Hi Shantiram and Open,

Thank you both for posting this conversation here. It's been very insightful. It also brought up some questions of my own.

Open, you said:

In the second case, the natural flow of the soul can also be blocked by heftily disciplined yogic practice, which overwrites the energy of karma in the 4D body - or, as is often the case, dispels the karmic energy but without first dealing with the triggering that created it.

Could you explain that a bit more? As I understand it, tantric tradition says that their practices destroy karma. And yes, they greatly emphasize the importance of highly disciplined yogic practices, which sounds a bit dogmatic to me. But a main purpose of those practices is supposedly to clear energetic disturbances or debris in the chakras so energy can flow more effectively through your entire being. Is that not the same as allowing your soul to flow through?

You also said:

Namely - there are two aspects to karma: 1) the soul fragmentation that causes it; 2) the energetic debris that builds around the fragmentation and creates the memories. Spiritual practice often inadvertently strips out the energy (and with that the memory), but without first integrating the soul.

Could you also explain what you mean by soul fragmentation more? And isn't removing the energy of karma the same as removing karma? I thought karma was essentially energy. So maybe I'm asking, what is karma exactly?

I've heard tantrics say that a soul cannot fragment because a soul is one structure of consciousness, so to speak. A piece would never break off from it because it's a whole thing that can't be divided. And when it comes to karma, to me, it seems like karma might be a distorted frequency or dissonance in a soul structure. So when some people speak of "soul retrieval", I've assumed that it means bringing those dissonant aspects of a soul back into harmony with its natural vibrations, which is kind of similar to the tantric concept of clearing energetic disturbances in the chakras. There's not actually a piece of soul that has fragmented and gone anywhere.

I know my understanding of all that could be completely out to lunch, and these are very mind-based questions as mine often are, so any of your reflections are very welcome.

Warm wishes 🙏

Zoe