Theos-Talk Archives (February 1995 Message tl00124)

Taking Keith Price's piece as a springboard:
Ie, Keith, not all this is aimed at you personally!

> When talking about sychronicity being acausal to the senses, but
> caual on the occult planes, we begin to speculate or claim to
> have knowledge or at least an intuition of something
> supernatural.

It doesn't take us out of our realm of ordinary experience to
suggest that there can be non-physical causes to things.  Our
physical actions, typing on a keyboard, the painting of a
picture, etc usually originate at the non-physical departments of
the human system.  They are all examples of intentionality
expressed in action.

Embodiment of insight, feeling, thought - the whole thing we've
been talking about on this list - the production of symbols to
encapsulate and communicate something; there's an unmistakeable
causality to these processes.

Alongside this is the insight in Ken O'Neill's piece of two days
ago:

> First, simple causality was replaced by the notion of
> interdependence.  Secondly, ...Seeing all attempts to make
> reality into independently and separately existing things,
> emphasis was put on the emptiness or transparency of reality.

Everything I've been saying about causality has been with a
concept of interdependence in mind, and a belief that it is
possible to experience the emptiness and transparency of reality.
However, we CAN identify causal sequences or segments within the
great dance, where the energy and states of A flow predominantly
on to and affect B.

A bud can grow into a flower, but I haven't seen a flower grow
into a bud excepting through the longer cycle of death,
composting and absorption into another living plant.  As Thich
Nyat Hanh (sp?) said one day near Krotona, we are about turning
garbage into roses and roses into garbage.

As with everything else in the universe, these causal segments,
like the bud to flower sequence, are fuzzy concepts, ie they
don't have a separate shut-off existence, and they have chaotic
processes working alongside them, but this doesn't mean we can't
identify them and strive to understand them.

It would be like saying we shouldn't have a concept of an atom
because it doesn't have a clear boundary and its constituent
particles are constantly emerging and falling back into the sea
of space.

> Original sin, may not stand up to close scrutiny, but it does
> provide motivation for seeking "salvation".

Pain, and the desire to grow, are two great motivators!


> Karma appears fair, and just and reasonable and even scientific,
> but a little cold.

I reckon:
Karma is as cold or as warm as we are.
The karma of love is love.
We ride to our salvation on our karma.
The doorways that open on our path _are_ our karma.
Karma, like everything else, is not separative; another's love
could save us.

Karma has been called a law of love, as its effect is said to be
always toward growth and restoring wholeness.

A practical example of this would be where somebody did something
for which the karma was cancer.  (Simplistic, but just for
illustration.) If all the karma descended on them in the same
lifetime, they could end up with nothing but negative results
like bitterness, incomprehension, self-pity etc.  If it's delayed
till the person has more insight, love and resourcefulness, they
could transmute much of the experience into positive qualities.

Don't ask me HOW it does this, but having seen my first wife die
of cancer, I could see beauties and strengths being forged amidst
the otherwise miserable situation.  It seemed thoroughly
consistent with the idea of karmic timing, as well as the karma
itself, being an expression of love.

Murray Stentiford
murray@sss.co.nz