Can Karma Affect Those We Fall In Love With

Just Who is Oana Anyway?

Healing through laughter is not a dream, but a recipe for survival

If you were to read a book about Oana's life, you might easily decide it was a work of fiction. 

Born in Bucharest, Romania, Oana lived twenty years under the grotesque dictatorial regime of Ceausescu. After the fall of communism in 1989 she studied languages at the University in Bucharest, then received her Master’s degree at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. English is her third language. 

She has worn many hats, working as a translator, as a teacher, and eventually caring for animals both domestic and wild. Volunteering in both the U.S. and Canada, she worked for wildlife rescue and rehabilitation centers.

Currently residing in Arizona, Oana continues to dedicate most of her time to her animals and to writing.  

Her first book, The Healings, debuted in November 2010. It is a hard-to-put-down, laugh-out-loud series of adventures of an eccentric duo: a man and his feline partner walking from ‘healer’ to ‘healer’ and hoping to achieve awareness.

Oana’s take on depression is simple and effective: witticism and laughter coupled with the understanding of the frailty of human nature help us heal. An animal companion, real or imaginary, can be very therapeutic as well.

Many a reader – depressed or not -- will recognize the insanity of most of our daily routines and the elusiveness of Truth.

Oana’s current projects include a memoir titled, Romanian Rhapsody, a children’s book, Dr.Schnauzer and Nurse Lhassa, as well as other stories, all written in the same witty humorous style.      
She is also an active member of Central Phoenix Writing Workshop http://www.paloverdepages.com/ and a co-host of Two Unsychronized Souls Radio Show  http://www.blogtalkradio.com/monicabrinkmanandoana 

To learn more about Oana, visit her author’s website www.thehealings.net  

To read excerpts from The Healings go to http://www.thehealings.net/excerpts-from-the-healings.html

The Healings is available in paperback on Amazon  http://www.amazon.com/Healings-Oana/dp/0984615482/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289455146&sr=1-1

In Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/The-Healings-ebook/dp/B004BSH0RI/ref=tmm_kin_title_0/192-1862715-7132302?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&qid=1289455146&sr=1-1 and Nook format

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-healings-oana/1029789781?ean=2940012775313&itm=1&usri=oana#

Karma Quotes and Wisdom

• Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.
  
  Dalai Lama
• My Karma ran over your dogma.
  
  Anonymous
• If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
  
  Wayne Dyer
• Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.
  
  Wayne Dyer
• All major religious traditions carry basically the same message; that is love, compassion, and forgiveness are the important things that should be part of our daily lives.
  
  Dalai Lama
• How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.
  
  Wayne Dyer

Last night I was fortunate enough to host a radio show with a wonderful physician and humanitarian, Dr. Melvin Kirschner.

In speaking with the good doctor, I found myself wondering if Karma would eventually play a part in the lives of the greedy. You see, with our government officials taking millions of dollars from insurance and pharmaceutical companies, with attorneys pursuing every means to sue physicians and with some doctors and administrators in the medical field accepting large gratuities from these same companies, would Karma ever  play a part?

Though unpopular in my part of the country, I have to say I truly believe in a Single Payer Health Reform. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. I've heard so many arguments against Health Reform and yet today's society is unlike the society of our past. Yes, in the past a company cared about your welfare and entered the employees into a group insurance plan that actually was affordable, even when covering their entire family. And better yet, there were no deductibles unless you had major surgery. Even then, the deductible was quite low.

Today, we have what I call 'so-called insurance' coverage or supplemental insurance offered by many companies. Then we have what they call 'Major Medical' with huge co-pays and deductibles. A few institutions do have decent coverage but they are few and far between. What has happened to the insurance industry I ask you? Why are there no limits on how much a pharmaceutical company sells their medications? How can our county expect us to be healthy when most are unable to seek medical treatment because of the expense? And the poor doctors are in fear of being sued so they are forced to subject a patient to test after test after test, knowing most of these are not necessary. But with Americans being sue crazy every precaution must be taken to insure a doctor has covered every avenue of liability.

I cannot be silent any longer as I watch my wonderful American brothers and sisters decide they must pay the mortgage or feed their family before they can even think about seeing a physician. And if they dare visit a doctor and he or she finds something wrong, then how can they pay for the the treatment, the tests or the surgery?

When I see people applauding some cold, uncaring, greedy, self-absorbed politician who speaks of a young boy going into a coma because he couldn't seek medical care, I am truly ashamed.

So wake up, I say to you, before you find yourself in harm's way or destitute or so sick but unable to afford health care yourself. Karma works in many ways and it may not be tomorrow, but there will be a time when everyone will be responsible for their actions in life.

I'm hoping you will stand up, be brave, be caring and realize 'there for the grace of God, go I'.

We Are Dying Every Day - Deepak Chopra

One reads in many mystical traditions that every person dies at exactly the right time and knows in advance when that time is. But I would like to examine more deeply the concept of dying every day.

To die every day is a choice everyone overlooks. I want to see myself as the same person from day to day in order to preserve my sense of identity. I want to see myself as inhabiting the same body every day because it is disturbing to think that my body is constantly deserting me.

Yet it must, if I am not to be a living mummy. Following the complex timetable of apoptosis, I am given a new body via the mechanism of death. This process happens subtly enough that it passes without notice. No-one sees a two-year-old turning in her body for a new one at age three.

Every day she has the same body, and yet she doesn’t. Only the constant process of renewal – a gift of death – enables her to keep pace with each stage of development. The wonder is that one feels like the same person in the midst of such endless shape-shifting.

Unlike with cell death, I can observe my ideas being born and dying. To support the passage from childish thought to adult thought, the mind has to die every day. My cherished ideas die and never reappear; my most intense experiences are consumed by their own passions; my answer to the question “Who am I?” totally changes from age two to three, three to four, and so on throughout life.

We understand death when we drop the illusion that life must be continuous. All of nature obeys one rhythm – the universe is dying at the speed of light yet it still manages along the way to create this planet and the life forms inhabiting it.

Our bodies are dying at many different speeds at once, beginning with the photons, ascending through chemical dissolution, cell death, tissue regeneration, and finally the death of the whole organism. What are we so afraid of?
Adapted from The Book of Secrets, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2004).


Read more: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/we-are-dying-every-day.html#ixzz1X5TwvJoP

One Man's Thoughts On Karma

Karma

We tend to think of Karma as some kind of luck. You've either got it bad, or you've got it good. If you've got it good, the gods are smiling on you. If you've got it bad, you're at least a little bit cursed, and have to somehow pay or make up for the months or years or lifetimes of having 'blown it'. However unknown your infractions may be to you now.

I'd like to propose that Karma is not about what Happens to you. But that Karma is about how you Handle it. Karma is a state of mind. Therein lies our power to 'create our own reality', and meet what life hands us in a powerful stance of co-creation. By our actions and reactions, thoughts and feelings. It's easy to imagine oneself a victim when things aren't going the way we'd wish. "Bad karma!" we might mutter. Another versions of, "Bummer, man!" But, as they say, 'shit happens'. To all of us! And I believe karma is about how we perspective and meet and handle said 'shit'. If something happens that I don't like, I can label it (or me) bad, and bring the accompanying complaint and victimization to it. If something happens that I do like, I can think I've got it good.

But perhaps I can begin to step out of my thoughts about good and bad, right and wrong, and look at the potential learning in the situation. And imagine myself meeting that perceptually less-than-ideal human experience with an attitude of curiosity, openness and perhaps even gratitude as to what it's here to teach. Every moment is a potential turning point. What happens guides and shapes us. We cannot see the steps ahead. The ego's tendency--brilliantly named the 'Pain Body' by Eckhart Tolle--is to see what it doesn't want as wrong, and to inflict more suffering on itself. We're all very good at that: suffering over our suffering. Perhaps Karma is about alleviating our own suffering when 'shit happens'. And finding the potential goodness. Looking for the lesson. Putting it in perspective.

Opening our arms to the universe and saying, "I don't know why this is occurring, but okay, thank you." I remember, many years ago now, thinking I was going to be moving into a certain place. I had made a special trip to see it again, and to meet with the property manager to sign the papers. When I arrived, he flippantly told me the place wasn’t going to be ready on time for me to move in. No big deal to him . . . But I had movers coming. I had someone moving into the place I was vacating. I thought he and I had a deal. I thought I had a plan. I was basically being blown off, and found myself desperate, in a swirl of stress and angst and upset. I couldn't see myself as anything other than a victim. Now, with nowhere now to go . . . Bad karma, some would say. But that was just a moment in time. Fraught. But a moment, nonetheless.

What I didn't know, and couldn’t see, was that something even better was waiting for me. And that that 'glitch', that moment of apparent bad karma, was guiding me toward the life and home I'm in now. A place of goodness and beauty I couldn't have imagined. Had that other place come through, every single detail in my life would be different today. The people I know. The clients I see. Everything. In Chinese, the symbol for 'crisis' is made up of two other symbols: "danger" and "opportunity."

Under stress, it's hard to see the opportunity in the crisis. To trust that there is an unfoldment that wants something even better than the ego can conceive of in the moment. That to me is about Karma. About meeting life from a place of openness, curiosity and neutrality, so that when things don't go the way we think we want them to, we can be receptive, and create Good Karma for ourselves by how we are meeting life, and treating ourselves and others in the process. This is an act of faith, surrender. Trusting in the unfoldment of our lives, however vague and disappointing that may seem at the time. Opening our arms to life and saying, "I don't know why this is occurring, but okay, thank you." Creating our own good Karma, by trusting the flow of our own evolution, and letting go, and going with it.

Johanna Courtleigh, MA, LPC, CHT

About The Author

Johanna Courtleigh is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Hypnotherapist, Certified HypnoFertility® Therapist and Confidence Coach in private practice in Lake Oswego, Oregon, just south of Portland. Her works seeks to help people create healthier relationships with themselves and others, and to become happier and more "in love", as a state of being. She can be contacted at johanna@jcourtleigh.com, www.jcourtleigh.com, www.portlandhypnofertility.com, (503) 684-8481.

Why Not Karma?

I pondered what to write when invited to be a guest blogger on Farrahs’ site. After deliberation it became apparent the logical answer...why not Karma?

So what is Karma? We seem to use the word as a fear tactic insuring our goodwill toward others.

Karma simply means - action.

The definition in Hinduism/Buddhism: action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results, good or bad, either in this life or reincarnation.

Many will argue the case of karma occurring exclusively in a next life while others adamantly endorse the idea we will feel karma’s full force as a payback in the same life. What they all have in common is the belief we are accountable for our deeds and actions. 

Yet we see greed, self-satisfaction, lust, murder, rape, and mayhem all around us and many of the individuals who carry out these acts seem to get by just fine in life, without retribution in any form. While others, the kind, caring, giving souls, grow poorer, hungrier and more desperate in their quest for survival.

Life may not seem fair but you may rest assured, karma seeks truth.

The millionaire who layed off his entire labor force and shipped it off to China may look to the outward world as if he is showered with riches, yet hidden from view is the cheating wife, the daughter who committed suicide or the lack of any real friendships.

Do I believe in Karma? Absolutely! I’ve experienced it within my lifetime and if you are honest with yourself, you will agree that you also have felt the force of karma. How many have judged another, stating they would never ever do such a thing only to find, under the same circumstances, they reacted the exact way years later? 

To me, karma is the ultimate judge and it takes care of the world and universe just fine, thank you.  There is no need for me to condemn someone and I am free to be responsible for my actions alone. It is up to each individual to take responsibility for his or her life, never blaming someone else. 

In my mind, karma sets you free to be the person you are without apology. I’d fear it if I chose the wrong path in life and embrace it if living through kindness, compassion and care.

Monica M. Brinkman is the author of the newly released novel, ‘The Turn of the Karmic Wheel’, a mixed genre of suspense, horror, the paranormal and spirituality.  Here's a taste,

Excerpt from Chapter One, ‘The Turn of the Karmic Wheel’

Harry went to the window and watched his friend walk down the street. He wondered if he should be concerned. For some reason, he felt a bit of uneasiness; just couldn’t put his finger on the why or wherefore. Aw, hell, he reasoned, it ain't none of my business. Yet there was something eating at his mind, a voice telling him to go no further with this transaction. It was a gut feeling he couldn’t shake, a feeling that his friend and neighbor of over 30 years was not ‘quite right’. There was definitely something ‘off the scale’ about Euclid today. A vivid image entered his mind. A vision so unfathomable he had to let it go. Harry shivered as he moved to slowly close the store’s door, continuing to watch the retreating figure kicking stones along the road, unable to shake his feelings of dread.

Ms Brinkman, along with Oana host  an exciting  blogtalkradio show called  ‘Two Unsynchronized Souls, that airs every Thursday , 7 PM CST. You may join the live show by calling 213/769-0952. For the schedule shows, click on the below referenced link.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/monicabrinkmanandoana

Visit Monica’s personal web site, Meaningful Writings, to view articles, short stories, videos, books and inspirations @ http://tinyurl.com237mvru

You Never Know When Karma May Bite You In The Neck

Karma may work in mysterious ways indeed. Perhaps this young man had much to work off.

Let me know how you like the story and feel free to comment.

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