RE: Does KARMA play favorites ?
Dec 16, 1998 02:13 AM
by Dallas TenBroeck
Dec 16th 1998
Dome notes inserted hereunder
Dal
> From: "Richard Taylor" <richtay@aol.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 1998 4:16 PM
> Subject: Does KARMA play favorites ?
In a message dated 12/15/98 8:32:12 PM, you wrote:
<<>If we invoke the aspect of mercy and/or forgiveness, then what
>happens to the victims if something has been done to hurt them ?
This is an area in which karma becomes murky and too profound
to really be sure of what is going on. If someone hurts me, I
will
NOT feel better by knowing that that person is suitably punished.
I am not vindictive nor do I insist on "justice" in the sense of
an
eye for an eye. I would, in fact, forgive the person in the
hopes
that the person would then learn to forgive others. In a sense,
we are all "victims" in this world--victims of our own ignorance.
Jerry S.>>
Once again, I side with Jerry on this one. Karma, we are told,
IS a universal
and unerring law, as Dallas quotes (extensively). But who among
us has the
vision of the Lords of Karma, who can say exactly how this law is
meted out?
Dallas: that is not the question. The statements I posted are
the "Aphorisms on Karma" first published in PATH MAGAZINE March
1893. They are a description of the main tenets and means of
Karmic operation.
Even the Mahatmas don't dare interfere with its workings, because
They
Themselves don't have total and complete knowledge.
Dallas: I do not believe that any of us are in a position to
judge what the Mahatmas my know or not know. When we can write
as They have and produce an ISIS or a SD then we might dare write
this.
I suspect (and nothing
stronger than that) that Karma does indeed take note of true
contrition and
sorrow over misdeeds. Confession and repentence practices exist
in pretty
much every religion I know of. Are they all misguided? Surely
not.
Dallas: the point is not that they exist, but are they of any
real use ? I ask you are they fair to the victims ? Are they
only an expression of selfish fear made by the perpetrator who
fears, because he knows interiorly (intuition ?)that he has done
wrong and will have to pay for it ? [ See SD I 415-6 - where
prayers are described as "black magic." Are confession,
repentance and contrition of any use unless compensation and
restitution are arranged for ?
What is fair ?
But we
mustn't assume that Karma is a force to be bandied about either.
Even minor
actions *will* have their effect, we are told, though they may be
accompanied
by the very different karma of repentence.
I also would posit that cause and effect is not a linear,
easily-understood
doctrine. None of our actions is entirely "free" as it were,
being so
conditioned by our past. Nor must we think we are utterly
determined, as the
entire Lila (play) of this phantasmagoric universe would be
useless and not
"fun." The interactions of cause and effect in our
multi-leveled, multi-
motivated actions are complex, from the silent whisperings of the
highest
spiritual insight to the basest selfishness and ignorance --
simultaneously.
So who can judge just what is the cause, and what the effect?
Where does any
action truly begin, or end, at what "point" in time? And does it
matter? The
Masters merely say, "TRY."
Dallas: No one is asked to "judge." But to observe without
rendering "judgment."
The aphorisms give a basis for the studying of Karmic results and
interactions. No more. Karma does not care if we like or dislike
its action.
Yet it is multi-layered and not linear. Man is a seven-fold
being and lives in a seven-fold Universe. Everything is
spherical. Hence Cycles run everywhere. Karma is simply
Universal and Natural LAW which operates - everywhere on all
beings. It is the cause of manifestation and also of evolution
and of our own existence also.
Rich
theos-talk@theosophy.com
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