Sometimes these unhealed portions show up in emotional difficulties or mental preoccupations. Often, they show up in the way our external life flows or does not flow - the limitations, tragedies, crises, and successes that we have that seem to be part of a plan that our conscious self had no say in making, but that another part of us may have.

When 'karma' operates in a positive way, we feel glad about it and don't feel a need to look into the matter further. However, when 'karma' brings to us difficulties or misfortune, we wonder what we 'did to deserve it.' Though this thought can be pondered with various degrees of seriousness, it often floats across the mind as a possible explanation for what is.

What we can know about the body and about change is that the healing of karma in the present changes the negative conditions that we have inherited from the past. But what, exactly, does this involve?

Often, it involves a change in attitudes, judgments, resentments, and wrong-thinking that we must give up in relation to others or ourselves. Yet, sometimes this choice is not clear, and it is difficult to know what it is that must be changed in order to make life work better. Sometimes, no obvious emotion or attitude seems to relate to what is happening to us.

A not-so-obvious explanation for this is that the healing of karmic influences cannot solely take place on the level of the mind or emotions. Such healing must take place on the level of the body as well. We must go through a process of releasing the feelings and thoughts that are stored within our bodies - within the very tissues and cells themselves - in order to be free of the chain of karmic influences that we carry.

Frequently, emotions and thoughts are less available to us because they are not part of our conscious awareness but are being carried as energies stored in various places within our physical self. We release them not just through erasing negativity on the mental level, but through allowing spiritual light to pass through our bodies so that what has been carried there can be let go of.

What is spiritual light?

It is the energy of God that created the world and that is, today, bringing about a collective spiritual awakening. This light is moving people to a deeper sense of their own identities and a more searching quest for spiritual truth. Light is Divine Intelligence emanating from God, but traveling across all planes and dimensions into the physical plane as well. The energy of spiritual light can be found in holy places. It can be invited into one's body through meditation and prayer. And it can be deepened, expanded, and strengthened through a process of alignment that creates a steady and constant communication with this healing stream.

Light transforms the body by separating out what must be let go of from what may be kept because it is part of our inherent divinity - part of God's light and love.

Spiritualizing the body involves understanding that 'karma' is not just happening to us. It lives within us as well. It is displayed in the flow of external events. It is experienced as the flow of emotional events. Yet, its more subtle aspects are often buried within the tissues and organs of our physical being, sometimes invisibly so, and sometimes creating illnesses and other kinds of limitations that we must pay attention to.

The body is meant to be a sacred vessel for the soul. It is meant to be pure and light-filled - a home for our higher consciousness. For many of us, this requires a great leap forward in our understanding of who we are and what a spiritual life is about. Strong habits from the past often separate our spirituality into things we think and feel - things we pray about or reflect on - and the rest of our life which often seems less sacred.

We are being called, today, to take a new view of things, and, indeed, to take more responsibility for healing the things of the past. When we do this with consciousness and deliberation, we will come to the point of recognizing within ourselves that which can be healed more easily, and that which seemingly takes a very long time to heal. Sometimes, in relation to certain longstanding patterns of limitation, we may have serious doubts about whether healing is possible at all.

To imagine incorporating the body into our view of the emotional/spiritual healing process will take us into new territory, but it will also allow us to work with the forces of Divine Intelligence and healing that are now more accessible on the Earth. As we do so, we will become enabled to let go of things that we have held onto for too long, or that have seemed impossible to release. This is the result of spiritualizing the body as well as the mind and heart. We become free to be ourselves without the limitations of the past, and to create a future that is based on wholeness and on the untapped and vast potential of our soul.

Julie Redstone is a teacher, writer, and founder of Light Omega, a center for spiritual teaching and healing in Western Massachusetts. The purpose of Light Omega is to create an understanding of the sacred transition into light that the Earth is presently going through and the changes this will bring to individual and planetary consciousness. To learn more about bringing light into the body, see the "Practice of Alignment" and other Purification Titles.

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