Theos-Talk Archives (July 1996 Message tl00299)

To SHAMAN
It is hard to elaborate on the experience of moments of light that pervaded 
me. It came spontaneously and brought me to quite a different approach to 
life, accustomed as I was to a Theosophical mental outlook. I found that one 
could only submit to this light. In Theosophical terminology it might have 
come from the Higher Self, but also from a guiding spirit. It has remained 
with me all my life, be it that I feel it stronger now I have grown old. It 
has never manifested it self in transmission of knowledge or advice, only in 
moments of serenity and strength. Whether it is a divine energy, or 
channeled through an intermediary I have no idea. 
It has let me to Eastern mysticism and specifically to Javanese mysticism 
(Subud) in which surrender/submission to the higher self, or God becomes 
more natural. 
It issues from the premise that man is a two fold being with an outer face 
directed at the world and an inner face establishing contact with the whole 
he is deep in his being part of. Like a cell in a body. The latter part is 
quite neglected in modern man. To set the process of reaching within into 
motion usually requires guidance or initiation. In the latter case a 
spiritual field is created between two or more persons in which the novice 
may come to an inner breakthrough.
KARMA. I feel that we are too much tied up in our thinking to a supposed 
universal law of justice. Usually it is applied to human beings, whereas one 
wonders about justice towards animals whose life, even in  natural 
surroundings is one of suffering (and delight) and there is faint hope that 
they will be compensated, unless it is in the hereafter.
To me Karma implies that man's actions and thought ties him to a quality of 
mental and spiritual environment, to a mechanism of mind. Each action 
affirms that status quo or may push him over a threshold towards another 
state he cannot free himself from. The bad Karma is the suffering  to become 
released from that plane, once one feels its prison-like structure. It means 
creating a new mental/spiritual condition laboriously, always in danger of 
falling, or being held  back. It requires patience, intent, perseverance AND 
can hardly be undertaken unless there is some inner stimulation. 
In non-worldly conditions it is quality of mind that counts, that makes 
oneself staying atuned to spheres of equal intensity. Karma is the way of 
suffering to reach it. Good Karma is freewheeling on what one has reached. 
But the state of Grace is always a balance on the proverbial razor's edge.
MICHAEL