Theos-Talk Archives (February 2005 Message tt00173)

Hi Leon,
I have been doing some serious study over the past couple of days on the Creators, the Heirarchies, and man's karma. And I would like to respond withthese passages that I have found relevant.
 
As Buddha said, "Everything we are is the result of what we have thought" -- 
implying that our past life thoughts influence the karma that determines who 
we are in our present life. I assume this implies that changing those thoughts 
can effect changes in the karma that results in who we are at any given 
moment, and who we will become in the next life. 

HPB on Karma is not fatalism
"This is not superstition, least of all is it Fatalism. He cannot escape his ruling Destiny, but he has the choice of two paths that lead him in thatdirection, and he can reach the goal of misery - if such is decreed to him, either in the snowy white robes of the Martyr, or in the woiled garments of a volunteer in the iniquitous course; for there are external and internal conditions which affect the determination of our will upon our actions, and it is in our power to follow either of the two.
 
Baborka says that It is true that it is also stated that man cannot escape his ruling destiny, since he himself has created that destiny. For he alone set the causes in motion and must follow the reactions or results. Nevertheless, in spite of this, he still has the choice of two paths. No one but the individual himself will decree which of the two paths he will follow,for he has the power of choice. It is not so much the fact that he has to follow his ruling destiny, that is to say, to meet certain conditions of his own making, but it is important how he will react to the conditions in his present life. For he can alter the course that he is taking; also he cancreate a new pattern for his future life. This is not Fatalism.
 
HPB, "and this destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of the invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate astral or inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied entity called man....It(Karma) then either fixes him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or carries him away like a feather in a whirlwind raised by his own actions, and this is Karma. (I 639)
 
P644 Vol.I
It is a law of occult dynamics that "a given amount of energy expended on the spiritual or astral plane is productive of far greater results than the same amount expended on the physical objective plane of existence." This state will last till man's spiritual intuitions are fully opened, which willnot happen before we fairly cast off our thick coats of matter; until we start acting from within, instead of ever following impulses from without. Until then the only palliative to the evils of life is union and harmony - a Brotherhood IN ACTU, and altruism not simply in name. The suppression ofone single bad cause will suppress not one, but a variety of bad effects.  
And we can either try opening up a crack in our spiritual intuitions now orwait until, it is opened, when we are part of the 6th root race.
 
Unfortunately my reading of this is that when we were endowed with mind in the middle of the third root race, and mind was gifted to us by the Lower Pitris in order for self consciousness to evolve, our third eye, the eye of dangma was closed. Our self consciousness cut us off from higher manas andblinded us to seeing things as they really are and as we had to evolve intelligence through the thinker (lower manas) and could then only see things as relative events of course we would make errors of judgement. But I think it is all part of the evolving process of intellect, and our original sin, was that we had to learn about the purpose of life through action and reaction of lower mind. Which is very self protective and although we have different personalities every life, our skandas ensure that we don't remember to forget our past behaviours and actions. So in a way, our personalities have a defacto immortality through the skandas, no?
 
Also, from what I have been studying, our Atlantean Ancestors had knowledgeof the spiritual world and the heirarchies that made it up, and used this knowledge to make slaves of the holy by the use of mesmerism, hypnotism andwere on the path of creating species outside of the divine plan of evolution. Interestingly enough, we seem to be in the same situation some thousands and thousands of years later, as karma nemises returns to address the balance and provide an opportunity to, this time, choose to live in harmony with nature or continue to abuse the laws of nature and in so doing, choose our eventual destruction.
 

Gaining a fully comprehensive understanding of our true nature is a challenge, as we, in this life time, have to address the balance of our true nature in a past life. And as we have no recollection of what we were or what actions we chose, life can appear to be very unfair. In real life terms. In this lifetime, I believe I am a very fair and just human being yet twice the issue of Justice has arisen in my life, in terms of others being unfairand unjust to me. The first time I was fighting for my children's inheritance which was being wasted and currently I am battling a lessee who is attempting to sue me for breech of contract based on lies and false accusations. Even though on both occasions I did the honourable thing, so I put thisdown to me being horribly unfair and unjust in some other life, else thereis no rhyme or reason for it. I was successful in the first case and I believe I will be successful in this current case, as I have done everything humanly possible to
readdress the balance, however if this is not the case then I will just have to wear it. And hopefully will not have to deal with any more past karma of this kind in this lifetime!

I guess,if I could see it as the Monad sees it, I would understand precisely why these things occur, but as I cannot see it from there, all I can do is try to be good at being good.

An old friend of mine once told me that as Theosophists we must act in accordance with our principles but that does not mean that we must role over and die to anyone's accusations, that we would be no good to any master, if we are not able to stand on our own two feet to discriminate between what isa right action and what is a wrong action. That, as theosophists, we havea duty to weather all storms by standing our ground, but by allowing the storm to rage all around us. Good advice, I think.

Regards

Cass

 


leonmaurer@aol.com wrote:


Dear Dallas,

Thank you for your reflections. 

I also have no argument with the teachings of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, 
nor do I disagree with the Aphorisms on Karma offered by WQJ. However, I still 
believe that a view of the mechanisms of karma are far more complex than 
simply seeing it as a direct cause-effect process that acts directly and 
inevitably without interference's, either from external sources, or by our individual 
thoughts and actions. 

As Buddha said, "Everything we are is the result of what we have thought" -- 
implying that our past life thoughts influence the karma that determines who 
we are in our present life. I assume this implies that changing those thoughts 
can effect changes in the karma that results in who we are at any given 
moment, and who we will become in the next life. 

Of course, this doesn't mitigate the karma caused by our thoughts (and 
resultant actions) in the past that results in skandas that follow us in this and 
our next lives... But, it also gives us a hint (verified by Judge's aphorisms) 
that such karma can be interfered with, mitigated, transcended or avoided by 
means which are left relatively obscure -- other than by a more or less 
simplistic admonition to follow the yogic path of harmlessness and compassion as 
outlined in the Voice of the Silence and other yogic teachings, or as Krishna 
covered in the Bhagavad Gita. 

Nevertheless, I still think that all such results can only be determined by 
each of us through our own individual study and practice, i.e., meditation, 
followed by life affirming actions, that leads to a fully comprehensive 
understanding of our true nature (and all the powers to change our karma that that 
implies). 

attempting to "enlightenment" (which I see as, taking the burden of our karma off 
our backs, so to speak) is achieved, and we realize our unity with the higher 
Self and become that "beness" -- all such karma that adheres to the lower 
self, now discarded as an eternal reality in our higher mind or Buddhi nature, no 
longer applies to our present or future being. 

Thus, in my view, karma cannot be such a simplistic concept as an unerring 
and inevitably direct cause and effect, as some theosophical teachers and 
students, and most theologians interpret it -- e.g., "an eye for an eye anda 
tooth for a tooth" -- as some have misinterpreted the Mosaic admonitions with 
respect to karma -- which should be interpreted as "give" rather than "take," as 
Jesus advised.

I hope this further clarifies my thoughts on the metaphysical aspects of 
karma -- besides the purely scientific view I have of its actual coenergetic 
inter-field mechanisms based on the fundamental laws of cycles and periodicity in 
conjunction with their derived laws of electricity and magnetism -- that I have 
devoted the past 40 years trying to comprehend and codify in conjunction with 
the cutting edges of the observed and mathematically correlated physical 
sciences. Whether I have been successful in this or not, still remains to be seen.

However, there are still many unanswered questions about the nature of karma 
still to be thought about... Although, I have no disagreement with you about 
its inevitability to be handled as "unfinished business" to be held over inas 
many lives as necessary to resolve or mitigate it by counteraction, or 
transcend it entirely, by realization of who we really are. 

Best wishes,

Lenny 

Feb 7 2005


Dear Lenny:


Many thanks for your thoughts.


Since we are IMMORTALS, and I can grasp that, it is logical (to me) that any

karmic "unfinished business" will be held over to a future life, I believe

a figure of 7 lives is mentioned in the "Aphorisms on Karma.". 


As far as I can see we all have a tendency to think that when we die the

slate is wiped clean. Then the moral strictures are voided. I would say

that is impossible. They sink or rise on the same basis. Destroy one and

the other vanishes.


The "Lower Mind" seeks all kinds of ways to cast doubts at the ETERNAL

PHILOSOPHY. Only the HIGHER MIND can vanquish it.


The lower mind limits itself to this incarnation and has a limited horizon.

Also It loves to do evil and then hide. An it invents indefensible arguments

as shields against exposure. Those have to be systematically knocked down. 


Honesty is the ONLY policy. 


Dallas


Read:


"Fearlessness, sincerity, assiduity in devotion, generosity, self-restraint,

piety, and alms-givings, study, mortification, and rectitude; harmlessness,

veracity, and freedom from anger, resignation, equanimity, and not speaking

of the faults of others, universal compassion, modesty, and mildness;

patience, power, fortitude, and purity, discretion, dignity,

unrevengefulness, and freedom from conceit¯ these are the marks of him whose

virtues are of a godlike character, O son of Bharata. 


Those, O son of Pritha, who are born with demoniacal dispositions are marked

by hypocrisy, pride, anger, presumption, harshness of speech, and ignorance.

The destiny of those whose attributes are godlike is final liberation, while

those of demoniacal dispositions, born to the Asuras' lot, [suffer]

continued bondage to mortal birth; grieve not, O son of Pandu, for thou art

born with the divine destiny." BHAGAVAD GITA, p. 110


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


-----Original Message-----

From: LeonMaurer@aol.com [mailto:LeonMaurer@aol.com] 

Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2005 8:18 PM

To: dalval14@earthlink.net

Subject: Re: FW: Collective Karma, an Esoteric Perspective


Dear Dallas,


Since Zakk only used the quantum theory concepts as a metaphor to bolster his 

judgment with respect to the nature of how he believes karma works, I have

no argument with him. As I said before, karma works in very mysterious ways. 

And I don't think there is any way to prove whether or not past life

experiences are directly related to current or future life effects. 


I think there is much in the way of interference by both conscious and 

unconscious acts of others that determines the way any present action will

react -- 

since it's easy by such random or consciously directed processes to either 

reinforce or cancel out any vibratory action or karmic information,regardless 

of whether or not one is the original causer of such action. This, of 
course, 

relates to the quantum ideas of indeterminacy. And, BTW, is the only way I 

could imagine a Master interfering with someone else's karma, or any initiate 

being able to consciously transcend, mitigate, or transform his own karma.


On the other hand, since much of karma is dependent on the thoughts in the 

mind, I do think that a mental grudge against a perceived wrong in a past 
life 

can reassert itself in a future lifetime when the being who experienced those 

wrongs meets up with the causer and, perhaps, even unconsciously, although, 

possibly, by subliminal recognition, metes out punishment for the past wrong

by inadvertently upsetting the perp's apple cart, so to speak. 


Accordingly, I don't believe that all karma can be based on direct cause and

effect without random interference's getting in the way.


But, that as far as I go in trying to figure out how past karma reasserts 

itself in the present. I do think, however, in more or less agreement with

Zakk, that the general idea of it presented by theosophy is far too 
simplistic... 

But, I suppose that's the nature of any exoteric teaching that is trying to 

make a moral point -- e.g., "be good or karma will punish you" -- to

relatively ignorant students. :-)


In any event, I'm sure that karma, being different for each of us, and 

assuredly malleable with respect to our own thoughts and meditational 
practices, a comprehensive understanding of its mechanisms can only 
be determined by our own individual study and effort to attain self 
realization.


Warm regards,


Lenny



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