Job loss and prolonged unemployment remain ongoing realities for millions in the United States. I have experienced multiple layoffs, and each time I return to work, it has not restored the stability I once had. The financial damage caused by unemployment is rarely fully recovered, especially when savings are depleted and debt rises—an almost inevitable outcome, given the inadequacy of unemployment benefits. Even after securing a new job, the burden of debt can feel overwhelming, making recovery seem like a distant goal.
While some argue that personal responsibility or karma explains job loss, these beliefs overlook how widespread and frequent unemployment is, affecting all demographics. This issue is far larger than any individual’s actions and challenges the myth that hard work alone guarantees success. The concept of self-reliance overlooks the systemic forces that affect us all.
What stands out is that employment depends on more than individual effort. Securing a job always involves others, whose decisions ultimately determine our opportunities—no matter how much we try to lift ourselves by our “bootstraps.” This interdependence challenges the notion that personal merit alone is enough to secure a job.
At the end of 2010, I was laid off and remained unemployed for 14 months. During that challenging period, I applied for more than 300 jobs that matched my qualifications but received only two interviews. The first interview yielded no results, while the second led to a position at a law firm. Unfortunately, the role didn’t align with the job listing, and the duties did little to strengthen my resume. Nevertheless, after 14 months of searching and with dwindling resources, I was grateful to have a job.
However, just over a year later, I was laid off again because of the firm’s economic restructuring. This was yet another in a long history of layoffs that had persisted since the early 1980s.
To better understand my situation, I sought input from others. My well-meaning friends offered various perspectives: “This is your karma coming due,” “You’ve ignored your life’s calling,” and “It’s a wake-up call from the Universe—figure it out before it’s too late.” These comments placed the full responsibility for my hardships on me while also suggesting an upside: if I can create discomfort, then surely I can create joy and abundance. Supposedly, this journey is about recognizing what the “Universe” wants from me, and I can’t achieve that simply by holding a job.
What is Karma?
I want to take some time to explore the feedback on my question, “What do you think might be going on here?” First, let’s establish a shared understanding of karma. In Hinduism, karma is the principle that individuals reap the consequences of their actions in this life or in past lives, possibly even multiple previous ones. It is a cosmic principle that emphasizes that one cannot escape the repercussions of stealing what rightfully belongs to someone else—especially essential items like food, clothing, shelter, and funds needed for survival.
Moreover, taking away resources that enable someone’s well-being—such as education, reputation, and health—disrupts their ability to live the life they are entitled to, a life they may have agreed to before birth. Stealing someone’s foundation of support is akin to stealing their life force and, in this sense, can be compared to murder because it removes all choice from the affected person.
This act creates a significant imbalance in both personal and universal order, and that imbalance must be corrected. Ultimately, no one can avoid the necessity of returning what does not belong to them. While some may believe they can postpone facing the consequences for multiple lifetimes, an unavoidable force will eventually compel them to restore balance and do the right thing, whether they like it or not.
Karma is magnetic. When you are near someone to whom you owe restoration (or who owes you), you will feel drawn to them. Often, you will feel an overwhelming attraction. The intensity is not easily dismissed. This is necessary to build a relationship that lets you resolve past painful interactions. Attraction also shows up in dharmic agreements (though perhaps without the burning intensity of karma), such as teaming up for a mutual task. Follow the yellow brick road, as it were, and the connection’s purpose will eventually be revealed. In both cases, a mysterious pull will make you want to explain it as “that person is fascinating,” “that person is attractive,” or “they have something to offer that I’ve been looking for.” In any case, your karma has hooked you—or your dharma is calling.
Sometimes karma takes the form of direct payback. What you did to another will be done to you by that same person. In this instance, the other person is forcibly taking back what belongs to them rather than waiting for you to return it graciously. This is far less pleasant than engaging in a relationship that may have other mutually rewarding aspects, but lacking grace, it gets the job done, and you are released from that karma. This is the form of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but more advanced souls prefer to avoid such literal payback. It is far more pleasant to heal the broken connection between you by offering gifts that serve the same purpose as returning stolen goods. This also opens the opportunity to take the relationship to a higher level, one in which you mutually find ways to assist each other’s journey. The willingness to do this will depend on the severity of the original theft. It will be much harder to accept someone who previously murdered you as a friend you can trust. It can, however, be done.
Often, karma works like this: instead of being drawn to a person or a situation (a place of employment, an organization, a course of study, an educational institution, and so on), you find yourself the surprised and unwilling recipient of a series of unpleasant, life-altering events. Bewildered by how and why these events have disrupted your life, you may begin to search not only for the cause behind them but also for the meaning they might hold. In this scenario, you are experiencing what it is like to have crucial support taken away from you, allowing you to intimately understand what you did to another when you stole what they needed to live a flourishing life. This type of karma is sometimes called self-karma because it isn’t brought about by directly manipulating another person, but by an agreement you made with your higher self to understand the ramifications of undermining or destroying another’s life options.
Unemployment as Prima Facie Evidence of Karma
Given the above, I might be in the midst of self-karma. Alternatively, I’m receiving direct payback from former employers, reflecting past actions I took toward them. If stressful circumstances are always a sign of karma, unemployment becomes a forced restoration by my employers, repossessing what I once denied them: livelihood. That’s one possible answer to why I lost my job. But other facets exist. Perhaps karma is not involved at all. The immediate reason given, downsizing, often points to a complexity that goes beyond a simple explanation.
How to Know If It’s Karma
How do we determine when karma is at work? I don’t believe there’s any way to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we’ve entered karmic territory. Still, when you feel as though you’ve stepped into the twilight zone – when the status quo of your life peels away unbidden to reveal strange images, dimensions, or new insights, or when time seems to slow down and even freeze, or when there’s nothing you can do to convince the other party of your good intentions – you might be in the zone of karmic payback. Other things may also be happening that have nothing to do with karma and aren’t the subject of this discussion; however, karma can manifest similarly to what I’ve just described.
However, the proof of release from the karmic pudding ultimately comes down to this: you will know a karmic tie has been released when the charge of the situation is gone. You no longer feel compelled to remain in a relationship with someone or in a job that was replete with unsolvable issues. After the restoration has occurred, you begin to feel calm, balanced, and neutral about the whole thing – that is, after you are done processing your human reaction. It is as if you have awakened from a long nightmare, and you know you are now in your right mind because the fever that once held you in its thrall has finally broken. At this point, it is a matter of choice whether you walk away (assuming you haven’t been irrevocably dismissed) or stay to create a new, healthier configuration that all parties agree to take to a higher level.
Signs of the Times
Sometimes the karma of the immediate parties isn’t at play. It could be the signs of the times, that is, the shared historical context, which is the common denominator to which everyone, regardless of station, status, creed, race, or gender, is subject. According to a July 28, 2013, article, Survey: 4 in 5 face near-poverty, no work (published online at TPMLIVEWIRE by Hope Yen), “Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream. Survey data…points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.” From another article: “The vast majority of people in the United States will experience poverty and economic insecurity for a significant portion of their lives.” For the statistics behind that statement, see Gary Lapon’s article, Poor Prospects in a ‘Middle-Class’ Society, August 18, 2013, published in the online magazine Truthout.
Without too much argument, I think we can agree that national and world affairs are an inextricable overlay on the course of our lives, mixing their enormous bandwidth into the much smaller frequencies of our own. We barely need to raise our heads to see that fracking, the broken nuclear reactors at Fukushima, the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, ethnic genocide, human sex trafficking, and many, many more life-ravaging actions have a reach and impact far broader and deeper than any personal karma could claim. These acts are karma against the entire planet, intentionally generated on an incomprehensibly large scale by the abusive politics of power.
The Global Karmic Pandemic of 2020
In 2020, the entire planet found itself at the mercy of a pandemic caused by a new virus, SARS-CoV-2. Some believe this virus was cultivated by the imbalances resulting from the cruel and unconscionable ways human beings treat animals and the environment. The extreme physical cruelty that caged animals in wet markets and factory farms endure weakens their immune systems. Forced to live in filth and deprived of health and freedom, they become easy hosts for bacteria, parasites, and viruses that quickly overwhelm their bodies. These malefic entities easily pass to humans (and then the animals get blamed and subjected to inhumane wholesale slaughter). When you consider that these beings have emotions, live in constant terror, and endure horrific pain, it is clear that the damage done is multidimensional, with far-reaching effects, and is nothing short of sacrilegious.
Some also believe this virus originated in a laboratory. Regardless of its origins, one must consider that the actions taken to create it or cause it to manifest reveal a disrespect for life, including disregard for its impact on the planet as a whole.
The effect of this virus, whether one wants to call it karmic or not, is karmic. When I first wrote this article in 2013, far fewer people were unemployed. Yet each of those people suffered no differently from those whose multiple sufferings are directly related to unemployment. At the time, the numbers were not enough to influence change in federal and state policies. Now the numbers are striking—off the charts—and yet Congress must argue and delay taking obvious action. They must do their job and take care of their people, or add yet another straw to the unraveling of the structures that support human lives and well-being. Not doing what you have been tasked to do, especially when you have the power to do so, especially at the level that can make or break civilization, creates karma.
The Destruction that DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) Wrought
In 2025, the new administration’s actions led to a surprise ‘cleansing’ of multiple federal departments, causing thousands of people to lose their jobs. Most of these departments were already understaffed, so their ‘cleansing’ was severely crippling. Some departments were shuttered entirely. The eradication crusade against ‘waste,’ ‘fraud,’ and ‘abuse’ included demands that law firms, universities, and individuals exercising their right to free speech restrict their businesses and activities to comply with new rules. Legal scholars universally regard these new rules as unconstitutional, but the consequences for violating them have been severe. Although most lower courts have ruled these actions unlawful and unfounded, the administration continues to pursue its objectives in defiance of those rulings. The Supreme Court has vetted the racial profiling of brown people and people with accents. The Department of Homeland Security’s ICE forces are responsible for violent assaults and the detention of thousands in squalid hellholes, including pregnant women and children.
What is this about? Human beings have a dark nature that desires to conquer, subdue, and exclude. Conquering has often meant breaking and destroying systems and structures that, though imperfect, were cobbled together to support humanitarian goals. There is nothing sacred when this nature is unleashed. Think of the Dust Bowl, swarms of ravenous locusts, tornadoes, or hurricanes. Has the karma of the United States, whose founding fathers were wealthy white slaveowners, come home to roost? Are we being shown that democracy, voting rights, and equal opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice were always tenuous? And are they tenuous because they were never firmly grounded in the genuine belief that all people are created equal and have the same right to a life in which they can actualize themselves? The truth behind all the lies is being brutally revealed on a giant screen everyone can see, and it will hopefully inspire the necessary corrections and restorations.
When so much breaks down and falls apart, our karma has likely caught up with us.
Karmic Impact, Delays, and Detours
It is not sustainable to be repeatedly knocked down in the name of paying back karma. It doesn’t make sense to continually strip away a person’s livelihood, leaving them unable to fulfill their life tasks and agreements. In other words, it may not be karma at work. When we painstakingly created the agenda for the current incarnation, we agreed to address our karma – working through past unbalanced, painful situations with others and our own self-karmas – as well as our dharma – the continuing expansion of our souls. We do this by surrendering to experience, including specific life tasks and agreements, facilitating and mentoring others, nurturing relationships, upgrading old skills and learning new ones, and stepping up into a larger (or smaller) game, among other things. To fulfill both karma and dharma, we bring forward the themes of a dozen or so past lives that align with the themes of our current life. The goal is to realize ourselves more fully.
But things don’t always work out as planned. Sometimes we have to fill in the gaps, creating and recreating from scratch. We may face delays, detours, or reroutes. Sometimes those who agreed to help us deliberately abdicate. And life isn’t set in stone. The best-laid plans of the wisest souls are still subject to the slings and arrows of unpredictable fortune – accidents and other people’s choices.
When your efforts to make yourself at home are repeatedly obstructed, it may be because you are seeking membership in a tribe whose tasks and agreements don’t align with yours. They will not recognize who you are or what you have to offer. This is true even if you function competently in their environment. In these instances, the underlying issue is a lack of familiarity at the soul level and a lack of agreements of various kinds, including work agreements, facilitation agreements, mentor agreements, and opportunity agreements, among others. Without agreements, you become a foreigner. Although foreigners can be attractive because they are different, those same differences can also seem threatening and even repulsive. If you find yourself in a workplace where you experience constant abrasion and the tribe is busy creating “evidence” to support their low opinion of you, it is time to leave. You’re unlikely to convince anyone of your value. You may consider that what is at work here is a form of self-karma in which who you are is ironically mirrored back to you by reflecting who you are not.
However, finding yourself in situations like this doesn’t always mean you are working against your own agreements. It might mean that, or it might mean the community that holds your agreements is unavailable. Your creativity and willingness to participate wherever you find yourself are essential to keeping the threads of your life from unraveling. Sometimes we need to make things up as we go. The upside is that we develop mastery in flying by the seat of our pants, using our own initiative and wits to keep body and soul together.
The Larger Context
We all live within a context shaped and still being shaped by capitalism gone wrong. Those of us who know better make no bones about this – human beings have created a political and economic civilization built on the belief in power-over, superiority of race or talent or intelligence or looks or wealth, competition, and the “survival of the fittest.” This paradigm is pervasive, and even if one sees right through it, we still have to deal with its consequences. Without a cultural belief that embraces the right of everyone to the tree of life, which includes making available the financial resources and opportunities to allow individuals to bring forth their best contributions, each one of us is on our own. Some of us have family and friends who can, from time to time, help bridge the gaps, but many do not. Even so, without a larger societal support structure that recognizes the grave reality of unemployment and resulting poverty, the suffering of millions will continue. These comments also include the handicapped, the aging, the less skilled, and those who suffer from debilitating physical or mental issues. Their entry into the “game” is even more severely circumscribed.
The reality is that for most of us, our voices are limited and our contributions are often undervalued. Nevertheless, we cannot give up or surrender. We must believe in our right to be here and in the necessity of fulfilling our unique purposes. We must recognize a universal truth: without our full participation, the evolution of life and the Tao itself will be hindered.
These times demand collective courage and a willingness to dig deeper to make a difference. We need to recognize how our personal contributions perpetuate injustice and inequality, and where our words and actions may be thoughtless or unkind. Individually, we must strive to live righteous lives with conscious awareness. By doing so, we can help mitigate the consequences of both individual and collective karma.
These times also call for creating a community guided by an ideology that fearlessly declares: We are all one; it is unthinkable to leave anyone behind.
© | Gloria Constantin | All Rights Reserved |
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