Thread: Can anyone explain this to me?

Originally Posted by Jesper

I must have missed this one Tranquilo :-).

Karma is one of these things that are largely misunderstood in the west. Karma is NOT about right or wrong or punishment or reward. Karma is a Universal Law that states that what you do to others, will be done to you. As such, it creates an equilibrium over time.

The next confusion occurs because we tend to analyse Karma in the context of our current life. Karma is the sum total of all our actions (it is actually more than just actions) across all life times. Just as energy is cyclical, Karma is also cyclical. This often manifests as extremes, or polarities, in our life. For example, in one life we are the perpetrator, the next life the victim and so on. This is why "bad" things happen to "good" people.

Sometimes it helps to look at Karma by looking at something that we are more familiar with; our EGO. Our ego is the incarnation of our Karma in this life. Our ego is not just the obvious and observable aspects of our personality, our ego also acts on a sub-conscious level, attracting energies that resonate with itself.

For those interested in Karma, I have written about it quite a lot in previous threads on this forum, as well as on Facebook:
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Thanks for explanation Jesper. I still don't understand how Karma applies to a natural disaster (like a bush fire). Was it because of Karma that some people died & others survived?

Originally Posted by Tranquilo

Thanks for explanation Jesper. I still don't understand how Karma applies to a natural disaster (like a bush fire). Was it because of Karma that some people died & others survived?

In my view, and understanding of Karma, it doesn't. Sadly in life, sometimes shit happens.

Originally Posted by Pete789

Hey thanks Jesper now that makes sense. Karma produces equilibrium in the cosmos over many incarnations.. not apparent over one only.

Because all souls are part of the cosmos then a push will result in a pull.. later on in another incarnation. This balancing of the universe/cosmos aids in the long term goal of bringing about a perfect universe or as some would say 'completing the great work'.

In conclusion one could assume that when religion instructs us to 'be good' - it really is telling us to reduce our Karma... Not just bring about law and order in society.

Hi Pete, yes that is a good way to view it in the context of religion :-).

Originally Posted by Tranquilo

Thanks for explanation Jesper. I still don't understand how Karma applies to a natural disaster (like a bush fire). Was it because of Karma that some people died & others survived?

Hi Tranquilo, that is a very good question. And I think Take2 is correct in pointing out that natural disasters themselves are probably not karmic in nature.

However.... the reason for someone being in a natural disaster is karmic. We are always in the right place at the right time, and nothing in life is coincidental. I understand this is a big claim to make, and I am more than happy to expand on this if anyone is interested, just be aware that the explanation in many ways defy what our mind is taught to understand.

Originally Posted by Jesper

Hi Tranquilo, that is a very good question. And I think Take2 is correct in pointing out that natural disasters themselves are probably not karmic in nature.

However.... the reason for someone being in a natural disaster is karmic. We are always in the right place at the right time, and nothing in life is coincidental. I understand this is a big claim to make, and I am more than happy to expand on this if anyone is interested, just be aware that the explanation in many ways defy what our mind is taught to understand.

I'm interested !

Karma conforms to the hermetic principles and thus makes perfect sense but certain things define logic such as the holocaust, Rawanda, Kenya, Tsunami etc.

To me Take 2 seems right in that there must be a "choas factor" as i call it - However this goes against Jespers 'everything happens for a reason' principle, of which i have intuited many many times before. So...

I'm interested !

Karma and Dharma Laws explain the mystery of: " everything happens for a reason", etc.
There are 5 types of Karma: Personal, Family, Regional, National, Global. Just to understand the definition of those five types of karma won't give enough answers. It contradicts our knowledge and believes, even it goes against our morals and ethics. The deeper your knowledge about Karma more doubts you will have about life, people and how everything is connected. You'll be surprised when you'll learn about karma. From personal experience, it scared me a lot. As Tranquilo has mentioned before, why bad things happen to good people. When you read a Bible, for God there is no bad or good people. We are all equal for HIM. Bad and good, it is our conceptions, our judgment. This is what we understand and interpreted. Another source says: Bad and good, it is all the same. it is how you look from your perspectives but the outcome is the same: good, bad things happen for a reason. Good leads to bad, bad leads to good. As you see, it is all the same. The same outcome.

Originally Posted by Pete789

Karma conforms to the hermetic principles and thus makes perfect sense but certain things define logic such as the holocaust, Rawanda, Kenya, Tsunami etc.

To me Take 2 seems right in that there must be a "choas factor" as i call it - However this goes against Jespers 'everything happens for a reason' principle, of which i have intuited many many times before. So...

I'm interested !

Fwiw: I've never believed everything happens for a reason. if it did, then lives are almost pre-ordained, and what would be the value in that?

Originally Posted by natacha

Karma and Dharma Laws explain the mystery of: " everything happens for a reason", etc.
There are 5 types of Karma: Personal, Family, Regional, National, Global. Just to understand the definition of those five types of karma won't give enough answers. It contradicts our knowledge and believes, even it goes against our morals and ethics. The deeper your knowledge about Karma more doubts you will have about life, people and how everything is connected. You'll be surprised when you'll learn about karma. From personal experience, it scared me a lot.

I am going to provide a different view to this, as it will be important when I expand on how karma works on a larger scale.

There is only one kind of karma, and that is personal karma. I can understand why some people attempt to classify it, yet to say there are 5, or 10, or 100 types of Karma is incorrect. For example, an earth quake like Haiti, is not global or regional Karma, it is individual Karma experienced by everyone affected by the event.

Natacha, I am unclear why you believe that karma contradicts morals and ethics, and why doubts will arise once one gain a deeper understanding? My experience is that understanding Karma helps you understand life, and yourself, better. To understand your Karma, and how to change it, is incredibly empowering .

Karma is not something that is fixed an unmovable in life, quite the opposite. We can all dissolve our Karma. The path to resolve Karma is a paradox itself, and is both ridiculously simple and difficult. I am more than happy to describe how this is done, but that is another rather deep spiritual conversation .

Originally Posted by natacha

As Tranquilo has mentioned before, why bad things happen to good people. When you read a Bible, for God there is no bad or good people. We are all equal for HIM. Bad and good, it is our conceptions, our judgment. This is what we understand and interpreted. Another source says: Bad and good, it is all the same. it is how you look from your perspectives but the outcome is the same: good, bad things happen for a reason. Good leads to bad, bad leads to good. As you see, it is all the same. The same outcome.

I need to provide a different view to this also, for Karma on a larger scale to be understood. There is no God external to us. To believe that we are all equal to HIM means God must be external; us and HIM. Karma is a divine law, much like a physical law, that states that under certain circumstances, certain things will happen. God is not an observer to this law or process; God IS this process. Just as God is all other processes, including life.

This is important for the understanding of Karma, and sets the basis for my claim that "God will not forgive you". He cannot forgive you, because there is nothing for her to forgive! She is not external to the process of Karma, He is the process. Just as you are the process. There is nothing external, there is nothing internal, there is only One. This One is God, and you are part of it.

Natacha, just because there is no right or wrong, does not mean that they are the same. Actually, they are most definitely not the same. Neither are the outcomes from them the same. Your choices, whether based on what you think is right, wrong or neither, RADICALLY change your reality, producing RADICALLY different outcomes .

Originally Posted by take2

Fwiw: I've never believed everything happens for a reason. if it did, then lives are almost pre-ordained, and what would be the value in that?

Ok, let's explore this in more detail . Give me a couple of examples of what is, or has been, random in your life.

But before you do, let me paint this picture for you:

Imagine being in a car. You have been given a map to a destination, and you have started driving. This map is your Karma. It directs you, both consciously and sun-consciously, though your EGO. If you keep following the map, you will end up at the destination. In a sense I agree you can call that pre-ordained.

Yet at any time you can change map, and go to another destination. This is our FREE WILL TO CHOOSE. To make new choices, if we choose to! So whereas our life are pre-ordained, we can still change it. Whenever we want it. To what ever we want it to be.

It is useful to also consider that our destiny in life is not how or when we die; it is how we live our life! If you are a lonely person right now, and make no new choices in life, you will die a lonely person. That is your destiny. If you are angry with others and the world right now, and make no new choices in life, you will die angry. That is also your destiny. This is pre-ordination.

Now one can make the next conclusion, that Karma is also your destiny. Because it is Karma that dictates how you judge your experiences. And perhaps that is not that far-fetched; if you have a positive personality, you are likely to view things differently to someone with a negative personality.

Karma is the Matrix (for you who have seen the movie!), it is an insidious prison around us, that we cannot touch see, hear, smell or touch. It is what stands between you, and you becoming God. If there is only One, and God is One, then you must also be God. And we are. And we have the creative power of God. What most people create, using their God power, is a reality in which they are not God. Karma prevents us from seeing who we really are!

Our attitudes (like anger) is self imposed and there fore 'pre-ordained"??(by ourselves)

But Karma is the delusions of ourselfs?

Seeing the forest through the trees?

Getting an objective vision of our true selves? - are these delusions pre set as a life time learning event? You wrote of the need for 'balance' that takes many incarnations to manifest then Karma is part of our spiritual growth towrds self enlightenment????

Can Karma be seen as a false perspective of ourselves - refluxing over many incarnations? (the lens through which we see all)

Originally Posted by Pete789

Our attitudes (like anger) is self imposed and there fore 'pre-ordained"??(by ourselves)

But Karma is the delusions of ourselfs?

Seeing the forest through the trees?

Getting an objective vision of our true selves? - are these delusions pre set as a life time learning event? You wrote of the need for 'balance' that takes many incarnations to manifest then Karma is part of our spiritual growth towrds self enlightenment????

Can Karma be seen as a false perspective of ourselves - refluxing over many incarnations? (the lens through which we see all)

Very well put Pete. Karma is the journey itself. Without any Karma we are enlightened. It is the karma that creates all our suffering in life.

And you are so correct in pointing out that Karma can be seen as a false perspective of ourselves. Any view of you, that does not recognise you for the being the divine being you are, is false. We make it our personal truth but believing it, but it is false nevertheless, the falseness being your Karma. Our spiritual growth is to first recognise the karma we carry, and then to let it go. But to let it go, we must first accept that it exists.

Karma does not require many life times to resolve itself. It often takes many lifetimes, because of the choices we make (or rather the new choices we do not make!).

Originally Posted by Jesper

I need to provide a different view to this also, for Karma on a larger scale to be understood. There is no God external to us. To believe that we are all equal to HIM means God must be external; us and HIM. Karma is a divine law, much like a physical law, that states that under certain circumstances, certain things will happen. God is not an observer to this law or process; God IS this process. Just as God is all other processes, including life.

This is important for the understanding of Karma, and sets the basis for my claim that "God will not forgive you". He cannot forgive you, because there is nothing for her to forgive! She is not external to the process of Karma, He is the process. Just as you are the process. There is nothing external, there is nothing internal, there is only One. This One is God, and you are part of it.

Natacha, just because there is no right or wrong, does not mean that they are the same. Actually, they are most definitely not the same. Neither are the outcomes from them the same. Your choices, whether based on what you think is right, wrong or neither, RADICALLY change your reality, producing RADICALLY different outcomes .

Thank you Jesper. Let me please put this way.
As I have said, it depends on how people see BAD and GOOD. For example, person got sick. It didn’t happen just suddenly. The symptoms have been showing not once or twice, many times. Nevertheless, the person decided to ignore it. We play ignorance and the outcome is: we get “punished”. If we understand the cause of our sickness at the beginning, we wouldn’t get sick, we would listen to our body and do something to prevent the next stage of our condition. Ignorance (avijja), or not knowing things as they truly are, is the chief cause of Karma. Dependent on ignorance arise activities (avijja paccaya samkhara) states the Buddha in the Paticca Samuppada (Dependent Origination).
The bottom-line is: bad leads to good or wise versa. You are saying, it is Radical thinking, etc. I say this is the way I see and understand. This was a long way to it, through my life experience and finally to see and comprehend the way why things are happening this way and why they are affecting you this or that way and why I choose between this and that. The choice is mine. The choice can be based on the intuition or feeling, or circumstances, or both.
Too many good things can be bad too and the outcome can be horrendous. For instance, good hearts and deeds of people can be overused for the purpose of EVIL. You’ve noticed: “What most people create, using their God power, is a reality in which they are not God. Karma prevents us from seeing who we really are!” There is a contradiction. How would you say, if a person is atheist and only believes in science? Their using their instinct, knowledge, and they think that they are doing the right thing. However, would that choice can be RIGHT or WRONG, the outcome is the same. If the person chooses WRONG choice, the person still believes it was the RIGHT choice to do or wise versa, unless, if IF he/she will admit that the choice was definitely WRONG. The last sentence: “,,,,Karma prevents us from seeing who we really are!” Well, how would we know, who we really are? Again, it involves our morals and ethics. If we have to kill to save our self. It can be defined as good or wrong, ethical or unethical. It depends on the circumstances. If one of the Siamese twin has to die for the sake of another twin to survive. Is it ethical or unethical? Good or bad, it is all the same. If a mother is nurturing her child, saving her child from anything that may happen to him/her, she is protecting her child from not getting hurt, etc. She’s keeping her child in a cocoon, trying to save her child from any disease or accidents, etc. The outcome would be, eventually, her child get hurt or sick, or miserable all his/her life. Can you say the mother did wrong? She would not agree with you. If you ask the child, when he/she is a grown up person. The answer would surprise you.
You said: “Karma is not something that is fixed an unmovable in life, quite the opposite. We can all dissolve our Karma. The path to resolve Karma is a paradox itself, and is both ridiculously simple and difficult.”
The Karma is like a reservoir with the liquid inside. The liquid is our Karma. The more we adding to our reservoir, the more we are feeling the negative effect of our karma. If the reservoir half full, that would mean, our karma is OK. The less is the liquid in the reservoir, the less of bad karma we get effect on us. It detects everything, our thinking, our feeling, and our deeds, how we behave and treat people, etc. When we understand more about it, we change our thinking and behaviour. We think more carefully about our actions and perception about life, people, and circumstances.

Originally Posted by natacha

Thank you Jesper. Let me please put this way.
As I have said, it depends on how people see BAD and GOOD. For example, person got sick. It didn’t happen just suddenly. The symptoms have been showing not once or twice, many times. Nevertheless, the person decided to ignore it. We play ignorance and the outcome is: we get “punished”. If we understand the cause of our sickness at the beginning, we wouldn’t get sick, we would listen to our body and do something to prevent the next stage of our condition. Ignorance (avijja), or not knowing things as they truly are, is the chief cause of Karma. Dependent on ignorance arise activities (avijja paccaya samkhara) states the Buddha in the Paticca Samuppada (Dependent Origination).

Thank you Natacha. Please understand that not everything is Karma. Sickness for example, can be passed though generations via the genetic line, and completely unrelated to Karma.

If you believe that Karma is punishment there is something about Karma you are yet to understand. Karma is a CONSEQUENCE of a choice. Much like being out in the sun and getting sun burnt. The sun (or anyone else) does not punish you :-). Does this make sense?