Karma 101

2007-8-4 03:20:00

Dean,

I do not have time to respond in detail to your post questioning my views on Karma and even if I did so the effect may be to bore many of the members. I have already written a lot on the subject that can be found in The Archives and after all these years I was under the assumption that the general principle of it is pretty easy to see as no one has expressed a problem understanding it.

While it is true that it may be difficult to explain the particular effects that any of us are currently experiencing, especially if it is a painful one, most seasoned souls have seen cause and effect work out in their lives to the extent that they realize that past action in this life and previous lives have provided the momentum for all that is now occurring.

It sounds like you think that if the person is sorry for past deeds that past deeds have no effect. This idea is not even true for an accident, let alone a consciously malicious act.

If a person injures a kid in an accident because he ran a stop sign and right afterward declares: "I learned my lesson. I'll never run a stop sign again!"

According to your thinking this immediately creates the effect of neutralizing the Karma involved, but does it?

No. The kid is still injured and the driver may still be sued or prosecuted. In addition he may suffer depression for some period of time for his carelessness.

I do not understand why you would disagree with my stance on this simple cause and effect that works out as Karma.

You also seem to think that once a person is reborn that all the negative effects of his past lives are neutralized. If the effects of ten minutes ago and ten years ago are still in play then why would something from 200 years ago not also be at play? I see no logic in your thinking here.

You say:

"For example if I steal a watch. The effect is that I have the watch. And the other person no longer has it. That is Karma and cause and effect."

So this is all you think Karma is. If you kill someone they no longer have a physical life and that is all there is to it? Not quite.

The reason you are not seeing the greater repercussions of Karma is that you are only examining cause and effect on the physical plane. This is complex enough to boggle the mind, but Karma is influenced by cause and effect also on the emotional, mental and higher planes.

Let us return to my physical plane example. We throw a handful of sand on the floor. As a general rule we know what will happen. There will be sand scattered all over. BUT as far as predicting and explaining why each grain ended up where it did we are looking at such complexity that a detailed description of the energy flow is not only impossible but not needed.

Why?

We do not need to know all the measurements that brought each grain of sand to where it is because the general understanding of how the sand got scattered is sufficient for most purposes.

Now let us go back to your more simple example of the watch. If you steal a watch then, yes, on the physical plane "the effect is that I have the watch. And the other person no longer has it."

You seem to think that is all there is to it but you overlook the causes and effects on the higher planes.

The person who steals the watch is feeling a greed and lust for that which does not belong to him. The person stolen from feels a sense of loss from losing something that was of value to him. Maybe his sense of loss is great because his beloved grandfather gave him that watch and it is also a collector's item worth a lot of money carrying also much sentimental value. Maybe he feels a link to his grandfather through the watch and the pain and loss from losing it is great. He thus sends feelings of emotional pain into the universal mind. In addition he sends feelings out that demand justice come to the thief.

He identifies with victims in the scriptures:

"And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

"And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"

(Revelation 6:9-10)

Just as even the holiest of saints wanted the Law of Karma to avenge them even so will the person who loses his watch to a thief make the same cry on a smaller scale.

This sending forth of powerful emotional energy is a cause that creates effects just as a physical action does.

The next thing that creates cause and effect that results in Karma is the power of thought. It is a true and ancient truism that "energy follows thought."

The loss of this valuable watch creates many thoughts in the victim. He thinks about how irreplaceable the watch is and how much it means to his emotional self. He wonders if the thief is even vaguely aware of the effect his action has created. He not only feels that the thief should face some justice, but he thinks about it and how satisfying it would be if the thief could understand what he did and be made to make some type of restoration.

From the results of this act of thievery the physical act has produced the smallest amount of cause. Greater than this is the emotional and mental energies released.

When the three energies are thus released they cause ripples in the mind of God which are picked up by intelligence that translates it into Karma. There is intelligence in matter itself, in emotional and mental matter that carries cause to an intelligent end. Think of these group intelligences as a great computer program with a purpose of creating justice and balance in the universe. Then too, higher lives watch the unfolding of events and if effects seem to be wavering from true justice they will step in and create new cause to guide events toward an end that will be fair and just.

For instance, those martyrs in the scripture quoted sent out great emotional energy asking for justice toward those who killed them. There are greater lives that assist in guiding events to make sure their prayer, and the just thoughts and feelings of others, will be answered.

  

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not."
  -- Galatians 6:7,9