Theos-Talk Archives (August 2001 Message tt00168)

Thursday, August 16, 2001

Re: Karma in all Religions

Dear Gopi:

Reviewing most of the old religious texts basic to those great
"faiths" one may not be able to easily trace Karma in operation,
It is universal, impersonal, and ever-active. It is
indispensable and basic to all EXISTENCE. Life is an aspect of
it, as also the continuity of life as action is succeeded by
circumstances that it creates, and so on the cycle will roll,
propelled by the free-will of men and their many choices.

The Moral tales found in some myths appear to have been written
to demonstrate their existence. But when a priesthood took over
the ancient books and then erected a "faith" and a "religion" on
them they usually carefully edited those texts so as to remove
inconvenient facts.

Some of these are:


1.	KARMA and the inevitable justice each attracts to themselves
by their free choices.

2.	REINCARNATION OF THE IMMORTAL EGO. To admit this Eternal
HIGHER SELF, the priests would render their tenure impossible.

3.	The FREEDOM INNATE IN EACH HUMAN BEING.

4.	The fact that ALL "RELIGIONS" ARE ON THE SAME LEVEL and none
is "superior" to another.

5.	The fact that LIFE AND LIVING ARE EVENLY DISTRIBUTED TO ALL
FORMS OF LIFE. In other words the supreme GOAL of all evolution
is within the eventual reach of all those "Monads" that reside at
the core of every "form" -- from the inconceivably "small" to the
inconceivably large ( our UNIVERSE).

6.	The fact of the UNIVERSAL SPIRIT (or GOD) which entirely
pervades the manifested Universe. Hence no GOD is "outside" or
the "shaper and modifier" of the universe or is capable of
changing the "fate" of anything or anyone.

7.	Prayer, contrition, penance, to a "Personal God" to avert
punishment for wrongs done to others and "confessed" is totally
useless as the only reversal (or rather mitigation) is achieved
by redress performed directly to the victim or to his family by
the one who has done wrong. [ The actual practice of the
morality enjoined in the SERMON ON THE MOUNT would achieve
this. ]

8.	Hence the determined practice of UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD is the
ONLY method that will enable anyone to actually 'progress.'

There are probably more than this but some thought given to these
may prove helpful. But one can see at a glance that KARMA
prevails universally, or we could not be here now. We would have
no reason to persist in progressing. We would not be able to
understand how Nature supports our life, or what our small
contribution to Nature may convey.

Every statement made in the BHAGAVAD GITA (Krishna) or the
DHAMMAPADA (Buddha), or in the SERMON ON THE MOUNT (Jesus) will
be found based on KARMA as an actual living and active fact. No
VIRTUE can exist without its cooperative presence.

Perhaps there are more observations available on this ?

Best wishes,

Dallas

=========================





-----Original Message-----
From: Gopi Chari [mailto:ekcvv@juno.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 9:20 PM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: Fw: Re: New Directions III

Hi Larry,

Obviously, I did not state clearly what I meant by the Rows in
the spread
sheet.

I meant what HPB finds the common facts to be. For example
'Karma' may be
an item. I wonder how each of the religious books say the same
fact about
it. It is possible that the spread sheet may not be the correct
format.
We may have to say that each of the books as we use them may be
corrupted
and perhaps SD may throw some light on how they may be corrected
to the
original meaning. As you say, this is not a simple matter.

May be you can propose a procedure on how to get started!

Thank you

Gopi

On Wed, 15 Aug 2001 18:10:34 -0400 Larry F Kolts
<llkingston2@juno.com>
writes:
>
>
> On Wed, 15 Aug 2001 17:57:46 -0400 Larry F Kolts
> <llkingston2@juno.com>
> writes:
> > Hi Gopi,
> >
> > As far as a simple spreadsheet comparison of teaching of
various
> > religions, that sort of thing has been done many times over.
One
> > example is the comparison of twelve Christian denominations
in THE
>
> > WORLD ALMANAC. It compares these twelve as to origins,
> organization,
> > authority, special rites, practice, ethics, doctrine, etc. I
have
> > seen similar charts in books on world relgions from
publishers
> such
> > as Time/Life books.
> >
> > What we hope to do is much more far reaching and important.
To
> > locate within these religions that ancient kernel of truth of
> > contained in Theosophy but often clouded
> > over with layers of half-truths and mumpo-jumpo dogma as
these
> > religions have been passed down to us.
> >
> > One point I failed to make in my last post is that Theosophy
> always
> > teaches that truth must be "discovered" by the student. It's
easy
> to
> > give a book such as THE KEY or THE OCEAN to a friend and say
"read
>
> > this, it contains the truth". Our friend will reject this
most
> > likely with something like " well that stuff's not in MY
Bible".
> But
> > if we can point out certain verses in his own Bible (or
Koran,
> Gita,
> > Book of Mormon, etc) he will more likely respond favorably.
If we
> > ask "what does that verse say to you" and he can discern the
> eternal
> > verity hidden there, he will be so much the better.
> >
> > BTW, the three main branches of Judaism (in America at least)
are
> > Orthodox, Conservative and Reformed. Liberal is the same as
> > Reformed. To these three may be added the Ultra-Orthodox,
> including
> > the Hasidim.
> >
> > Larry Kolts
> > Moderator

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