Theos-Talk Archives (June 1997 Message tl00396)

In message <970615142602_-959734712@emout12.mail.aol.com>,
Wildefire@aol.com writes
>When I use the term "karma" here, by the way, I'm not referring to it as
>"good" nor "bad" karma (a terminology that I have problems with anyway).

So do I. I think it is nonsense.

> The
>karma resulting from an action freely taken is, IMHO, more liberating
>(ultimately). The more that the mind and the emotional body are involved in
>the performance of any action, the greater the effect the action has on the
>development of the quality of the vehicles. I base this on the belief that
>karma, as an impersonal law, interacts with the matter/energy comprising the
>vehicles. The more subtle the energy (or vehicle) involved in motivating the
>action, the more potentially powerful the karmic reaction on the vehicles.
>(Please feel free to shoot holes in this as you wish. I know I'm wading into
>some pretty wild water with this. ;-D) When another entity, such as a
> government, makes the decisions for the individual, the resulting karma on
>the individual level is more limited in terms of the vehicle affected and the
>resulting evolutionary growth.

I see a problem here in the use of the concept of "vehicles" common in
theosophical literature, and which I susect you are adopting (more or
less).  I only recogise - from practical work and experience - two
aspects of a human being which might be called "vehicles."  One is the
physical body, for which karma means that if you bang your thumb with a
hammer you get a sore thumb.  The other is the multifaceted "soul" which
I understand in Kabalist rather than Theosophical terms.  When the
physical thumb above gets hurt, then at the soul level we are upset
[like we may feel very unhappy inside, but not show it outside].
>
At a different level than either of these "vehicles" we seem to have
what Theosophy probably thinks of as "Higher Manas" and Kabala as
(depending on the type of Kabala - complicated, innit?) Briatic
consciousness which may not be subject to "karma" at all.

Burble burble ...

Alan