Karma, soft deceit...
posted by GodIAm | December 19, 2009
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IcerocketKarma, what does it mean to you? Do you believe in Karma?
The origins of Karma hail from the Sanskrit word " Kri " which means to do. Kri was a power by which individuals and collectives could influence the Gods, nature, weather, harvests and enemies. Through right intent and rituals performed righteously thus by actions determine ones destiny. Immortalized in the Buddhist Vedas the tradition of Karma was stamped on the Indian race. In Vedanta texts
Volume I: Samhitas
Volume II: Brahmanas and Aranyakas
Volume III: Upanishads
Volume IV: Vedangas, the God Karma was illuminated by the vengeful elephant of reciprocity. In later dates the Arabic word Karam was adopted to define the grace of God as Karma. As Karma became a global staple it was somewhat tainted by defeatist western constructs of fate. This created helplessness and dis empowerment from the true nature of GodSelf.
One constant Karmic thread has woven through the ages from 1,500 BCE to the present. This thread is the carrot and stick motif. The need in this life to act in " righteousness " or " goodness " for the benefit of rewards in the next life.
I perceive concepts of Karma as having created subtle echoes from which more damaging tenets like heaven and hell are derived.
If we are prepared to accept the view of a God separate from self, sitting in judgement handing out Karma, then we enslave our true GodSelf spirit.
Great books lead the faithful; the Bible, the Koran, the Vedantas, the Gita, each offer wisdom, beauty and truth. However, into each great work is the carrot and stick needed to control the devotee under the embrace of theology.
Heaven and hell bend the will of the Christian.
Mohammad, in the words of the Koran demands servitude and abeyance. The reward is great riches for the " good " Muslim in the afterlife.
Lord Krishna insists on proper living as he instructs the young Arjuna about the fruit which await his next life.
The Vedantas offer very definitive instructions to the Hindu follower. The man of faith and goodness will be rewarded with a superior next life. The fact remains, every religion needs followers.
The carrot ushers in the sheep and the stick keeps the flock united.
Following are just a few of the issues I have with Karma; separation from oneness, separation from free will, establishment of judgement right and wrong/ good and bad, dis empowerment of GodSelf and God as judge.
Separation from oneness as a necessary fallout of belief in Karma. If you trust in the ONE, then you must accept all manifest and unmanifest as God realised perfection. Under the blanket of Oneness we see divinity in every expression. When we envision perfection in every conscious moment there is no need to reward the good and cast down the bad. All is God, all is good.
Separation from free will can never lead to truth. Instead of conforming to demands of scripture, we are better served following the will of our soul. Each soul is here to choose from the plenum a reality which will futher the evolutionary path of the ONE. All choice is God taking yet another step.
Right and wrong/good and bad must be illusion for the one who seeks truth. When we enslave ourselves to concepts like Heaven, Hell and Karma we create a world of judgement. From the perspective of the ONE there can be no good or bad. There is only Godliness, which in it's essence is love and perfection. If you search your heart and find anything other than love. You must then ask yourself, why does illusion persist?
Concepts of Karma dis empower the GodSelf, this is a most tragic loss. I am God, all choice I make is perfect. There is nothing I could do which is not Godly. Give this gift of Godself truth to everyone and every moment. This gift is called unconditional love, it is your true nature.
God as judge, the one who determines your next life or after life experience.
From the bowels of Karma sit judgement in the form of reward or retribution. How can this make any sense to the one who seeks truth?
Reward and punishment can only be functions of a God separate from self. God did not make the universe, God became the universe. All creation is God, nothing cowers in abeyance. You cannot covet future gains by actions of social fidelity. You are God, choose that which you desire. Don't wait for future rewards, choose to own all rewards now, in this life. We will never find truth in conforming for the benefit of reward. Karma is a sexy posit as it is found waving it's banner from high ground. For most people, it makes sense to believe that good behaviour will be rewarded and bad behaviour will reap just torment. This is an illusion, the seeker of truth will eliminate concepts of bad and good. See every moment through a lense of unconditional love and acceptance. See God in every expression and you will find yourself on the path to truth, freedom and enlightenment.
Namaste, I see the God in you. Do you see the God in others?
Comments
http://emergingvisions.blogsp
— Dec 19, 2009
http://emergingvisions.blogspot.com
Karmic Stream
Ripples
along the lazy stream of time
crossing the whirlwind of space
rippling crevices
in the contours of my mind.
Expecting miracles.
One day precedes the next.
I am reminded of a
faultless day in spring.
Next I know I am hauling logs
in winter
cold, icy hands and feet
dripping nose
exhausted and wilting.
There are no promises.
None to hold them to.
There are no changelings of the night
not even aliens to remove us.
There is energy
There is form
There is shadow receding
into substance.
There is here and now receding
into there and then.
There are the promises we keep
never knowing we have made them.
Ripples
shining in the sun
colours of a thousand worlds' rainbows.
Ripples quietly receding
infinitely regressing
first cause
last effect.
(c) Feb. 18, 2006 Laurie Corzett
A cosmic question with numerous answers -
— Dec 20, 2009
Judgment is a part of human nature; we express judgment in the form of preferences within minutes after birth. For instance, a newborn prefers to look at a symmetrical face rather than an asymmetrical one. Based on experiences as a child as well as innate intellect, etc., over time her or his character will develop, and s/he will judge herself or himself and what s/he encounters quite differently from anyone else. In my opinion, we don't "know" one way or another the origin of the cosmos or why we're here - so if the idea of karma helps people to get along and to do "good" in the world, then I'd say it's a useful concept.
If I'm reading your posting as you intended, then like you, I believe religion has taken advantage of this characteristic and created the concept (aye, the "LAW") of karma to control and even enslave its followers. It's like "The Secret," the "LAW" of attraction. "The Secret" provides us with a "feel good" law, whereas religion uses a similar secret to create a fear-based law. The "LAW" of this, the "LAW" of that - it's like a science of religion and faith. However, if someone chooses to adhere to that faith, I have no contempt or disagreement with them; as long as we are conscious, we "choose" that which we believe, whether by subtle indoctrination or independent outside immersion - most likely, some of both.
My idea of what others may call "God" notwithstanding, I don't see unconditional love in the acts of Hitler and his regime, nor do I see him burning in a recondite, perpetual furnace called Hell. What I do see is Hitler's "leftovers" (in the form of waves and particles) spreading out across the cosmos, perhaps encountering energies "near and far" with which his remains resonate as well as energies that extend unconditional love. That which resonates with a desire to inflict torture and pain (commonly thought of as "bad" or "evil" energy) may empower the remains, while that which ripples out unconditional love and healing ("good" energy) may help attenuate the damage...
And that idea may change tomorrow, but that's how I can express it today.
Stace Tussel
...
— Dec 20, 2009
Very nice blog here, and I like your picture that you used sir.
I would agree with your view about Karma. In my opinion the only good reason to help rather than harm others, or make the choice between what we call good and evil, is not because of some outside reason or motivation... whatever that may be.
I like to call it an aesthetic choice. You like to call it God's true nature. Both are essentially different operating views of the same thing... because 'God', being god, is only capable of making aesthetic choices.
That being said... I have experienced a 'balancing' effect in my own life and I've known other witnesses of this effect, that 'what goes around comes around'. I believe it to have some degree of truth.
I like to call God, The Future. In my Highschool yearbook from 2001 under the section "what will you be doing in 10 years", under myself I wrote "I will be God".
But it's like a broken vase, and I'm holding up a piece of it and saying 'this is the vase'.
There is an element of mystery at work here, you must admit. But that's what makes it exciting.
Namaste,
Meade
life lessons
— Dec 20, 2009
Gives me strong feelings about the difference between knowledge and wisdom. What is meant to be answered through thought. And what is meant to be answered through feeling and understanding over the course of a lifetime, rather than a google!
I enjoyed reading this too,
— Dec 21, 2009
I enjoyed reading this too, I like how you wrote it GodIAm.
I hate when people say "Karma's a bitch." It's just such a mean and nasty phrase, and it's only used when someone thinks someone else deserves some sort of comeuppance.
That's a good word, comeuppance. I guess that's what Karma has become to a lot of people. People confuse it with Calvinistic thinking. That's what your post got me thinking about, anyway.
I suppose that's just the way of things -- people have a way of misconstruing things to fit their agendas. Maybe that's what happened to Karma.
But it's good to know people think beyond what the general idea has become. There is a lot more to it, you're totally right. Thanks for sharing the history on the word too
-Joanne
Liberating
— Dec 21, 2009
I love this, and I am so appreciative for your wise input that so often adds an incredible dash of insight into the dish of life I currently enjoy. Freedom is love and love is the ultimate truth!
Namaste,
Ginnie Jester
www.everyempress.com
The main objection I have to
— Dec 22, 2009
The main objection I have to the idea of Karma as debt, is that it implies that the reason we should be moral is to avoid punishment and be eligible for rewards. The way I see it, the reason to live morally is because that is what allows us to embody our divine aspect. There is no greater boon than this and no greater pain than the absence of it. Any additional reward or punishment doesn't makes sense.
I think there is such a thing as karma but it is the means of understanding, not justice. If you came to this world to understand forgiveness, for instance, you would need to have something to forgive. Karma is what makes sure you get it. I see karma as helpful rather that retributive.
Another thing that occurs to me is that the events of our lives are not good or bad in themselves but only according to our interpretation. I've had plenty of experiences in my own life that, at the time and even long after, I judged to be bad. I regretted them and suspected that they were some sort of punishment. I now realise that those experiences were priceless gifts. Without them, I would not understand what I do and I would not be who I am.
Love, Amanda
"Kamma" aka Karma...Is...?
— Jan 04, 2010
When One thing ends, another One Continues & Renews iTSeLF 2 Begin...What I was born to do?
One's Karma...is Inescapable at times...It's the Undeniable fact that you are Ultimately YOU, and NOTHING ELSE...
Lovely, and Assuring, no?
Karma from my perspective
— Apr 19, 2010
From my experiences and recollections of past lives, I have come to find that karma is a real and deep experiential teacher of the oneness of this reality (though I think karma may work differently or not exist in other realms). Generally I find that if I do something in one life, I receive it back usually not in that particular lifetime, but in another. For instance, I drunkenly abused my wife in one life, and then was the drunkenly abused in another. I molested girls in one life, and was molested in this one. It is in this way I am learning both sides of these situations, and how to have forgiveness and compassion and understanding in each. I don't think karma is punishment nor reward; it is a learning tool. And I don't think karma is just a way to control behavior, to fear people into doing the "right" thing. I have grown more as a soul by experiencing the murderer/murder victim karmic archetype than if had I never engaged in murder. I think these karmic patterns are schools of learning here. I don't think that karma makes anything right or wrong, or imprisons me in any kind of hell. I am simply experientially learning more about myself by receiving the mirror image of the way I behaved by my free will. I think these karmic events can be fated to happen, but they are fated so because the soul beforehand chose that he or she would like to learn from that experience.
I feel that these karmic patterns are some of the deepest understandings of events in the earth realm. I believe that karma runs down family lines, countries, communities, and that it is all fractals of original tribal karmic patterns. I feel that experiencing and becoming aware of these karmic patterns brings understanding that what we do to the other, we do to ourselves.
I aim to respect and honor all views, but I wanted to share mine because karma is such a large part of my worldview.
a karmic example from my soul history, as best as I can remember
— Apr 20, 2010
Aha! I see now why I was so triggered by this post, especially by my saying "I aim to respect and honor all views." I will include you all in my spiritual processing of this, as it demonstrates my understanding of karma:
In a past life, when I was fresher in this Earth school, I was in cahoots with a pig-demon and some like-minded friends. This was India, or not India, but around there, and we were running amock causing chaos and destruction. We really wanted to go there, so we went up to the temple(s?) and set fire to them. I remember the scene of brutally killing the monks there. I remember having a conversation with one of them; he was telling me of karma and reincarnation and God. The lustful power of violence boiling in my blood, I remember taunting him with his beliefs while brutally murdering him. I guess I felt a need to rebel against his god because I interpreted it in a patriarchal way that his god was suppressing my free will, my power. Dark times, not a fun ego trap to fall into (though another drop in the bucket for infinite consciousness). Anyway, that was why I felt so uneasy about my saying "I aim to respect and honor all views" about karma because it brought up that unconscious feeling of uneasiness from that lifetime.
Anyway, the flip side of that beauty was another life where I was further along in my Earth-soul development and was practicing some form of Chinese spiritual calligraphy. I would have these long vertical scrolls that I would meditatively practice for hours in my very small shrine house. I would be coming up with spiritual adages for the townspeople and copying spiritual texts by hand (I think, not sure about that one). It was a lovely way to meditate on the quandaries of god and a peaceful life. But, wouldn't you know, I had a visitation from my former self. My shrine was lit fire to and I was killed after my hands were tortured. The torturer delighted in such torture because I lived to write these scrolls. Today my hands are jaggedly criss-crossed with lines, much more so than other people's, and I feel that is because they still carry the energy of that experience (although I think my hands were tortured another time as well). Anyway, in my opinion the best way to resolve karma in those situations (and all situations, really) is to love, accept, and forgive the perpetrator completely. The karma in this life was also that in the first life I burned down their temple that contained all their sacred texts. And so in life number two I devoted my entire life to my scrolls, and feel what it felt like to lose my accumulated work, because in life #1 I was ignorant of the effects of my actions. I feel that these lives and others of destroying spiritual texts is part of my karmic duty in this life to work to unite people with spiritual knowledge.
Thanks for providing the opportunity to trigger up some soul work. May my actions that have caused pain be transformed into winged gifts of healing knowledge. Amen!
Namaste, my sister....
— Apr 23, 2010
Thank you so much for your perspective on Karma as well your past live memories. I believe we agree on the fundamental aspect of what role Karma may play in the soul's experience. I differ somewhat from your more Buddhist biased approach. I too have had past life regression done highlighting supposedly past life experiences.
I have contemplated at great length on this subject. So far I remain undecided if I had revisited my personal past lives or other lives from the great collective of soul experience. What if such past live rememberances were in fact only experiences chosen by my Ego biased mind in an effort to fulfill a need to synchronize a past with a present. Escaping from the illusion of time as a linear construct. Escaping from the illusion of one specific and separate point of consciousness. When we see time as a perfect moment of NOW. Past, present and future as one perfect eternal moment of isness.
I feel as though my soul is much like a drop of water, from the sea to the sea. We leave the ONE and find a path back.
Namaste, my sister Shiva, star of great light and love...
how are the curtains of consciousness laid?
— Apr 23, 2010
I think it's definitely important to discern if a recollection of another life is personal, ancestral, or just part of the collective. I find ancestral memories to sometimes be the most difficult to discern, and I have read at least one account in a past life book that I felt was someone's ancestral account although they were under the impression that it was their own. I have a long list going of all the different past lives I've uncovered, and the majority of them I definitely feel are my soul because I energetically feel it very strongly as myself, the memory is very strong, and it is something I feel my soul has brought in with me in this incarnation to work through. But other memories seem to influence my life strongly, but when I really feel the energy, I think it's an ancestral memory even though it can feel like "me" because I'm looking off the same branch of the human tree as they were. Memories of the collective seem to me to be the weakest. I recalled one that I feel came from a demonic entity that was attached to me but was also attached to this other person. I have had times driving where I will randomly pick up impressions from many different lives who have lived in the area, but it's easy for me not to confuse those with my own. I have a particular memory that doesn't seem to be me or my ancestors but is so vivid I've wondered if that person is in my life path lineage, because I feel that there are rays of lives that are evolving on one another, although it's very transpersonal and the souls themselves are not connected.
As for linear time, I feel like all my incarnations are occurring in one Now time. I feel that my soul, my momentary division of consciousness, is in one moment of non-time being living all of my incarnations, and that the moment I took my first breath in my first body is the same as my eventual completion of the lessons here. That it's all occurring in one giant flash, just like all of creation. I feel when I'm remembering another life, it's not really a "past life," it's a simultaneously occurring life, although it can seem like it's "past" because I think there is a lineage of soul evolution. I think that my more evolved lives are all existing, too, but some part of myself is choosing not to let my current self have consciousness of those lives. I've been toying with the idea that not all of my "past" lives (meaning, past as in earlier soul evolution) have occurred in history's past, and that many of them occur in history's future. I deeply agree that I am a drop of water that is journeying to my reunion, but I feel that there are many incarnations, realms, experiences that will occur before that division lifts. For the divine seems to be enjoying this experience of being me grinding my noggin noodles trying to discern the invisible workings of reality that I feel that I have, on another level, crafted in the first place.
But, as you, GodIAm, said so eloquently in a comment elsewhere, "We all see God with a different lense, in this fact there is divine beauty." Thank you for your thoughts; this is one of my favorite subjects to ponder and it's always nice to dialog with someone whose mind has traveled the same waters.
