Theos-Talk Archives (December 1996 Message tl00662)

Michael writes:
>Yes, I quite agree being subject to collective Karma - if you can call it so
>- but I wonder whether such a thing as a personal law of retribution exists
>for one's own deeds. Karma as a law of cause and effect for the individual
>is a typical reflection of the way of thinking in the second half of the
>past century,  to assume that physical laws also apply to laws of behaviour.
>
>I have not seen any proof in the lives of people that there is any form of
>equal reward or punishment for one's acts. Of course I cannot oversee a
>chain of reincarnations of a particular person, but that is a subject for
>another debate.

Just a hypothesis, a new, unresearched or thought-out idea:  Perhaps each one
of us has a "karmic meter" within us which reacts somewhat directly with the
karmic pool.  I.e. if your "karmic meter" leans toward the negative, then you
would be more likely to attract negative karma.  If it leaned toward the
positive, etc.  Another possibilty, (but not a probability IMO), is that there
is now outwieghing of negative to positive, but rather, the negative is simply
a side-effect of positive.  You may drop one hundred dollars whereas someone
else picks it up.  The latter person had good karma, whereas you seemed to
have recieved bad karma.  Does Newton's third law apply to karma?:)
>>I'm not sure, but your understanding of karma seems much like my own.  You
>>seemed to disagree with it, and I'm grateful for your opinion, but after
>>reading your post, I'm still not quite sure about what aspect of it you
>>disagree with...
>
>see above: the reward/retribution aspect.
>I wonder is whether there is such a thing as retribution that Karma is
>usually associated with, or that there is an  outside agency or law which
>passes judgement, punishing one for one's deeds.

Perhaps it is an "inside agency".  The higher self (Atman/Buddhi/Manas?) may
punish you for your "sins".  Surely the higher self would know how karma does
it's work, and perhaps it can manipulate itself so that karma (good or bad)
would be attracted to it's manifestation - us.

>For example the person who causes misery to other beings will punish himself
>ultimately.. The person doing so will first of all steep and chain himself
>further to a level in which he will attract like-minded souls and suffer at
>one point or another from their behaviour (although he will often not
>realize the quality of his and their lives then).
>Secondly,  if he (or she!) wants to pull himself as a Baron von Muenchausen
>by his hairs out of his pit he will find that he can only cut himself loose
>by (non-physical) dying on that level in order to move upward (By the same
>reasoning:  there must be pleasure in sinking - involution).
>To die during one's life on one level in order to start functioning  on
>another implies a  battle with  one's own inert nature, and/or to seek
>spiritual interference, for instance by means of prayer.

Definitely a possibility.  If one's nature is to "involve" then involution
would assuredly be pleasureable.  However, it is my understanding that there
are such involutors who, eventually, severe(sp?) their atmic tie with the
Absolute, and become lost souls.  (G. de Purucker)

>It connects with what Kym wrote:
>> Yet, again, I am aware that, according to most doctrine, a
>>sign you are on the "up-swing" is when you disentangle yourself from earthly
>>beings and things - concentrating on the inward, on perfecting yourself, on
>>becoming undisturbed.
>
>that disentanglement causes hardship - falling over and picking oneself up
>again. The harder, the more one has become part of a way of life and delight
>in it..
>
>Kym also wrote:
>>I guess the "Gods" did hanker for suffering since we hankered for the
>>"material" which is apparently the reason we got our "spirit/soul" dragged
>>"down here" in the first place.
>
>With "Gods" I meant actually "we". I do not know what came first hankering
>for a an unknown experience of delight versus suffering in a material
>mechanical world yet to be created, or a craving for sinking into the
>material world: involution. One implies the other.

This is my understanding of the situation.  Up until we became humans, we were
not self-conscious entities.  We had "swabhava", and still do, which could be
defined as a "habit" or "nature".  Being unself-concious, we had no control
over our swabhavas which were to manifest ourselves and sink into matter.
After becoming self-conscious we evolved a "free will", and were able to
choose whether or not to follow our natures.  Our swabhava, as I understand
it, are now yearning "upwards" towards the spirit once again.  However, being
self-conscious, we can choose to"descend" into matter, eventually ending up in
what the "masters" call the eighth sphere.  "Avichi Nirvana".  Those who have
reached A.N. lose their atmic link and become lost souls.  "Lost", defined by
them as "selfish and materialistic".  Therefore, "universally" evil.

>Michael
>Michael
>Amsterdam, Netherlands
>http://www.xs4all.nl/~wichm/index.html

Interesting debate.  I'm learning already.:)

---
The Triaist