Theos-Talk Archives (September 1997 Message tl00337)

The following are a few quick replies to Dennis who likes to think that we
live in a perfect universe with a nice perfect God governing things. In
this
Dennis is a bit like Einstein, and so he has a lot of good company.
However,
I just can't believe our universe is any more perfect than I am. I don't
want an argument here, but I would like to present my own view of this
rather fascinating topic.

>Wow!  Where shall I begin to defend "The Perfect Universe?"  I guess with
>Jerry because his post is easily addressed.  Jerry, when you ascribe
karmic
>acceptance to the higher, i.e. mental planes we can find some basis for
>agreement.  I particularly liked your analogy that ran "if I am cut I will
>bleed" ... because that is precisely what you will do and it matters not
one
>whit whether you "accept" the cut or not!  

I deliberately put this in terms of the mental plane for ease of
understanding.
However, the truth is that "as above so below" and any principle true on
one plane is true on the others as well. However, in the physical world it
just isn't as easy to understand. Let you just remind you of the time when
a maniac came to Jesus with the intent of harming him. When Jesus
looked into his eyes with universal love and compassion, the man melted
and went meekly away. Mary Baker Eddy once wrote that "Clad in the
panoply of love, human hatred cannot reach you." This is what I mean 
when I say that you don't have to accept someone else's karma. When 
I drive a car down the highway, I sometimes say a prayer that all those 
other drivers who want to crash into something, or animals who want to run 
out in front of a car, pick another car than mine because I don't really
need 
their karma on my shoulders.

>And if you should happen to fall from
>the same height 10,000 times, you will still accelerate at precisely the
same
>rate for precisely the same length of time.  Why?  Because the universe is
>perfect, that's why.  The laws of physics are invariable --- at least on
this
>plane of existence.  

Your statement is simply not true. If you measure the rates, as closely
as you want to, you will get a range of values, never ever all the same 
numbers. What you are really saying here is that the acceleration
constant g is always the same, but I need to remind you that g does
not exist on the physical plane--it is not a "thing" but rather an idea
or principle. Absolutely nothing physical is perfect, else Buddhism
and Theosophy are a lot of hot air.

>the only conclusion I can draw from it is that the fact (and at
>the present time it IS a fact) that some events at the sub-atomic level
are
>not predictable only proves that at our present level of understanding
about
>particle physics we can't predict them.  It does not prove that they will
>never be predictable.

Wrong again, although many people think the same way. It has been
proved that the Uncertainty Principle is always in effect, and that no
matter how carefully or perfectly you measure, you will never be able
to predict speed (motion) if you know location (space) or vice versa.
The Uncertainty Principle has nothing to do with our level of
understanding or our ability to measure carefully. It is a fact--nothing
is 100% predictable on the physical plane. When we focus our
attention in one room of our house, we cannot know what is going
on in another room during that time. It is a fact of life; one that I
refer to as a Ring-Pass-Not because it tends to bound our possible
activities.

>but I choose to agree with Albert Einstein who once
>remarked: "I cannot believe that God plays dice with the universe."  

Quantum theory has reined supreme over Einstein--As Bohr once
remarked, "God does play with dice." Virtually every physicist has 
acknowledged this. The real question is, What does this mean in 
terms of karma and reincarnation?  I think it means that there is a 
small amount of uncertainty in causation. Even Jung realized this, 
and he and Pauli worked out synchronicity as an acausal principle 
to account for this uncertainty. Karma simply does not account
for everything than happens (sometimes we fall victim to collective
karma rather than our personal karma--which I often call the Chaos
Factor because it comes to us from outside ourselves and there
is little we can do about it).

>You show me someone who is indifferent to the
>welfare of others (and I know that if we were in India together you could
>point out a LOT of it) ... and I'll show you someone who does NOT believe
in
>karma and reincarnation and it doen't much matter that they vigorously
>protest otherwise.  By their fruits ... .

Compassion or indifference have nothing at all to do with karma
and reincarnation. On the other hand, they have everything to do
with them. I have met people who believed in reincarnation, who
were prejudice against black people. They felt that the white race
was older and thus superior. This kind of mis-understanding also
occurs with sex, and some say that the male is superior to the
female and that if a women is good in this life she will come back
next time as a man. Karma and reincarnation can be interpreted
many ways and it easy to use them as rationale for prejudice or
indifference. 

Just a few thoughts on a difficult subject.

Jerry S.
Member, TI