We've all heard "What Goes Around, Comes Around," and we all know that it means "Watch out now - karma's gonna get you!" We see one person doing something not-so-nice to another person, and we think to ourselves, "I'm glad that's not MY karma." Someone says or does something to hurt our feelings, and we want to respond in kind, but before we have a chance to lash out, we stop and ponder, "Is it worth the karma?"

Before we can understand the real meaning of what goes around, comes around, we have to understand the self-sufficient nature of the universe we live in, and the laws which make it work that way.

In the beginning, God created souls. The soul is the very essence of who we are, in any place, on any level, in any time. It is the core of every individual, a core that - like the God it is a part of - has no beginning and no end. We - the whole that constitutes what we think of in physical terms of as God and the souls - are infinite.

When the God energy divided itself into separate identities - the itsy-bitsy clusters of energy being the separated souls and the great big cluster of energy being God - those itsy-bitsy clusters of energy didnt mutate into anything less than they had always been: little pieces of God. In the beginning, the souls worked on the same all-knowing level of consciousness that God (the big cluster of energy) worked on, because they were still in attunement with that larger cluster of energy. They were one; the separated souls werent really separate, because their entire beings were still committed to remaining on the level of God-consciousness.

God-consciousness, by the way, is not a bad place to be at all. It is a state of being where only bliss - bliss that comes from being directly connected to that larger cluster of energy that makes us feel completed and content in our present moment - exists. There is only one emotion on the God-consciousness level, and that emotion is unconditional love and acceptance of everyone and everything in our universe. Why would anyone - especially souls who had the opportunity to spend their eternity in this wonderful state of being - want to come on down and experience lesser feelings on lesser levels?

Because an integral part of being on a God-consciousness level is choosing to remain there in spite of an inherent sense of being separate and an infinite drive to confirm for ourselves that we really are who we think we are. Whatever level a soul may be working from in any given lifetime, we see this basic truth at play over and over again as souls put themselves in situations and relationships that put their truth to the test and confirm, positively or negatively, who they are and what they believe in, as evidenced by the lives they lead and the decisions they make on a daily basis. Some things never change, and the souls insatiable quest for self-knowledge and self-understanding is one of them.

The souls who separated already knew who they were, and how they were, but they didnt understand how they got that way, or ended up (or began) where they did. Faith that their inner understanding (an understanding that came from being a part of the collective consciousness) was correct was not sufficient; it was this lack of acceptance for their state of being that disrupted the bliss of the whole. Something had to be done.

The majority (that big cluster of individual souls who remained perfectly contented where they were, and that we call God) accepted the uncertainty of the minority of souls, and looked for a way to help them get back to the level of God-consciousness. The only remedy for a lack of faith is experience that gives one conviction in truth; the obvious solution to the problem was the creation of an environment in which souls could learn.

We call that environment the Universe, and the souls learn through an experience that we call life. In order to make the learning process a self-sufficient one, it was agreed upon by all the souls that each would learn through their own experience, and that the life curriculum would be governed by a set of Universal Laws (i.e. Laws that govern the Universe) that would apply to everyone on every level of living. There would be no exceptions; no one was to be above The Law, for we are all equal in the eyes of God (or the Whole).

To ensure that equality, the first and foremost Universal Law became the Karmic Law of Repercussion, and all of the other Laws fell into place beneath it. The Law forces the exact action it implies: if the souls experience, firsthand, the repercussions of every choice they make, they will be provided with firsthand experience that should confirm or deny for them whether the choice they made was made from within - on a level of God-consciousness - or driven by untruth as represented by our feelings, our thoughts and our physical desires (our driving forces on this particular plane of existence.)

The Universal Law of Repercussion can be loosely translated to mean, What goes around, comes around. The Law is as infinite as the consciousness that created it; no matter how hard we struggle to control and manipulate our lives, we remain subject to our karmic obligations in each lifetime. Those karmic implications were determined by the choices we made in other lifetimes, and included in as many of our souls life plans as they need to be until the lesson has been accomplished and we can clear one element off of our individual karmic slate. Everything in the Universe is perfectly balanced, and it is only when we have done unto others (and made good choices about how to do it) and had others do unto us (and made good choices about how to accept it being done) that our lesson is complete, and we have reached a level of conviction about that specific iota of truth.

The next time you find yourself in an unexpected situation or a relationship takes an unexpected turn, you may find yourself asking, Where did that come from? The answer is probably more obvious than you think: it could be Karma, coming straight at you when you least expect it and are best prepared to deal with it.

One of the most difficult realizations in each lifetime is acknowledging that there are self-imposed limits to free will and conscious choice. We can do anything we choose to do in any given lifetime - as long as we are willing to pay the repercussions (good or bad) when the time comes to do so.

Cycles repeat themselves on every level: just as the energy that left the God-consciousness in order to experience life always returns to that level when life is finished, so the energy that we put out to others in the form of thoughts, words and actions always comes to rest in our being.

Maybe thats what they mean by the perfect order of The Universe.