Karma and Forgiveness

Question: First of all I want to thank you from my heart very much for changing my life. You put the light on my way to get to know God better than ever! Your words are just the message that God ever wanted me to know! rnI have a question for long time: In the law of karma what happens when you have been a "bad boy" for a long time, or you haven´t been who you must be (as a good father, as a fried, as a human being) but with the time you realize you have made things wrong and you regret it and decide you have and want to change your thoughts and your form of living and you become a new spiritual human being. rnDoes it affect somehow your karma, I mean the responsibility you have to take your acts before you change your thoughts? What role does forgiveness play in all this? rnI hope you can understand my question. Your inspiration helped me to start writing in English, but I have to practice more.rnWith love from Colombia. Answer: rnThe karma of previous actions that returns to us is a simple law of the universe. What we have control over is our level of consciousness, our degree of freedom from identification with our ego. The more we are identified with our higher Self and not identified with the ego or the actor, then the more we are free from the binding influence of our past actions. rnForgiveness can play a large role in this because as we learn to forgive others and ourself, we come into a deeper understanding of our true Self. We recognize that our essential nature is not defined or identified with those actions, and we see the actions of the past from a more awakened perspective. rnThis is really the deeper significance of the repentance and metanoia. Our consciousness is transformed from the ego perspective of blame, shame and judgment to the truth of love, grace and forgiveness. rnLove,rnDeepak