“I’VE been reading you for years.

I’m actually very interested in your ESP and Intuition Development Workshop. I feel it will be very useful in making decisions. Since I study in Australia, I can’t attend it. I hope you can share some basics to improve my ESP and intuition. I had it when I was younger, but somehow lost it.

“I have been very unfortunate in my romantic life. At 26, I have not had a serious relationship. Sometimes the guys I liked didn’t like me. Other times, the guys who liked me were already married. I recently had a relationship with a foreigner which I thought was serious, but he ended it in two months and left me in pain.

“I am not asking for love advice. I just want to know why these series of unfortunate incidents happen. I wonder if there are things I’m not doing right, some misplaced elements in my life, perhaps? How I can bring more positive energy to improve my love life?”

—JULIET (not her real name)

I’m glad you said you’re not asking for advice on your love life, because there are really more competent people you can consult. Besides, my views are very radical and may come as a shock to many. But since your case is not really unique and I’ve been asked similar questions, I might as well share what I teach about relationships in my Soulmates, Karma and Reincarnation seminar.
The teachings are based on these principles or concepts:

1. I believe we don’t live only once on earth. “Most people have had many lifetimes.” Even Buddha, at the moment of enlightenment sitting quietly under the Bodhi Tree, saw no less than 500 of his previous incarnations on earth.

The view that we had lived explains to me why we get attracted or repulsed by certain people at first meeting, why certain places we have never been to are familiar to us.

2. “The people who are around us, for good or ill, are with us because we have attracted them to us.” One sacred law of the Universe is “like attracts like” on the mental and spiritual planes. This is more popularly called the “Law of Attraction” which I’ve been teaching for more than 20 years now, but is only now being accepted by more people, specially after the very popular book “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne came out and sold millions of copies. There is absolutely nothing new in that book, but I recommend it to people who have never heard of it.

3. “Everything that we do comes back to us, nothing less and nothing more.” This is more popularly known as the “Law of Karma,” or “Law of Compensation” or the “Law of Universal Justice.” And karma is based on choices, intentions, desires or actions we have done.

Even certain illnesses we suffer from could be results of choices made in past lives. Even so-called “accidents” may not really be accidents at all.

4. “Both great love and great hatred bind you to another.” So if you don’t want to meet your enemy again in the next life, you must learn to release or forgive him or her now in this lifetime, or you are surely bound to meet that person again in a future life.

5. “The secret of happiness,” according to Buddha, “is not in having what you want, but in not wanting what you do not have.” Juliet should meditate on this great message. She should learn from the failed relationships she has had, knowing she may only be paying her karma to these men. She must not get angry with them or wish to seek revenge on them but learn the lessons they are giving her.

6. “If you love somebody, let him go; if he comes back, he is yours, if he does not, he never was.” The reason for this is that we never lose what we truly own.

7. Here’s something that may shock this predominantly conservative Christian country: “God does not punish or reward us, we punish or reward ourselves,” because we have been given absolute freedom of choice or free will by God.

As Epictetus, the great ancient Greek philosopher, once said: “The good or ill of man lies within his own will.”

Note: The next Soulmates, Karma & Reincarnation seminar will be held Jan. 24, 1-7 p.m. at Rm. 308 Prince Plaza I, Legaspi St., Greenbelt, Makati. Call 810-7245/892-6806; fax 815-9890; e-mail jaimetlicauco@yahoo.com.