Hi Alan-
Y'know, karma has absolutely nothing at all to do with punishment. Nothing. Nil. Nada. Zip. Zero.

We all have tendencies embodied ultimately in values which are intended to guide us toward suitable goals, and these goals are intended to motivate us toward the proper attitude by which we make day to day choices.

Even if our perceptions encompass everything and everybody and we act for the general good, we can still make terrible mistakes. This is the Hitler problem (or the George Bush problem, if you prefer) - trying to create some kind of stability and peace by inappropriate means. The effects of karma are to place us in the position of experiencing everything from a position in which we can understand what we are doing.

This is nothing new. We already know that there are three "persons" in any activity - the Platonic trio. There's 1st person, the Actor, and 2nd person, the Recipient of the act, and 3rd person, the Observer. If you look into Bardo Thodol and analyze the experiences described, they are not necessarily good or bad or anything. First we die and are 1st person, presenting ourselves to the afterlife. Then we sense the reaction as the 2nd person awareness comes to us in the form of the "wrathful spirits" - who aren't really wrathful if you aren't a bad person. Finally there is a sort of assemblage of spooks, sprites and spirits who present us with a 3rd person analysis that enables judgement and understanding.  Notice that there is nothing punitive here. Generally people are so overwhelmed by their lives that they go out of their way to choose a new life that avoids the pitfalls of the last one, and so on.

Now if you take that same sequence and apply it to Catholic Confession, as an example, we have the same thing. First we become aware as Actor. Then we emphathize with the Recipient of the actions. We do some damage control and we reject both what we did and also the fruits of our actions. We adopt a new way to do things that will work better, and we go on with life.  (Your priest might give you "Three Hail Marys and Three Our Fathers" but the hard work is in the realization.)

Look at the Prodigal Son. He turned from a bad actor to understand and then revise behavior. Then, having changed, the issue was resolved. There is no need to go back and experience all the stuff we did to others, nor to beat ourselves up, nor to subject ourselves to torture or whatever.  The only thing that makes karma seem like punishment is when we don't want to change - And then we're like St Francis who prayed, "Oh God, Give me chastity. ...  But not just yet."

Pulsar got it exactly right a week or so ago in his realization that ultimately we go into emptiness. (nirvastarka samadhi) And we carry our awareness with us, so it isn't all that empty after all. In fact, we each, by our nature and definition, populate emptiness with all the rest of the universe. In that sense we realize ourselves as God, and as Co-Creators of the universe (Cayce's term). If you have kinks in your thinking, then these manifest in your universe, together with their karmic consequences, which then lead to realizations that something isn't working very well.  In paraphrased Buddhist terms, "Suffering comes from attachments to things that don't work". Karma is the cause of the suffering, which is simply a cause and effect relationship. There's no punishment involved.

As an example, when we were infants, we wet our diapers, pooped and piddled and generally were pretty stinky and messy. We'd have kept on doing that except that karma, the ability to involve in cause and effect relationships, led us to a better way of doing things, and we became friends with a potty chair etc. There's no punishment. There's no need to go back to poop your pants again.  You just go on. Personally, I'd say that we're fortunate in that we can learn by karma.

dave

Dave said: In paraphrased Buddhist terms, "Suffering comes from attachments to things that don't work".

Yes, and it's amazing what we can actually let go of....but getting to the place where we will allow what is unecessary to simply drop away....for me, the experience is always one of grateful and often exhausted surprise, to find that everything is really okay all along.

It's just that all the noise I was making was not allowing me to hear that beautiful silence, and to feel that beautiful peace.

love, blink

dave_a_mbs wrote on Dec 19^th, 2007 at 7:25pm:


Yeah..the subject Mr. Bush holding on to the tigers tail. I wonder how much of all of this is "our own fault" because we collectively have indorsed that which he has followed thru with. What I mean to say is, the same in the Hilter thread. "We" the people of the world, didnt get up and say "NO". More so we reacted "confused, in awe, unpresidented and in limbo" of is it right or is it wrong. Maybe "we" collectively need to change our "view" of the whole thing and then "Mr. Bush" will be inclined to change his position on much. Open for suggestions.

Nanner

Dear Nanna,
I know in this life you are a passionate girl, but you were difinitely not the persons in the previous incarnations that this woman said you were.

Love

Alan

I believe that I had been these "evil" persons in my previous lives Alan. I know what you mean though, you are referring to me now...
I believe her because I have had 39 years to reflect on now and in recent years I have consciously reflected, looking at things a bit out of the ordinary, one might say. I had been suddenly set down on my butt by the Universe folks, put out of commission as some might call it. And this I believe had been done to "open my consciousness level"... I had been able to relate to the movie "Conversations with God" so well that it broke my heart to see that such happened to another person other than myself. (I am sure that many can relate to the movie in some form or fashion)..

I am taking my lessons now. And feel that if one takes a really real close look at themselves - I mean a under the microscope look and differs the "taught by mom & dad, society" things and "not taught by such", what remains is the core, then one can identify what happened to the soul in previous times.

I was a very very bad soul, yes and I hurt many - thus my quest has been in this life (interesting enough from the get go of consciousness) to help and love as many as I can. I am aware that I spread cheer, I am aware that I make people smile, sometimes I make them think about deep things, I am aware that I spread an aura of love to some...

For those that I can touch in some way shape or form - I owe you that feeling I give you right then and there, for in a previous life I may have hurt you in exactly the oppisite way. Giving you that feeling I gave you now, may be my way of restitution. So I love you with all of my might now, so I can catch up and proove that my Karma finially understands AGAPE love.




Nanner

Hi Nanner-

Just for the record, I did write and say "No!"

But you are correct in the notion that unless we collectively make our needs known we'll be overrun by those who want to change the world to suit some individual purpose.

I guess that the assumption that our leaders have insights that are as keen as our own can sometimes be misleading. To me it seems terribly obvious that one does not make peace by waging war. In fact, the series of human abuses that have come down through attachments to severe measures from the Middle Ages has still not been wholly settled, and already we're stirring up new mud to cloud the international scene.

This is really very simple stuff. But for those who don't want to admit it, there's nothing like outright denial.

dave

  Nanner, i'm so glad to hear that you have graduated and realize what's important now.    Like some here, i believe in karma, not as punishment meted to us by others, but as catalysts self chosen for spiritual growth.   I haven't had many of the challenges you have had, but i've had a pretty consistently challenging life in some respects and i realize that it was these experiences more than any other, which helped me to grow spiritually. 

  I remember reading a particular Cayce Life reading which always made me smile.  A man came to Cayce to have his other lives and nonphysical experiences read.  He was told by these guides that he had had some very negative patterns.   It seems he had been Nero in a life, and enabled or facilitated much suffering for others.

  He was born in this life with some major disabilities, but he was told that if he kept to his current path, that he wouldn't need to come to Earth anymore.  The guides were quick to tell him that he hadn't reached full spiritual perfection, but that there were other realms of experience and learning for him, if he so chose them.   Apparently he had learned well enough, the importance of love and service, something you also seem to know and more importantly practice.

   Some people who came to Cayce to have Life readings, were told that they had graduated from the Earth system, went into another system (usually through the Star Arcturus) but decided to come back to the Earth system for a definite purpose and to finish up their full completion here.

Thanks Ahso, in one way it makes sense what you wrote in another its confusing me. I`m not accustomed to the verbage used, such as "Disc". Pls. explain.

I`m sure that theres a bigger picture that needs to be seen for me to be able to digest what the lady had conveyed, and for some reason I felt she was merely referring to "earth lives" as being 3, I didnt ask her in which other realms/galaxies I have allowed my soul to take part in.

Never the less, it had been an expereince which I for sure will never forget and I believe it is the beginning of another wonderful journey.

I need to ask you a question though. How can a person tell that another person is an "old soul"?

Hugs,
Nanner