KARMA
My own understanding of karma has evolved over the years, from some form of repercussion due to destructive behaviour, or a reward when it is constructive behaviour. The reason for a repercussion is not to punish, this is just a feedback mechanism. I no longer view karma as being as limited as this. I see it being tied into evolution in a great way. Thus the name of this site, my interest in evolution through many lifetimes really interests me. This is a long haul, amassing trauma through many births and deaths alone is heavy, but consider the unresolved natural disasters around us within these lives, the murders, crimes, despair and so on. The accumulative affect of these trying experiences can weigh heavy on us, when not resolved. So how I can try to curtail further trauma and suffering I often contemplate.
We are the car on the road…and the bird that shits on the windscreen.
There is no good or bad, only experience, humans tend to name our actions good or bad, because they may be enjoyable or less so. The action is neither good nor bad, it is enjoyable or not enjoyable. There is only experience in consciousness, there is only exploration. As we evolve we very gradually learn what experiences are more enjoyable to us. So we direct our consciousness towards more of those experiences and away from the less so. So the purpose is to follow the enjoyable, not the unenjoyable. Seems obvious doesn’t it. Following either route will compound and develop deeper and more intense, full experiences, of the unenjoyable or the enjoyable. One will take us into what we call sickness, simply another experience, the other will take us to higher and higher states of consciousness and love, another experience. To truly comprehend and appreciate love, we, consciousness, must experience hate. Neither is right, or wrong, nor ultimately better or worse. They are merely experiences. But obviously some are more fun than others. All we as humans are is vehicles for consciousness to explore these experiences. We are the car on the road, being driven, but we are also the driver, and the road, and the designer of the landscape we drive through, the wind that blows and the bird that shits on the windscreen.
Karma
So if we have multiple lives, hundreds, perhaps thousands. The purpose being to gradually evolve and grow, learning as we go to live from a higher place, choose the high road as it were in each decision. With these two ideas combined, predestined life from the previous article linked here, coupled with karma would lead one to interpret all life is in fact perfect. The wars, hunger, death etc, is all then a result of karma, far greater than we can comprehend. Does this suggest we should sit back and let people kill each other or starve? Well I don’t think we have a choice either way, we will feel moved to act, or to not act, I may like to assume that choice is mine, but who or what presented the variables and was the final decision already chosen for me? Either action is out of self interest, although we like to dress up our own ego in many colours such as “I’m helping the starving or homeless”, which perhaps I am, but ultimately these actions are to appease my own discomfort, and massage my own ego. “Why did you go to Guatamala to help build homes for the homeless?”, “I just felt I had to do something”. Indeed. Of course this is not to say that helping others is wrong, or we should not do it. We will do what we feel moved to do.
Eckhart Tolle on Karma
In a way karma can be willed or flushed out. With awareness, perhaps a welcoming of what must be faced can induce this experience. Is this act predetermined? Ego death these days is not an new term, people may go in search of facing and slaying their ego, not for the feint of heart! See my ayahuasca experience for more. If one feels stuck in their lives perhaps the only way forward may mean facing this karma head on, which may well result in the deconstruction of the ego. As the ego thinks it is the I, panic during these times is quite common, the ego feels it is dying, or part of it. Of course the I, or greater consciousness seeks this death, but naturally the ego fights to retain control. Consider all the challenging times in your life where you were sure something terrible would happen if you took whatever action, only to make it through to the other side and be glad of the experience. The ego was wrong, aren’t you glad you didn’t listen to it!
After my recent ayahuasca experience I realise there is a fare to be paid for every single thought and action. But we can welcome the clearing of that bad karma, brave enough to face it, and fuel and nurture good karma. A friend of mine regularly says “this world is just a computer program that reflects what we put out”. When we feel grateful, happy, positive, we receive these experiences. So we can choose our thoughts. If we are choosing, or those thoughts are predestined or not who knows, and maybe who cares. The only benefit I can see to believing or knowing life is predestined is to be able to step back more, and allow life to happen, rather than fighting it to try to make it the way I want it. The benefit to the computer program view of karma is to be conscious of my thoughts and feelings. Do the two conflict with each other or work in harmony? I suggest you decide that yourself, through experience rather than theory. You are consciousness exploring itself after all.
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