Before I start this article and podcast I want to caution you that I will be blunt and direct. This is not a nice or an easy topic and I take issue with people who abuse their power and authority, especially in the spiritual community, to take advantage of others. I see it all of the time, smart, talented, spiritually competent people who have wonderful and powerful gifts to share with the world are stuck, procrastinating, anxious, confused, doubtful of their abilities, and are afraid to step forward. It is not entirely their fault because there is a very strong incentive for them to hide instead of shining brightly, to fear the consequences of sharing from their highest self, of being public and out in the open. They are afraid of the consequences that include betrayal, judgment, persecution, and worse. It’s a very real fear with a very real foundation. And it’s time to address our persecution karma.
You know that this lifetime is one of many and if you are present here today as a spiritual teacher you have powerful gifts to share with the world. The problem is you have been down this path before, often with terrible consequences. You have known persecution from people you trusted and loved, you have been reviled, defiled, judged, imprisoned, and worse. You have lost everything, had everything taken from you, been imprisoned, seen others persecuted, judged, and betrayed for their association with you. The persecution fear is real but the question today is not ‘will it happen again’ but when does it stop limiting you?
In order to address our persecution karma we return in each lifetime and we bring our persecutors along for the ride. Our objective is not to be persecuted yet again, but to change their actions and to heal the relationship. We want to bring them to another level where they do not persecute us and to end this karma. It sounds good in theory but the reality is often much different, as you know.
In this lifetime in particular, because it is the lifetime in which we have decided that we will end our karma, we have chosen our most powerful and strongest persecutors to accompany us so that we can end this persecution karma and really shine brightly. That was the plan. Instead, we have become victims to their power plays, jealousy, meanness, judgment, and power schemes yet again.
Now our perspective of persecution karma is that we experience it in our family and with partners and friends and that is partly true. But what about the other types of persecution karma? Have you ever had someone you worked with do their best to discredit you or get you fired? Have you been betrayed by the friend who stole your partner or someone you cared for? Have you ever been let down, judged, or been attacked by a spiritual teacher or mentor? These are all forms of persecution karma too. Let’s take a look at this life milestone energy and the millstone it presents us with.
There are different ways we experience our persecution karma in our lives today, from our family, from those we put our trust in, and from our own spiritual community.
Unfortunately for those with the persecution karma, the experience begins in the family, in childhood. The time of our life when we expect to be surrounded by love, support, generosity, and kindness, is often just the opposite. If our soul mission is so important in this lifetime, wouldn’t we want the best possible foundation for it and have a loving, supportive family? You would think that would be the case and it isn’t. But we do get a chance to get a firsthand experience of our persecution karma and that is how our spiritual learning in this lifetime begins.
How many of you had parents who did their best to silence you, to dim your light, to destroy your confidence and treat you as an outsider? I know many of you and this is your story too.
Since family is our first experience of our lifetime karma then it makes sense that this is where we will experience our persecution karma. It expresses itself in many different ways. How many of you had a jealous, critical or domineering parent? Probably most of you.
How many of you did not feel welcome, integrated, or aligned with your immediate and extended family? Probably most of you.
How many of you were seen as the outsider or the ‘different’ one by your family? Probably most of you.
How many of you knew intuitively that you could not shine your light or be powerful and successful because that would be a source of persecution and judgment by your family? Probably most of you.
How many of you had a mother, father, or sibling who saw you as a rival and was in constant competition with you? Probably many of you.
I have seen this so many times with clients who try hard to fit in with their families and by the way this includes biological families and adoptive families. Adoption is part of a karmic path, there is no accident in who is adopted and who adopts them. From parents who openly abuse their children to those who covertly abuse through narcissism, excessive judgment and criticism, downplaying their achievements, playing favorites, conditional love and acceptance – these are all examples of the expression of persecution karma.
Persecution by those we trust the most is a strong and long karma theme. From betrayal by family, partners, and confidants, to judgment and persecution by those we loved and trusted the most or that we thought loved us. Phrases like ‘stabbed in the back’ have real literal meaning when we have persecution karma. And this creates a fear of betrayal and persecution if we shine too brightly, are too successful, know too much, or have too much.
For me I also experienced a lot of persecution karma in the workplace where my career plans were often thwarted by people who simply did not want me to succeed or to be recognized. One man I worked with lied to me about the response to a very important translation I did for one of our French divisions, telling me they hated it when that was not true, which I later found out. I had worked hard on that translation and wanted them to value it which they did.
I remember working with a woman who was the most aggressively ambitious person I have ever known, a real animal. She decided she wanted my job and did everything she could to get me removed but was not successful only because I reported directly to the company chairman, who liked me. But she did make my work life difficult.
I have always struggled with office politics and power plays because that is not what I do well so I always felt my persecution karma very strongly and often worked with or for people who never appreciated what I was doing and always saw me as a threat.
If you are on Instagram’s Threads you can read outrageous stories of betrayal and manipulation by friends, families, partners, and others that are truly mind blowing. How can people act like that? Well, when they act out the karma path unconsciously and within the full 3D expression of karma, really troubling behavior happens.
For example, I just read about a woman whose husband was having an affair with her best friend’s sister, who is now pregnant with her husband’s baby. Meanwhile, she and her husband have been trying for years to have a child. The best friend has been trying to hide her knowledge of the affair while trying to get her friend to ‘accept’ the relationship and the soon to be born child.
If this behavior sounds outrageous, there is far worse. I know it is small consolation when your world is falling apart because of this type of betrayal but it is really just the expression of a persecution karma path. If we looked at this woman’s karma group which includes the husband, friend, and her sister, we would see many repetitions of this betrayal, infidelity, and secrecy.
We are witnessing the realization awakening of the masses around the world to this level of betrayal by governments and the institutions that we look to for leadership, as people realize that those we should be able to trust are those that we must be most leery of. As Ronald Reagan said, ‘The most frightening words are, ‘I am from the government and I am here to help’.” This has been going on for centuries and longer. Power corrupts, as the saying goes.
And as we continue the dis-integration of the 3D paradigm, we are seeing more examples of this and it is disheartening. How do we escape the effects of our persecution karma when it seems like the whole world is persecuting us? It is not a condemnation of trust, but rather it is a sign that we must persevere beyond what is happening to us, in spite of our persecution karma.
The answer lies on the other side of the persecution karma. And when we decide to stop allowing it to prevent us from shining, sharing, and success?’ Remember, we are moving out of 3D density into 5D creation so our persecution karma is part of our 3D experience that shifts when we move into a 5D paradigm for our lives.
Then there is the persecution karma that I find the most egregious of all, the persecution from our spiritual community and those we call spiritual leaders. This is presented in many different ways and under many different circumstances. It happens with teachers we trust, the people we believe are on our path to help us learn and grown and expand our own abilities but they turn out to be part of our own persecution karma, by betraying our trust and faith in them.
These are people who try to control and manipulate our spiritual path and energy, who claim to be ‘healers’ and have special abilities and who talk loudly about how they can help us while they quietly pick our pockets and drain every penny they can out of us. I have been very vocal about these charlatans, the glamour gurus, and those who hijack spirituality for their own enrichment and it has not made me popular with the spiritual community but I have been proven to be right time and time again.
I have noticed an interesting thing that has been happening since the beginning of the spiritual movement about 30 years ago. At that time there were a few big spiritual teachers and they had large followings. Personally, I never followed them and did not trust most of them. But I also have my own karmic experiences with betrayal by spiritual teachers and people I trusted so I am very careful about who I follow and to be honest, it’s why I do not follow anyone.
Sometimes the persecution today comes from people who call themselves spiritual leaders and who are looked up to by many so the betrayal is potent. Persecution karma has its roots in actions from those you trust the most or who have been a powerful influence in your life.
I have seen spiritual communities decimated by self-proclaimed leaders who decided that they did not want their students to be more accomplished than they are and who attacked their own students on many different levels – verbally, spiritually, energetically, and sometimes physically. One case I helped a client with involved a spiritual teacher she had been following for over 20 years who tried to ruin her reputation by posting negative things about her after my client published a book that became a best seller and she gained international acclaim. I have heard about many spiritual teachers who did not want their students to outshine them.
I have seen people who call themselves spiritual gurus abuse and deceive their followers spiritually, financially, and physically. Sometimes that abuse turns deadly. Do you remember James Arthur Ray, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 4 of his followers and injuries to a dozen more? I knew some people who followed him who became hostile when I said it was a cult and he was dangerous. They said I just could not see how great he was. Many of them spent up tens of thousands of dollars only to be betrayed by a man who eventually went to prison for manslaughter.
And then he turned out to be another deceiver just as I had warned. The people I knew were very powerful in their own right and I tried to encourage them to grow and promote their own abilities and use his teachings as stepping stones instead of turning their power over to him.
I have heard of spiritual teachers who charge multiple thousands for programs that promise big things and deliver nothing. You can find stories of people who are in massive debt because they spent thousands on ‘healing’ or spells or some kind of magic process. Or who are told that they have to spend more to get to the ‘next step’ on their journey before they are finally spiritual competent or complete or healed.
I have seen spiritual communities become cults that turn their followers into victims that blindly follow orders, to their detriment.
A few weeks ago I shared a story on my weekly Enlightening Life LIVE broadcast about a woman whom I regarded as a spiritual mentor in the early 1990s and who dumped me after we went to a spiritual conference together. One of the main speakers was Stuart Wilde, a man she was infatuated with. On the second day of the conference he called me to the stage, I do not know why. I did not follow him and did not really like him; I had gone to the conference with her to see some of the other speakers. And when that happened she got so angry that she left the room, changed her plane ticket, and left me there without even saying goodbye.
Luckily I still had the room and had driven to the airport so I had a way to get home. That was our last interaction, she refused to speak to me after that. Was it such a betrayal that her guru had recognized me and I still do not know why he called me to the stage that day. Whatever it was, she was so angry at my achievement that she abandoned me there.
And I cannot end this discussion without mentioning what many regarded to be the greatest persecution betrayal of the industry, when Doreen Virtue decided that she no longer wanted to be part of the spiritual community and denounced every spiritual belief and practice that existed, including yoga.
A woman who had become a multi-millionaire many times over by becoming a self-proclaimed new age leader and expert on angel, spirit guide, gods and goddesses, ascended masters, and a host of other spiritual entities, decided to not only turn her back on it all but to call all of her millions of followers and students misguided and evil charlatans. How rich was Dorren Virtue? I heard that her monthly alimony payment to her ex-husband in the divorce she tied to keep a secret was around $35,000.
That upset a lot of people and rightly so. Many had spent large sums to take her programs, buy her books and products, and achieve her certifications. It is also a replay for them of the persecution karma that happens when your spiritual teachers and mentors turn on you. Because Doreen Virtue had such a big platform and so many followers many of whom, by their own admission, had put her on a pedestal, the betrayal was especially hard but it was a powerful lesson to them and to all of us to not give our power away to spiritual teachers and mentors.
This persecution karma by our spiritual teachers and mentors, the people we look to for spiritual insights and leadership, is the most challenging and powerful of our persecution karma lessons because they are a strong reminder of the consequences of expressing our energy to its fullest capacity and when we allow ourselves to really shine. And it has its beginnings in many previous lifetimes, what is happening today is not new.
Our persecution karma began long ago with an experience of being better, brighter, more accomplished, and more aware of a teacher or someone we mentored with, or with anyone in our life. That person had a choice, to celebrate their role in revealing and empowering your light or to be jealous of you and to extinguish that light as much as possible. And many of them did that. They made sure that not only would they put your light out in a very definite way in that lifetime, but they would also create a level of energy trauma that would extend to every other lifetime.
This is the definition of persecution karma, so replace ‘spiritual teacher or mentor’ with mother, father, sister, brother, partner, friend, co-worker – whoever you have experienced this persecution from in this lifetime, in any form.
Remember why we brought them here with us and what we expected or wanted to happen. That did not work out. So now what?
Our persecution karma gets repeated again and again and in every lifetime we do our best to make ourselves as lovable, safe, obscure, small, and insignificant to show our karma friends that we are not a threat to them but it doesn’t work. No matter what we do or how much we try to hide it, our greatness, brilliance, power, and energy shines through and we go through another round of karma with them, with us as the victim.
What causes us to engage with them like this even though we know what is probably going to happen? We carry the energy of grief with us from the betrayal, judgment, condemnation, and persecution. And this grief wants resolution. The way we think it can be resolved is to give our persecutors another chance to do better, so we do that. And every time they treat us the same way.
But there is a way out of this scenario and it is so important for us to gather our courage and take this step because we will never achieve our soul mission and take our true place on the ascension path if we don’t. And that is to apply the lesson of acceptance – which is our toughest lesson.
Acceptance is not tolerance or allowing bad behavior and trying to make the best of it. Acceptance is the lesson of accepting others’ choices and to stop trying to change them or what they do in any way. We do not owe anyone any healing or energy work, we do not owe them our time, energy, and effort, and we do not have to make them feel better about us and our presence or safer around our light and energy.
If your shining light is too bright for them then it is time to cut those cords and move on because dimming your light extracts a heavy price for you, one that you have been willing to bear, consciously or unconsciously, for many lifetimes. And now it is time to say good-bye and to stop allowing our persecution karma to be the reason we are not moving forward and living our lives in the fullest and highest possible aspects of our energy.
Not sure if that is the problem you are having? Persecution karma can be a very sneaky energy too, resulting in a lot of delays, procrastination, uncertainty, self-doubt, and self sabotage. Sound familiar to any of you? I am right there with you and this has happened to me too. It took me a long time to recognize and name the pattern of persecution in my family, in the workplace, with friends, partners, and even people who steal my work and use it in their business (which is also persecution karma).
I have had many lifetimes where my position, status, power, abilities, and popularity were a source of jealousy, betrayal, and persecution. I know those lifetimes and they have always held me back because I did not want a repetition of that experience even though it did happen to me over and over again. And I know that many of you can relate to that because it is your experience too.
Now it is our time to step up because we are needed. It’s time for us to shine, the ascension path needs us, the world needs us, humanity needs us, and we need ourselves. We need to remember ourselves as powerful, knowing, successful, and to celebrate the wonderful achievements that we are capable of. We need to shine for ourselves so that we can reconnect to that powerful energy within us and express it to the world. Our soul mission is not to heal others as the Martyred Healer, it is to shine as the Empowered Master and to let them heal themselves.
So rise up and shine on because bigger, brighter, and bolder is better, the Universe is calling our name, and we are needed. So say goodbye to persecution karma and all of its grief, trauma, and limitation, and hello to alignment, action, and achievement because your time is here and the persecution karma has to become part of your distant history instead of the energy that stands as the blocks and limiters to your life path in the present.
It is time to use your discernment because persecution karma is part of past, your history, your cellular memory. It is part of your karma path, your karma cycles and groups, and it is an ever present choice for you. But you can resist the temptation of engaging in yet another cycle of persecution karma and instead, pull from that wellspring of energy within you and choose a different path, a new vibe, and a new potential for your life.
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