karma. You can’t just grab hold of it and say: “Hocus-pocus, now I want my karma gone.” Because this is something far more complex than that.

The autopilot: 99 percent unconscious

The challenge for us humans is that we’re imprinted to such a degree by our upbringing that gradually we’re more or less on autopilot. And so we have very, very little awareness of what we think, what we feel and how we act, since most of it runs on autopilot.

So when we talk about physical action, mental action, emotional action and energetic action, that is, the actions we take on these levels, an ordinary person today is aware of much less than one percent of this. That means that 99 percent of the time we’re on autopilot when it comes to these things.

When you started with me, one of my first goals was to help you identify what this autopilot is, and how you can gradually begin to switch it off. That way you get more and more power over how you think, how you feel, how you act, and not least over the consequences of all of this. That was one of the first things that was a bit difficult at the start, when I’d come in and say: “Oh, that’s perhaps not so comfortable to become aware of.” Because sometimes ignorance is bliss; then we can just live in our own bubble. But when you really begin to understand these things, and hopefully begin to take responsibility for them, of course that also opens up completely different possibilities in how you experience life. Isn’t that so?

Amina: Yes, absolutely. And I’ve had many blind spots along the way. It’s a bit like this: you can’t always see your own shadow, or your own autopilot, and then it’s very good to get a bit of help from outside.

For me it’s been a bit of fun too. Of course some things have been more painful than others: the inner brat has come out and just gone: “No, no, that’s not how it is.” But I’ve also seen it as a bit of fun along the way, as I began to see: wow, that was an interesting autopilot. And especially where I am today, where I feel I’m in control of a lot. I’m more aware of how I respond, and how I handle different settings and situations, interactions with people, things that happen to me, and so on.

But it still happens today that something comes in that I simply didn’t know was there, or that I haven’t worked on because I didn’t know it was there. And then it feels a bit like: oh, shit. A bit like a computer program. But I’m very fascinated by it too. And after a good many conversations with you, where you’ve encouraged me to look at it with a bit of humour too, so that it isn’t deadly serious, that’s really helped me. Because it’s very easy to beat yourself up when you come across the parts of yourself that are perhaps not so flattering.

But yes, like today, when I experience an autopilot I didn’t see coming, it’s: whoa. And then I start laughing, because it’s: whoa, there you are, I didn’t know you were there. So I see it as a bit of fun too.

Pål-Esben: Yes. And I was an expert in autopilot too, before I started my real process of development. Good grief, I think: what a monkey. It’s complete madness. When I look back at myself from the time before my burnout, I think: good grief, no wonder you’re suffering, man. Completely blind.

And I’ll tell you some stories from my past, for example about relationships. I went into a relationship, and then it turned into chaos, and then a new cycle, a new relationship, and so on. And you learn nothing; you carry on in the same cycle. We’ll come to that later; it’s an example of a karmic cycle.

And all of us, when we start a process like the one you’ve been in, start with a very limited awareness of our behaviour that runs on autopilot. It’s work that has to be done, that has to be cultivated. But cultivating this must be the best investment of time and energy you can make. Because it has to do directly with our karma, directly with our memory.

An example: the memory of the imprints we’ve received, which we can call the mental, emotional memory, the behavioural memory, is drilled into us gradually through our upbringing. Over time it becomes a memory that runs on autopilot and steers us almost completely, without our having any control over it. And that’s part of our karma.

My definition of karma

So let me give my definition of karma. Here is my personal one, the way I define karma. It’s this: karma is the sum of all remaining traces and imprints, that is, the sum of the consequences, of all the action or activity you’ve ever done, consciously, unconsciously, awake or asleep, with your body, with your intellect, with your emotions, with your feelings and your life energy. Karma is the memory of all this.

That’s a mouthful in itself, but it’s as precise as I can get in a definition of what this is really about. And this memory we’re talking about, the karmic memory, is something very, very extensive and complex.

Eight types of karmic memory

In the yogic tradition they often talk about eight types of karmic memory. We have four types that we can call collective karma, which we can’t control or do anything about directly, and then we have four types that are individual karma.

Collective karma, the karmic memory that creates the collective karma, is first of all elemental memory, that is, memory connected to the five elements that are the building blocks of our multiverse. Without it, the elements couldn’t have existed. Then we have atomic memory, that is, the memory the atoms need in order to be atoms at all, so that everything built from atoms can exist, which is actually an important part of the universe we live in. That’s called atomic memory.

In the yogic tradition you also have something called evolutionary memory, that is, the karmic memory of the consequences of the continuous evolution of our universe, of our planet, and not least of our species, human beings and so on. Then we have something called genetic memory, which speaks for itself: if we hadn’t had a genetic memory, our genes couldn’t have worked, and we couldn’t have existed. Then there would just have been a kind of primordial soup.

Those are the four types of collective karma, of karmic memory, that the yogic tradition works with. And then we have individual karma, which you and I can take responsibility for ourselves if we want to. That’s personal karmic memory; sensory memory, which is what our senses pick up and store; unconscious memory, which lies in the unconscious and subconscious; and then we have conscious memory, that is, what we remember and how we relate to it. Like when you, for example, say something to your partner that you want to punish them with, and the consequence of it creates a pressure in you, especially when you repeat it over and over again. That’s one of your karmic winds, which we’ll talk about later.

With individual karma we have a great deal of power. Collective karma is something that runs on autopilot, that allows our multiverse to exist and allows our soul to have a sense of incarnating. That actually happens in the soul and not outside the soul, but that’s a story for another time, Amina.

No quick fixes

So when we look more closely at this, we see that this is really complex stuff. And maybe we have an idea like this: oh, I see someone or other on the internet with a special method where I say hocus-pocus and do one, two, three, and then my karma is gone. Then I say: hello? That’s not how our universe works.

That’s one of the challenges with the esoteric world, and with us humans too. We’re hunting for the quick fixes, hunting for the special method, the special thing, the special meditation, the special karma deletion, so that if we just do it once or twice, everything will be fine. But that’s not how this turns out.

Amina: Yes. And not least: before I came into training with you, I hadn’t worked much with that kind of “now I’ll delete this and that, and then it’ll be fine”. Fortunately, in a way, I wasn’t too imprinted. I came in with some esoteric, alternative imprints, but not too many. And I learned from you quite early on: okay, we can go in and do healing, energy work, karma clearing, soul hunting, profound, exciting things like that, but it also requires you to do something else, to choose differently. It requires you to take responsibility for taking new, practical steps.

Going back a little to what you said there: I’ve had people come to me and say: “Listen, I went to a shaman or spiritual guide who deleted my karma, and I’m still struggling with it. So can you help me? But I need to know that you know what you’re doing, because I’ve tried to delete that karma several times, and I’m still struggling with the same thing.”

And I answer these people seriously. These are people who really think: oh, shit, I’ve been conned out of my money, my karma is still there. And then I’ve talked with them and said: I can help you, but it requires us to dive into the problem as well. We have to look at what needs to change in your life. What new choices do you need to make? Where do you need to become more aware? Where do you need to take more self-responsibility? And then we can work with energy work.

There are quite a few people who write similar things to me, wanting to work with karma clearing, karma deletion and so on. When I answer that okay, but we need to work together a bit more than just going in and waving a magic wand, nine out of ten don’t reply, because they’re not interested in doing that work. And that’s perfectly fine too. But then I’ve worked with the people who have been interested in taking self-responsibility and making new choices, who have been interested in hearing what I have to share about this before we go in and work with energy work, karma clearing and so on. And they’ve had very, very good results with that problem.

But then the question is, Pål-Esben: do you actually need energy work to do this? Is it enough to just make new choices?

No one else can take your karma

Pål-Esben: Okay, that’s a good question. First of all: no one else can take your karma from you. I’m often very critical of what goes on in the esoteric world, because people are lured deep into the forest by someone saying: “Oh, come to me, I’ll fix your karma, I’ll take your karma away, so everything will be fine.” Then people believe this, and get lulled into some idea that their karma is something a special healer, or shaman, or whatever it is, will remove from them. And they’re taught something that has nothing to do with reality.

The problem then is that people get trapped in these beliefs, and that makes it even harder to find the way out, since they’ve been imprinted with an esoteric way of seeing things that never, ever leads to joyfulness and meaning and happiness.

And that’s one of my main criticisms of the esoteric world in general: people are brought into a belief system that traps them in the idea that the cause of their suffering lies with a god up there in the clouds, or a goddess, or whatever it may be, who controls their karma. “And come to me: I’m a special healer, a special shaman who has learned to take this away for you. Pay me about 200 euros, and I’ll fix this for you.” That’s something I’m not very positive about.

Now, the money side of it, that people charge for things, that people get conned: that’s not what I have a problem with. Because if people fall for these things without doing their homework first, they can take responsibility for that themselves. The problem is that people get lulled into some theory that has nothing to do with reality, and that gradually they believe in that theory. That means they’re trapped in the forest and can’t find any way out.

When we go into this, our goal is to help a human being. And in this case my goal with you was to help you get well, help you let go of suffering, help you be able to feel joyfulness and meaning in your life, and help you retrieve the resources, talents and dispositions that your soul brings with it into this incarnation, so that you can live fully, completely, liberated, free.

And that of course calls for something completely different from a search for simple solutions to our situation. It’s like believing you can learn an affirmation that every day things get better and better and better, and then repeating it all day long, for weeks, months, years, without anyone getting the least bit better. It’s spray paint on rust. It’s moving into a dense forest where you can’t see the wood for the trees, and where you’re lost in a fantasy world instead of reality, so that you can’t find your way out of it.

Because as long as I believe it’s your fault, Amina, that I have a problem, how am I supposed to become happy? Because one thing is certain: I can’t change you. So this is a very complex thing to open up to.

To you, the listener: done with the sweets

And dear listener, if I may speak directly to you now: you’re still here with us, this far into our podcast. That means you wouldn’t be sitting here listening to us now unless you’re the kind of person who says: I’m not looking for spiritual sweets. I’ve had enough of that in my life, after trying quick fixes. I’ve reached the point where I understand that there must be something more. Something more is needed; there’s something more I need to understand in order to find my way back to the existence I dream of having and living in.

And now you’ll notice I’m getting a bit intense, because this is something I find so sad. It doesn’t only apply to the esoteric world; it applies to pretty much every form of personal development: people hunting for these simple solutions, techniques and methods, a little tapping here and a little hopping there, whatever it may be. That won’t solve the problem we’re talking about now, when it comes to karma and the way to a joyful life.

Because the only way that leads there opens on the day you’re willing to take responsibility yourself for these things. That is: how you think, how you feel, and how you interact with the impulses that come your way in life. That’s what creates your karma, but it’s also the ultimate way to heal karma. Each person can heal at least 90 percent, up to 100 percent, of the available karma in this incarnation themselves, without the help of specialists or whatever it may be.

But the challenge is being willing to reach the point where you take this damned responsibility. And I can only use my own example. We need to give a concrete example now, so it’s clear what we’re talking about.

My karmic cycle: the relationships

Take as an example the karma that built up in me in this life, through my imprints and all that, around how I related to a partner: the imprints about how you create a happy relationship. This memory, the autopilot memory, meant that in the old days I’d enter a relationship, and everything was so wonderful the first year: in love, and everything is fine. In the second year these imprints kick in, and the hormone levels settle. Normally the hormone levels go back to normal within six to twelve months, and then all the baggage comes up to the surface; you’ve probably experienced that too. Then this buffer, this massive hormonal high, is gone, and your real self comes up to the surface.

That’s when the challenges start. In the third year things usually escalate, and then it’s over. And then half a year’s break, licking your wounds and all that, and then the next one happens, the same damned cycle again, and again, and again. That means Pål-Esben hasn’t learned a damn thing, hasn’t taken self-responsibility for anything at all, and carries on in this karmic cycle of his. I would still be in it to this day if I hadn’t understood, among other things, what we’re talking about now.

So how did I break my karmic cycle? It had to do with a learning theme my soul came here to learn, and we’ll come back to that a bit later. Well: suddenly I found someone who could begin to talk sense to me. I remember my first teacher, more than ten years ago, who told me this: “So now we know what we’re dealing with. Do you think this will get better if you just carry on without doing anything about it? Without beginning to look a little inside yourself for what your responsibility for this is? To resolve it, and heal it, and develop it? Do you think it will get better going forward?”

Gradually I understood that, okay, perhaps there were things I had to learn to take responsibility for. Among other things, and this was one of my themes at the time, a pathological form of jealousy, which was extreme. For those who are jealous, really pathologically jealous, it’s a pain that’s unbearable in itself. So he says: “Unless you take responsibility for it, unless you’re willing to take responsibility for it and change it, this will carry on.” And by “it” I mean this karmic memory, you could say, this behavioural mechanism, this autopilot.

And what did I do then? The truth is this: my teacher is sitting at lunch at a seminar telling me this, and I get so provoked and so furious that I run out of that restaurant and don’t speak to him for three months. That says something about how intense this was. It’s absolutely insane. Total monkey behaviour.

As I lick my wounds and admit that Pål-Esben is jealous, and that it’s a problem, I take responsibility and start a course of treatment for my jealousy. And what happened then was that I made new choices: I let go of this behavioural mechanism, after first understanding it. You have to get help with this; you can’t do it yourself, because it’s a fairly complex matter.

And then I made new choices. I let go of that jealousy. Not as in “every day I get less and less jealous”, but the real work: you do the work that’s needed. What happened then was that the karmic cycle and the karmic pressure that had built up, which had led to that suffering, disappeared. I had understood the learning theme the karma had built up around, and had changed it. Through that, I let go of this part of my karma spontaneously, without doing any esoteric karma deletion or whatever it may be.

And I’d say that applies to you and me and everyone else, as long as we take responsibility for these things. Because when we’ve built up our karma by not taking responsibility, and simply let this run on autopilot, the karmic memories have built up more and more. We often feel them as a pressure; I call it the karmic pressure. And we carry on with the same old thing without learning, even though the soul comes here to learn and grow. And then we reach a point, whether it’s in this incarnation or in a million incarnations, when the pressure is great enough, where we say: damn it, enough is enough. As I did once. And that’s when I started the work.

Amina: That’s a very, very exciting story, Pål-Esben, and I really recognise myself in what you’re sharing, but in my own way. I sat there, relationship after relationship, going: why does this happen again and again and again? Why does this happen to me? I didn’t understand a thing. And then, oh dear, there’s a knock at the door with the same energy: “Hi, hi, come on in.” And then I get this karmic pressure, it gets stronger and stronger and stronger, and Amina just goes: no, I don’t understand anything, why is this happening? This is just awful. Until the day I was nearly strangled to death, when I realised: oh, shit, maybe I should start making some changes.

Pål-Esben: Yes. The pressure will come, however much you try to bury your head in the sand. It’s part of the karmic mechanism, and it simply has to be that way.

Why nothing could exist without karma

And what’s perhaps a bit challenging to embrace is that nothing could exist without karma. You couldn’t exist either: your soul couldn’t incarnate in this material world without karma. Because think about it: what would our world have looked like without karma, without the karmic mechanism? Forget collective karma and elemental memory and all those things, which it goes without saying our world couldn’t exist without. Now I’m talking about us personally, us humans, our life: what would our life have been like if there were no consequences of the actions we take?

Well, imagine this: whatever you do or don’t do, there are no consequences. What would you have chosen then? Would you have taken on the challenges in life? Heck, no. You’d have ended up in Bali, on the beach, with your piña colada and a big belly, lying there feeling the waves, because nothing would have had any consequence at all.

What would have happened after a few months? Bored to death, perhaps? An emptiness would have arisen, a tremendous emptiness. And a lot of research has been done on this emptiness, for example through people who have everything: kids who have everything handed to them on a plate, and billionaires who have everything, who are often the most depressed and sad and empty people in our population. I’ve met many of them. You think: they have many, many millions and so on. But when you see what their life is really like, how empty, how dark it is, it’s really sad stuff.

That is to say: if there were no consequences of what we do, we humans, given our pathology, would have chosen to do nothing at all. We wouldn’t have needed to go to work to earn money. We wouldn’t have needed to eat. I mean that quite literally: nothing would have had any consequence at all. We wouldn’t have needed to sleep. We wouldn’t have needed to talk to people. We wouldn’t have needed to do anything at all. We could just have lain around.

And then you can put yourself in a setting like that and see the tremendous sadness, emptiness and numbness that would have arisen after a few weeks, after a few months, perhaps after a year. The challenge, if karma didn’t exist, is that the soul would have had no reason to incarnate in this existence. Do you really think the soul would have had a reason to come into this world just to lie on the beach in Bali, gawping and burping and farting? What an incarnation that would be!

It has come here to learn and experience, and to go through its process of growth in relation to its learning themes, which it has chosen itself. As you, Amina, have chosen them yourself, and as I’ve chosen them myself: my soul and your soul, and your soul too, dear listener. It has come to one of the most complex places to incarnate in this universe we live in, as we talked about in an earlier episode, about the elite university for souls.

And we need this karma to be motivated and inspired to grow and learn at all. It’s an absolutely necessary mechanism for our soul to be willing to come into this setting at all.

Past lives and available karma

Amina: And then my question is, Pål-Esben: that karma, is it something that only arises in this life, or do you bring it with you from previous lives? Is there any point in going back to previous lives to work with your karma? After all, a lot of people try to work that way too.

When I think about this, it’s a bit like: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Because when I think about myself, I think: okay, it’s logical that I bring this with me from previous lives. But it’s also very logical and visible that my karma is a result of my whole childhood, my upbringing and the choices I’ve made in adult life. So can you clarify that a little?

Pål-Esben: It’s a bit challenging to talk about this, because to simplify the discussion I talk about time linearly: we live one life, then we die, and then we incarnate again. But of course that’s not how the whole thing is. If we start talking about how it actually is, it gets so complex: how are we supposed to talk from the premise that everything happens at the same time? So let’s stick to this linear way of seeing things, so we can give an idea of this.

So of course: if you incarnate, you bring this memory with you, and it builds up through many, many existences. All of us, all our souls, have lived before. If we’re to use linear time here, we’ve done many things before this planet we live on even existed. So we have a long, long, long journey behind us, if we can put it that way.

That means all of us humans have a massive, massive karma, that is, the memory of the consequences of the actions we’ve taken in a waking, sleeping, conscious or unconscious state. And what happens when we come into this life is that not all karma is relevant for this incarnation your soul has. Your soul is looking for particular learning themes, which it goes through in a certain cycle. That may be a few incarnations, or a meta-cycle that may be several hundred incarnations. And then only the karma relevant to this incarnation is available at the surface. I call it available karma. When we come into this life and are born, we have our available karma for this incarnation.

That means there’s little point in tracing back to an incarnation three billion incarnations ago, when you were an amoeba on some Orion 5 planet, or an alien of all things. That has nothing to do with our life right now, with our learning themes right now.

So the available karma we get when we incarnate is a result of the experiences we’ve had, in previous incarnations, with the learning themes we bring with us into this incarnation. As humans, of course. Whatever experience you had as a sabre-toothed tiger is of course completely irrelevant to your incarnation as a human being. What am I supposed to do with my sabre-toothed tiger karma when it comes to making choices to become a happy human being? Should I hunt down the people I don’t like and eat them? What’s the point? It’s obviously meaningless.

Ripe karma and karmic pressure

So we have to think of it like this: this available karma, which we can also call ripe karma, is what we need to relate to. Most of it, the coarsest and most intense part of it, we play out and create after we’re born into this incarnation. But of course there are also karmic strings from previous incarnations and from our bloodline that affect us, that is, from our mother, grandmother and so on, and that’s actually quite spectacular. I’ll say a bit more about it later. But mainly we deal with the karma we create in this incarnation.

That means these karmic winds, or cycles, or karmic themes connected to our learning themes, often show up as different karmic pressures. Karmic pressure is felt as a strain: we have a problem, a challenge in our life, and we feel discomfort with it. And the more we ignore that strain, the more the pressure builds up.

That’s what we talked about earlier: the only way to resolve your karma is to begin to take self-responsibility, make new choices, and make the opposite choice to the one that caused the karma to be created. After all, this pressure was created because you, among other things, weren’t interested in engaging with learning what your soul has come here to learn and grow from.

Take the example of me and my relationships. We can take it as a learning theme the soul has: my soul had the task of finding a solution to how you can live in a happy relationship, if we can take that as a banal example here. I could of course have tried doing 10,000 hours of energetic karma deletion for this, gone to 1,500 shamans, had drumming and whatever it may be: “and now your karma is gone, and now your karma is gone.” Now suddenly, hocus-pocus, the karma would be gone, the karma that led to my having karmic pressure in my relationships, where I suffered from my jealousy and created chaos. Now it’s just gone? Hello? That’s not how the world works.

It comes through the choice we have to make ourselves, because the only ones who can do it are ourselves. Because it’s our choices, conscious and unconscious, waking and sleeping, to ignore this that have led to this karmic pressure, which grows stronger and stronger. And the only way to resolve it is to make new choices that are the opposite of the choice that led to the karma, to the pressure. Namely, to learn from it and grow from it. That’s the whole point of the soul being here.

And then we realise how totally mind-boggling these things are, how brilliant it is: the soul comes here to learn things it’s interested in learning, and to grow and carry out its process of evolution. And we have the karmic mechanism, which more or less forces us, eventually, to deal with our learning themes. Whether it’s in this incarnation, or in three incarnations, or a hundred incarnations, or a million incarnations: eventually the pressure increases so much that you’re forced to. As you were in your relationships, where you went through violent relationships over and over again, until you reached the point where you were nearly killed, where you say: damn it, enough is enough.

And just to finish what I’m talking about here: we can deal with most of our karma ourselves. Are there strings from previous incarnations and from our bloodline that we can’t resolve just by making a new choice? Yes. But that’s perhaps three to five percent at most of what stops us from living a happy and peaceful life. The other 95 percent we have full power over ourselves, without saying hocus-pocus at all. It has to do with choice.

Amina: And what you’re talking about there, are you thinking of things like generational trauma?

Pål-Esben: Yes. I’ll say a bit about that later. Let’s just conclude here first, before we go further into what has to do with generational trauma and karma generated by the generations, that is, our ancestors.

95 percent and the last five

So: 95 percent of all the things, challenges and problems a human being has in this life can be resolved through self-responsibility, choices and the things we’ve discussed back and forth throughout our episodes. But the last, let’s say, three to five percent are often very, very complex bonds. They lie in previous incarnations and experiences you’ve had in previous lives, traumas and whatever it may be, or they lie in the trauma spectrum of your biological ancestors.

And for that we need, in our tradition at least, specific, highly effective energetic shamanic rituals to release this form of karma. As early as our beginners’ seminar, module 0, you learn a hyper-effective way to start that process. And further on in the process, which you’ve been through, you learn to deal with the most complex karmas, which I call crystallised karma. It’s a very, very complex form of karma that you can’t deal with through choices and these things. It’s something you have to drill into energetically and metaphysically, tracking down what it is, so that it can be deleted and you can let go of that part of the pressure. But 95 percent you can deal with without any special tools at all. It’s in the last five percent that we need dedicated shamanic tools.

Crystallised karma: Amina’s story

Amina: We’ve already taken the listeners a little through my story and my run-ins with demons and all that, both in the first episode of our podcast and in a later episode. And that’s my question, because these are things I experienced when I was a child. So there are two questions here: would you say it’s something I had to experience in this life in order to resolve it? And question number two: do you think it would have worked without shamanic healing and the deep rituals I’ve been through? Do you think it could have been resolved just with a choice?

Pål-Esben: No. There we’re dealing with the more complex form, what I call crystallised karma, which couldn’t simply be resolved through choices and your wanting to take self-responsibility for it. If you remember, dear listener, when we talked about these things in earlier episodes: it’s very, very complex stuff that goes deep, deep, deep down into our personality, and not just down into the unconscious, but into the subconscious.

For that you need completely different tracking mechanisms. In our tradition we call it various forms of complex karma clearing, which we need to do in addition, and which we carry out through various forms of shamanic ritual, a whole spectrum of them. Without that, I don’t think you could have been free of it. Because you wanted with all your heart to become happy and get rid of these things; you suffered so terribly from them. It had nothing to do with you not wanting it, nothing to do with you not being willing to take that self-responsibility and these things. But it was such a complex part that we needed these highly effective tools we have.

And then there was your self-responsibility. You were willing to go through the uncomfortable conversations we had, when I told you that this has nothing to do with demons, because all of this is in you, and the other things we talked about earlier. You were willing to say: “Okay, okay, okay, I’ll try to look at this, and maybe try to draw some new conclusions.” And together with that, when you then got to the point of saying “okay, I’m ready to let go of this, I understand what this is about”, that is what made all of this work. It was a precondition for the ritual magic and the methods to work. So there we need both.

But it’s the last five percent we’re talking about here, and not as in the esoteric world, where people believe you need special tools, methods and mystical things just to be able to delete your karma at all. That’s wrong. Because your karma is created through your own choices, conscious, unconscious, waking or sleeping, in all four of these dimensions we’re talking about: physical, mental, emotional, energetic. And the only way to delete it is to make a new, constructive choice that shows you’ve really understood the learning theme, and that you’re really resolving the learning theme.

Like with me and my warped approach to relationships, which was completely wrong. Good grief, when I began to understand this, I was so ashamed. Today I’m no longer ashamed, because I saw that it was an important part of how I could learn to grow.

So when you ask whether things had to happen, are you asking whether it had to be that way? Of course not. But that’s what happened, so we have to deal with what happened. Did it have to happen? Of course not. Did I have to go through a certain number of rounds of suffering in my relationships? It didn’t have to be that way. It could have come about in other ways too, but that was what was available right then, in terms of dharmic and karmic synchronicity, which we may discuss in the next episode. Because it’s hyper-exciting.

But what we’re trying to do now is give a clear picture of what karma is and what it isn’t. And when you come across the idea of other people offering to take away your karma, you should be very sceptical. 95 percent of your karma can only be resolved by you and no one else. But that has to do with new choices: the opposite choices to the ones that led to the karmic pressure being created.

Karma while you sleep

Then perhaps many people say: what? How can I get karma when I’m asleep? I can’t control my sleep. Of course not. But that’s just the way it is. Because when you sleep, an unconscious, subconscious process goes on, and it isn’t so easy to have control over it. Most people, when they sleep, simply sleep. And then there are some of us who are awake all night: the body sleeps, but our consciousness is awake. Then of course it’s a completely different matter. But most people in this world, when they sleep, simply sleep, and run on autopilot.

But what goes on in your head at night is a direct result of the choices you made the day before, and the week before, and the month before, and the year before. It’s simply a reinforcing process on autopilot, which reinforces the choices you’ve made.

Sensory memory: what you feed your senses

Let me take a simple example again. Think about these imprints: how part of our karma is created through our upbringing, and how we’re imprinted more and more in our autopilot. The idea is that this sensory karmic memory has a big impact on our autopilot. It’s created through the input we get through our eyes, our ears, our sense of taste and so on.

And most of the people I come across are very unaware of the consequences of what they feed their brain, consciously and unconsciously, that is, what they feed their senses. Most people sit every day watching the news, for example, and are bombarded daily with war and misery and these fools running the world, who are completely psychotic when you see what’s going on in the big countries. It’s monkey behaviour in top gear. And people get frightened by taking in this input all the time: now it’s all going to hell, now it’s all going to hell, now the economy’s going to hell, now AI is coming to take over, there goes my job, and the USA is going to war against Russia, and what about China, and all of that. People feed themselves this unconsciously throughout the whole day. And of course that creates a massive form of karma and karmic pressure connected to anxiety and unease about one’s own existence, for example. And at night it’s simply reinforced, on autopilot. But everything has to do with the choices you’ve made.

So what’s the first thing we start with when we, both you and I, are going to help a person who’s struggling? The first thing I look at is: okay, how do we get the resources back? And the first thing we start with is going cold turkey on news for four weeks. That means no news, and no destructive input from news, local radio stations and all the rubbish people consistently feed their subconscious with, and their karmic memory. Social media: I’d say one hour a day at most. YouTube: banned. And instead people spend the time with their kids and their family, read good books and are out in nature, to calm the madhouse upstairs, to calm the system down, so that gradually they can begin to think more clearly.

The client’s story: two weeks that changed everything

I had a client here who was burnt out, totally stressed, suffering and suffering, and had lost hope in life. Everything was bad: poor health, depressed. And he had just had a newborn baby, and couldn’t play with the baby or look after the baby; everything was completely hopeless. And this person was very sensitive.

So I ask: “Well, what do you do with your days?” It’s a rhetorical question, of course. “How much news do you watch? How much are you on YouTube? How much are you on social media? How much are you on TikTok? How much do you surf the internet?” Hours on end. “What do you think that does to your feelings and thoughts?”

So I say: “Okay, first task: go and buy my book, The 7 Golden Keys, and read that book. And then go cold turkey on social media and news for two weeks, until we talk next time. And then I’ll give you some tips on self-regulation and these things.” It took me under an hour. And this person had been suffering for two decades.

And the other day I talked with this person, and I ask: “Well, how have you got on with the homework?” Because I’m very curious, of course. “Well, I heard what you said, I talked to my wife, she was willing to help me, and then we switched off the TV and all these things. And it was hard, because it’s an addiction: the dopamine hits weren’t coming the way they used to.” You’re like a junkie going cold turkey.

“Well, you know, I feel things are better. I’m thinking more clearly. For the first time in the last 20 years I feel hope, and I see that it’s actually possible for me too.” And his partner is over the moon, because she has hope too, after living in darkness for so many years. “And suddenly I can sit down and look after my child. For me this is a miracle.”

And that’s after two weeks with me. Then you can imagine what will happen after 90 days. And I’d say it’s possible to revolutionise a person’s life in that short a time. But then you have to do the fundamental things that are needed. It’s not enough to go out into the forest and beat your drum and talk to the draug, or just say that every day everything will get better and better and better, or get some shaman chief out there to take away your karma. Nothing gets any better from that.

And this person was so happy, because for the first time in such a long time he saw that there actually was hope: that he too could have a good life, after having been on the verge of giving up on life.

And then we’re only talking about the first, most banal thing: making sure you understand how massive the consequences are of the input your sensory memory picks up, when you let it run on autopilot. It has a massive consequence, whether you like it or not. You got this task too in the old days, right at the start; I think it was in one of our first sessions as well. I write about this in The 7 Golden Keys, in my book. And you took it on very quickly.

Amina: Yes, and it left me wanting more, too. When you do it wholeheartedly and begin to see the results, it’s spectacular. You can come up against an inner resistance there: what, I’m not supposed to watch the news? I’m not supposed to scroll on social media? But that’s also when you notice, as I see it looking back, the autopilot that constantly wants to be entertained. “Oh yes, two seconds have passed, pick up the phone. Two seconds have passed.” There always has to be that stimulus. Then you also become more aware of how sick you really are.

Pål-Esben: Yes, it’s frightening. What’s certain is that people have an attention span like a goldfish: between two and three seconds before they have to have something. Just sitting down for five minutes and doing nothing is torture.

And then you can imagine how massively this part of karma affects us in terms of our behaviour: the part that has been sensory input to our brain, and the memory created through it.

So all there is to say is this: 95 percent is something people have to be willing to change themselves through new choices. And then we have the last five percent, which are complex. And part of that five percent is the karmic DNA memory, that is, karma that comes through DNA and epigenetics.

Amina: Mm. That’s very interesting.

Karma in DNA: epigenetics and the mice

Pål-Esben: It’s very interesting. I heard about this many, many years ago. Survivors of the Second World War here in Germany, who had experienced the worst forms of trauma a human being can experience, had children, and the children had PTSD; they were diagnosed with PTSD. And through therapy they went back and found that these were traumas the children had never experienced themselves. But when they looked at the mother’s biography, these were exactly the traumas the mother had experienced in the war.

And then I thought: how is that possible? It sounds very airy-fairy, mystical, esoteric. No: this actually has nothing to do with esoteric things. It has to do with how our reality works, and how this part of the karmic memory works.

After that I was very interested in picking up research, scientific research, that proves these things. Because they could have been stories that get told, without anyone quite knowing how much truth there is in them. So I was very, very focused on bringing things down to earth. That’s why we have this model, where we use the best of Western academic psychology and philosophy, combined with the age-old.

And I looked into this a great deal, and found research showing that fear, for example, can be passed down through DNA from generation to generation, that is, via our genes, and especially the epigenetic expression of our genes.

The example is this. At Emory University in Atlanta in the USA, research was done some years ago, official research. They took a group of mice, several mice of course, and exposed these mice to the smell of cherry blossom. In addition, they gave the mice electric shocks. It sounds very cruel, but it wasn’t anything extreme, just a light shock, so that it was unpleasant.

So they combined the smell of cherry blossom with the light electric shock, which the mice got when they smelled it. And of course, as the days went by, these mice began to feel fear just from smelling cherry blossom. That’s standard conditioning, very well known in psychology, with Pavlov’s dog experiment and so on.

What happened, and what surprised this research team, was that the fear was just as strong in the next generation of mice. That is: when the offspring of these mice were born, they were exposed only to the smell of cherry blossom, and they were full of anxiety and ran away from it. This was also shown in the second and third generations of mice: the same fear.

And this applies to mammals in particular, and we are mammals. We may not be mice, but we’re not that far off. The same mechanism works in humans too: traumas from our parents, our grandparents, our great-great-grandparents and so on are passed through the epigenetic stream in the genetic material into you. That’s the five percent I’m talking about.

So suddenly you have fear of or resistance to things, or you have particular kinds of behaviour that create problems and challenges in your life, whatever it may be. And it isn’t so easy to change that just by making a choice. That’s where we need these shamanic methods, to drill back into the ancestral line and get these karmic, energetic, emotional bonds to the past deleted.

Amina: Fascinating.

Pål-Esben: And we could carry on talking about this for many, many episodes. We’ve barely scratched the surface.

Amina: Yes, it’s incredibly exciting.

The field of polarities: where karma is created

Pål-Esben: It is. And when we look at our existence, it’s polar in nature, as the Taoists spoke of in the old days, with yin and yang: we have a polar existence. This polar existence allows matter to exist, but it also allows our learning themes and growth themes to, let me say, unfold. Without polarities in our life, how are we supposed to grow? If we don’t put a load on a muscle, which is a polarity, how is the muscle supposed to grow?

And then there’s what lies between these polarities, which we experience all the time in our life: between yin and yang, between light and darkness, between joyfulness and depression and challenges. Every human being experiences these polarities continuously throughout their life, and it’s in this field, in these polarities, that karma is created. Not by the polarities themselves, but by this: how do I relate to the polarities? How do I act in this polar field? How do I make choices in this polar field?

That’s what creates karma. It creates the karmic pressure. It creates the karmic wind. And in the end it creates the karmic cycles that repeat and repeat and repeat until we drop, unless we reach the point where we say enough, seek adequate, qualified help, and start the process of beginning to take responsibility for our choices. Because of course we can’t take responsibility for our unconscious choices, but the unconscious choices are a result of our conscious choices over a long, long time.

Amina: Yes, that’s very, very exciting, very interesting. And it’s good that we get to take this up from slightly different angles, because people often think it’s one thing or the other: that there’s only one way to do things, or that there’s one simple answer. You’d like to have that one simple answer, or you’ve learned that it’s a certain way, and then you stand there thinking: yes, but is it this way, or that way? And instead you can see, through what we’ve talked about today, that it can be this way, or it can be that way. In other words: there are different recipes for different challenges or problems.

Pål-Esben: Correct. Because when we’re dealing with karma and our life in general, it’s never the case that you can say “that’s how it is” or “that’s not how it is”. That’s why we say this: the day you’ve reached the point where you’re done with the sweets, where you say “now I’m ready to start my soul’s epic journey, now I’m ready to really engage wholeheartedly in understanding what the reality of me and what’s around me actually is”, it becomes important to gradually also learn what these things are, so you understand the mechanisms. And this is one of several universal mechanisms. When you understand the mechanisms, you can also relate to the machinery in a conscious and active way.

And the challenge is that people believe the answer is to get help taking away their karma. But by doing that, they’re only starting on less than five percent. But nothing will happen in your life unless you’re willing to start with the 95 percent. The last five percent is just something done in addition, and that isn’t what will lead you to a happy life in itself. It’s the first 95 percent.

And that’s what people often avoid, because it’s work: it requires attention, it requires effort, it requires overcoming resistance and problems. But the soul doesn’t come here for things to be easy. You come here for one of the greatest challenges in this universe. And if we have the idea that we’re hunting for a special method or technique that will just fix things, then we’re not connected to reality yet.

Amina: So what you’re saying, then, is this: work first on our own karma, and then we can possibly look at the five percent connected to generational trauma and so on, if there’s a need for it?

Pål-Esben: It’s always done as part of this profound primordial shamanic process of development, so both are done in parallel. Because right from the start, in what we call module 0 in our basic training, you learn a very effective way to begin dealing with the karmic bonds energetically. Those are especially the karmic bonds built up through traumas, imprints and compensatory mechanisms in this life, but the work also reaches back, as far as it needs to, to deal with the available karma.

So we do these things in parallel. And what makes things go so fast is that we don’t do one thing first and then, when we’ve finished with that, start on the other. No, no, no. It’s full throttle from day one with both. That’s the reason people get results.

And later in the process of development, when you begin to go more and more into the subtle part of our existence, there’s a need to deal with the most difficult, crystallised karma. And then I’m talking about when you walk the path to spiritual enlightenment and are going into your full Sahara, into oneness. Then you have to deal with the most complex part of our karma, which we call crystallised karma. But you don’t have much need to deal with it if the way home to oneness and your full nature isn’t so important to you.

Amina: I recently got feedback from a woman who signed up for module 0 a little while ago, and who just went: wow, this is profound. Big changes have happened in just a month. And just: “Sign me up for the rest.” In other words, she’s coming along on the basic shaman training. And she’s someone who has done this really wholeheartedly, and who has been in quite a few other alternative circles. Nothing wrong with that, but she needed this; that was very clear. It’s so interesting, exciting, transformative and rewarding to be able to be part of those journeys of transformation.

The university, not primary school

Pål-Esben: It’s a joy, and it’s something that delights me on a daily basis: working with people who come in perhaps a bit fed up with their life, and in a somewhat hopeless situation. As long as they’re willing to go all in, authentically and wholeheartedly, I’m willing. As long as they’re hunting for the spiritual sweets, I say there are thousands of others out there: don’t come to me, don’t bother me with it. I’ve got too old for that, I say. I did it in the old days, but not any more.

I’m looking for those who are ready to really make an effort, and who are ready for university: to be taught by the professor. I don’t do primary school any more, though I did in the beginning. We all have to walk our path of development. In the beginning I started out teaching pre-kindergarten, where there was a bit of everything, and a lot of curiosity in every direction. And then you had to learn and learn, and gradually you did your own development and said: today that’s not my thing, because there are so many others doing these things. Today my thing is to offer Thor’s hammer to those who’ve reached a point where they’re ready for it. Because it does demand something. It requires you to be willing to engage, and it requires you to be ready for things. And then the miracles can happen, as they did with you and many, many, many others.

I think it’s good that there are so many different offerings, because there’s something for every taste. Some like going to Paris on holiday, some like going to Bali, some like staying at home. Some like Tivoli in Copenhagen, some like Tusenfryd, the amusement park outside Oslo, some like go-karting, and some like doing other things. Everything in its own time, but it’s good that people have something to choose from, depending on where the karmic pressure is.

So at the start you might say: oh, let me try something simple. Let me read The Secret, and I’ll learn that special method where I wish for something from the universe, and then the Porsche arrives tomorrow. When you’ve done that for a few years, you say: oh, maybe this doesn’t work. Let me try more, let me look further into it; are there other things that can help me? And then you start on the next one, and the next, and the next, and in the end you reach the point where you’ve had enough, and where you say: why should I go through all this hopping about? Why not do it fully? Why not find myself a guide, a teacher, a therapist, whatever it is, and go all in with someone who’s qualified?

That’s what I think the world we live in needs. In this difficult situation we live in, in this massive fear and uncertainty in this world, we need guides, teachers and therapists who can do the real work with people. There’s too much fluff, and we need more people who can do the real work, in my eyes. That’s my opinion on it, at least.

To you, the listener: take your power back

So that’s a little about karma. We’ve now gone way over our time, and we’ve barely scratched the surface of karma here. And after this hour and a half, dear listener, I hope you perhaps feel an impulse to ask yourself this: why not start learning what this really is, so that I can take back power over these universal mechanisms that affect me whether I like it or not? But first I need to understand the mechanisms, then I need to learn to handle them, and then that can help me gain power over the mechanisms, which really means taking back power over my own life. That was my intention with this, at least.

And you, Amina, do you have any words of wisdom or thoughts to wrap up with?

Amina: We’ve dived pretty deep into karma here, and perhaps those listening can take a look at their own life: where might I have karmic pressure? Where am I going through the same suffering, the same problem, the same challenge, time after time after time? Is it perhaps time to make some new choices? Is it perhaps time to become aware of them, if you aren’t already?

But take a look at which recurring challenges and problems keep coming round as if on a conveyor belt, where you think, dear listener: why does this happen again and again and again? Perhaps start noticing it a little over the coming period, and look at it a bit, and perhaps listen to this episode again afterwards, and perhaps get a bit more meat on the bones, more answers. If you feel like it, of course.

Pål-Esben: Yes, and our task is to try to offer input, and it’s up to each person to take that input in. And karma, we could talk a lot about it, but the point is that it’s a consequence of everything we do and don’t do, whether we like it or not. And that consequence carries on from incarnation to incarnation to incarnation.

It’s really that consequence, the karma you leave this life with, which you’ve built up through this incarnation, and the rhythm, the frequency of that karma, that spits you out into the next life. It spits you out to parents and a setting in this world we live in that have a vibration matching the vibration of your karma, which makes it possible for the soul to grow and learn from these things. All of that happens on autopilot.

So these ideas that when you die you get your own room in heaven and can go to Paris and have tea with your friends: that’s not quite how things work. And this is something many people don’t want to hear: how you live your life has a consequence in this life, and for where you end up in your next incarnation. And it’s not me saying it. It’s 5,000 years of the yogic tradition that says these things, if you really study what this is.

And that’s where many people think: oh, I’ve actually done so much wrong in this life, I’ve been such a bad person, I have so much karma, I have so many problems. Is it all going to go to hell in my next incarnation? Is it going to get worse? And I say the good news is that you can make these choices to delete your karma at any time, as we’ve discussed. It simply has to do with doing the opposite of whatever caused the karmic pressure to be created. And that’s the good news.

Amina: That’s very good news.

Pål-Esben: Because otherwise it would be hopeless: “Good grief, I’m so bad.” But this is something I choose to see as very exciting, interesting and fascinating, and of course there’s the challenging part in it: the step of taking this self-responsibility. And you don’t need to reinvent the wheel yourself; it’s a good idea to seek support and help from someone who is competent in this process.

So: very good. And in the next episode we’ll perhaps carry on a little more with karma, but then we’ll glide into what’s called synchronicity, karmic and dharmic synchronicity, which is an extraordinarily exciting topic too. And we’ll become aware of the mechanisms, so we can begin to steer them ourselves.

Amina: Yes, that’s very, very exciting. And perhaps dive a bit into what the difference between karma and dharma actually is. There are lots of ideas about that too, so I’m looking forward to it.

Pål-Esben: We can take that up a little next time, and then carry on in that vein. And dear listener, we’d love to hear from you: what you think, and whether you have any suggestions for topics we should take up.

Amina: It’s very, very lovely to get feedback. And we keep getting feedback where people write: “Wow, the fact that you took up that topic has already changed my relationship,” among other things. And: “The topic you took up has made me see this or that matter differently.” And we’re very, very grateful for that: that we manage to touch you as listeners, so that you gain more insight into your own life, make better choices, open up and expand.

Pål-Esben: That brings us joy. Thank you so much for staying with us all the way, dear listener. We really appreciate your feedback, and a five-star rating on Spotify helps our podcast reach more listeners. And thank you so much for being here with me, Amina. I really appreciate it.

Amina: Likewise, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: Thank you for being with us, dear listener. I hope you’ll join us again in the next episode. And until then: have a truly wonderful day, evening, night or morning, wherever you are listening from. Take care.

Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. We hope Amina’s story has inspired you to explore your own journey of self-discovery and development. Remember that the path from suffering to self-realization can be demanding, but with courage, patience and support from a competent guide, mentor, teacher or therapist, almost anything is possible. We wish you all the best on your journey, and we’ll talk again in the next episode.