Hi everyone,
first let me say "thank you" for all this PUL in this lovely conversation board

I am a bit confused about this "Karma thing". I see and hear the word, everywhere.

I am going to use myself as an example for all newbies and I hope to understand the messages being sent when you answer. I am here to learn from you okay.

Lets say Nanner was a very poor man in her previous life, Nanner hurt & killed people so he could have money. Nanner also stole future city planning information out of the city Hall and sold it to the next city about 10 miles down the road, inturn the city inwhich Nanner lived in lost a considerable amount of business and thus lots of businessman had to give up their stores and jobs were lost, people went hungry. Nanner died at the age of 49 of the Pest and didnt understand prior to being deceased "that he did something wrong which effected many peoples lives for the worse"..

Did Mr. Nanner reap bad Karma which he has to "balance out" in his next incarnation, or how does it corilate with his next life?

Thanks for any any all help - this is a brain burner for me...
Ms. Nanner 

From a slightly different perspective, karma means "action". It refers to cause and effect. f you fail to put gas in your car, your karmic consqeuence is that it runs out of gas and stops. The cure for that karma is to put gas in the car. That's the simple case.

Motivations and such seem more complicated, but they actually are quite similar. If you are hung up on getting a gold watch for Xmas, then you will tend to shape your life in whatever way seems most likely to succeed in that regard. Given adequate time, you will acquire the gold watch. (In my clinic I occasionally find people who desired marriage, and who eventually got together after several intervening lifetimes. Same kind of thing.) The karmic consequences are that you will have changed the path of your life by being attached to the gold watch. That might be useful, or it might be an interruption of a more valuable activity. It's just a case and effect relationship.

With respect to moral events, to perform an immoral act means that either (1) you know no better and are ignoring that little inner voice that keeps trying to tell you not to do that, in which case your values are screwed up; or (2) you feel that you can do this, even though you know it is immoral, hurtful or whatever, in which case you are probably unaware of what you are doing in an ultimate sense, while trying for short term optimization, which is often why our values get screwed up. Both cases are errors in judgement.

The solution for errors is to stop making them. This is accomplished by first understanding that something doesn't work. (Examination of conscience.) Second, we have to own our actions, so we can repudiate them. (We confess our errors to one another.) Third, we abandon both the actions and their fruits. (Contrition.) Fourth, we do as much damage control as possible. (Penance.) And finally, we go on with life. Notice that this is essentially the Catholic ritual of confession and that it works quite well by separating us from the initial causal actions.

It is not necessary that you will have to experience everything you did to others. That misses the point. It is only necessary to understand what went wrong and that you alter your life style. As an example, we all were selfish brats as infants, and in early childhood we eventually learned that life works better when we respect the needs of others. It is not necessary to go back and relive the mistakes, like not going potty as Mom told us, nor must we relive  their consequences, like pooping our pants. We merely must change our outlook. Otherwise we'd have a lot of adults pooping their britches and crying for Mom because of some arcane connection.

The idea of "justice" has nothing whatsoever to do with karma. Justice is a human idea. The Hammurabbi "eye for an eye" is simply a way to feel better while gouging out your opponents organs because now you can have vengeance, satisfying your rage and hatred somewhat. Justice implies punishment, and punishment is the least useful way to change behavior. The way we larn to do better is generally by reinforcement from things that pay off, regardless of concepts of "justice".

Recall the Prodigal Son. The requirement to return to the Father (or your return to God) was merely to stop doing stupid things. All the pain and agony that we so often associate with that kind of reform is simply because we usually get pretty well beaten up ourselves when we are in the business of hurting others. The karmic aspect is that pissing people off causes us problems. That's not any metaphysical mystery. 

There is a connection between prior actions and life. If we act in an imoral manner, our actions will contain a seed of self-destruction. An example is the tyrant who seeks to impose peace through military attacks and warfare.  That act leads to a sense of personal establishment of a new self-status. But it is based on an error. It cannot survive.

If nothing is done, later on that part of the person's definition will lack validity, because it is based on error, and the error will tend to spread into related areas etc. This limits access to life. It appears that schizophrenia may be one of the results when the errors involve most of the self-definition of the actor. "I am the meanest SOB on earth and I am wonderful because I can tear the ears off my opponents." This puffed up idea may dominate life today, but is in error. It will cause later problems because the errors do not survive rebirth, leaving a person with defective and disjointed thought patterns which are related to the self-defined role of the prior life.

Those who reject the error and live a good life can restore access to life by rebuilding the parts that were damaged by errors. In one case I know of a person who participated in a murder, and later became a surgeon, in which capacity he daily saves lives, a compensatory action that has restored him to a good life.

In summary, if we focus on loveing kindness and global oneness, joyful actions for the universal benefit, and on logical understandong and increasing awareness, then we have gotten rid of the errors to that degree. By maintaining those good works, we cease to create negative karma. We next enter "satchitananda", which Catholics call "the state of grace", and everything is OK thereafter. In that sense, karma is what we do to ourselves due to attachments to stuff that doesn't work. Getting rid of attachments to stuff that doesn't work ends negative karma. The final purgation of errors is nirvana, in which our attachments to useless stuff gets "blown out", extinguished due to lack of interest.

Interestingly, I spent most of last night recalling my own mistreatment of my associates in the past. In those areas of life in which I was tardy in recognizing that I had screwed up, I found that I was rejected. In areas in which I worked to make a difference, I was accepted. That's not mysterious - nobody likes a person who messes things up. Nothing even remotely mysterious about it.

Happy holidaze! Let this be a season of rebirth!

dave

Nicely written Dave! Thanks

dave_a_mbs wrote on Dec 18^th, 2007 at 9:40pm:


OOOooh Dave that is very interesting because after reading all the threads, I got away from the pc, sat down took out a sheet of paper and divided it into 4 sections. childhood days / youth / young adult / adult. I wrote down in each section so far what I can remember doing to others which I felt "changed their life or hurt them. 

In my little project I can already see that as of young adult age, the list got longer however not so tragic...Adult was therefor more tragic or impactful. 

Nanner

Hi! Nanna,

My view on Karma is disbelief and I find it illogical I posted a thread earler "My difficulties with Karma and Reincarnation"

I dont like being punished for something I cant remember or having to live over and over again. As for me I am going to move on to higher things into my beautiful realms and dimentions much better than this monocrome earthly existence. For those who insist they are going to be born again and again, God will give them their wish. "But I know for absolute surity that my next existence will not be confined to this earth"

Love

Alan

I guess we each have to make our own calls Alan.

I can't know how karma works or even if the framework is broadly indicative of some reality (except at the level of everyday life where it's fairly clear that my actions have consequences, and some fairly definite suggestions that karmic issues are at play in my present life) but (b) it seems fairly likely that I can't just arbitrarily decide where I'm headed for next time up.

I'm rather hoping it's not the vengeful God, devils, hell and eternal suffering model that applies.

The reality we're left with though is that it's hard to avoid the conclusion that egotistical and selfish behaviours lead to unhappiness ......

Hi! Guys,

Nanna, dear, you are a compassionate soul having cried for the whole world. I believe your tears of sorrow did more good for peace on earth than all the efforts of the United Nations orgination since its foundation. What would be the enormous effect if all good peole wept like you did? Your tears moved the very hand of God

How do I know that this is my last incarnation or existence on this earth. I am an old weary soul looking for a city not made by man but by God.

I have a deep inner knowledge, from the Divine Source that I am going to progress to higher things when shed this mortal body.  The mortal body had been a real burden to me as I have had to endure and overcome unspeakable health problems.

I am already in this life and out of this life daily if you get my drift

Love you all,

Alan

OOOOOOOOOOOOOH Man - oh Man..

I decided to jump off of the bridge into cold water, and I just burnt my butt folks. Want to share this with you.

After reading and writing towards the topic - Karma - I decided I was going to search for a Karmaastrologist in germany,  (didnt even know there was such a thing..lol) Now I do.

This beautiful soul did a Karma reading for me. I am still floored!

Heres the scoop on some of it.

She saw 3 lives which I`ve lived on "earth" so far, whereby I am in my 3rd.
I was a woman in the first one, a man in my last one and guess what, a woman in this one (like you have noticed that already huh?)

In my first life I was a bi**h from hooter-town (fictive town, just using the term for laughs), I used every male that I could claw my hands on, I was a very very bad woman. She said I was a very very beautiful woman though. I laughed, and she said "I mean that seriously", you were extraordinary blessed with all attributes which a male would want in a female, but you were mean to their souls, and you took em for everything they had and bled there soul down to starvation of it. I asked if I were a prositute or something like that, she said "no" a regular woman in life - no higher nor lower living standard.

I chooked coughed and said "are you telling me I was Dracula`s ole lady and sucked the blood out of all these guys or what". She said "sort of like that" just on a material basis. You ate them up for everything it was worth. You knew "no love at all", that word didnt exsist for you. That gave you very bad Karma, for you didnt practise love at all either.

In my next life I was a male, there too I was a horrific person, I killed, stole, raped, beat and hurt many, I was thrilled by the sensation of anger, hate and such. I was positioned in higher standard in life on earth and used my authority for negative purposes. So I said Quote un`Quote: "Awwww Scheisse", whats up with my common sense, didnt I know back then "what comes around goes around".. She tells me, "yes, you did know the difference you choose however to ignore this fact".. Again bad  bad Karma...

well then she goes to my "this life" and stops talking for about 3 min.  
and says, Honey - you`ve graduated!  
I say: "what?"
She said, OMG you have been thru so much in this life that you cleaned up the fatel mistakes of love ...

and then she goes on into telling me "what I have been thru in this life so far"- ( I can tell you the woman named "each single situation for real") U felt naked, bare butt naked! I sat there and started to shiver from head to toe - still am folks. Feel like I have the shakes, really weird right now.

But in anycase - she tells me - you`ve graduated, so I said "now what, am I gonna drop dead and cross over or what": She continues with, "your destiny is now to help and provide others with insight until you return home". She told me about my health right this moment, when it started, why it started, told me when it started to return to normal, told me about my being raped, beaten, shot at, stabbed, about the children I have helped, and the souls which are in my apartment right this very minuite,

Theres much more which she said however I need to calm down first.. and we`ll talk about it later maybe..

Wow what an experience. I felt like I was naked and being seen straight through.


Has anyone ever had something like this done for them?
Nanner