Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Karma


Some people claim that karma is a doctrine of fatalism.
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Karma does not mean that everything is predetermined and that we should therefore just sit back and accept everything and make no effort to improve our lives or those of others. 
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If we find ourselves in a situation where we can help others and reduce some of the suffering and injustice in the world, that too is karma, and an opportunity to be taken advantage of. 
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Some people don’t like the idea of karma because it means that we can no longer regard ourselves as innocent victims and blame others for our misfortunes. 
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But it’s actually a very liberating and comforting idea, because it means that we mould our own future and that ultimately justice does prevail.
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If reincarnation and karma are facts, that would obviously have implications for the way we ought to live our lives.
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That’s why all the great spiritual teachers throughout the ages have advised us to rise above our feelings of separateness and to love one another and help one another. 
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The more we can control our restless brain-minds and still our fitful thoughts and desires, the more receptive we shall become to the inspiration and guidance of our higher, intuitive self.
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Is the human kingdom unique, or do you think that all entities reembody – including subatomic particles, animals, gods, suns, and galaxies?
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The ageless wisdom teaches that mankind is a microcosm of the macrocosm and does not occupy any special place in the universe, and that every divine monad or consciousness-centre has to gain direct experience in allthe kingdoms of nature, from submineral to superhuman, through repeated embodiments in many different forms.
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You’re saying that death is only relative – there’s always something that survives.
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Yes. 
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Our physical body dies when the inner forces that hold it together as an organic unit are exhausted or withdrawn. 
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It then disintegrates into its component elements, as do our astral model-body and lower animal-human mind or soul. 
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Our human-spiritual soul or reincarnating soul, on the other hand, is said to enter a dreamlike state of consciousness in which it rests and digests the lessons of the previous life. 
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When the time comes for it to reincarnate, its lower astral and physical vehicles are reformed from many of the same atoms used in the previous life, so that we get the body and personality we deserve.
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Every organic system, whatever its relative size, is an evolving entity, animated by inner energy-fields or souls, and subject to the same basic process of birth, growth, death, and rebirth. 
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Nothing comes from nothing, and nothing can be annihilated into nothing; energy-substance can only be transformed. 
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Every entity, every relatively self-contained individuality or monad, has existed before – in some form and on some plane. 
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And it will always continue to exist in some form, for every entity is the centre of an unbreakable chain of causation stretching from eternity to eternity.
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D Pratt

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