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Karma Is! [Part 1]
Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are,Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you’re in control
Well, I think you’re crazy
I think you’re crazy
I think you’re crazy
Just like me - Crazy [lyrics] – Gnarls Barkley
Brisbane, 20.12.20. 07 [revised May, 2009]
The present moves like a brook, a stream or the sea. We cannot hold on to any part of it, not for more than a few seconds. But, then again, the present is also eternal because it is ALWAYS there.
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If we could dredge deep down into the ego, we would bring out all the forgotten clutter from time immemorial. Everything past still exists there. Everything past creates and recreates ceaselessly our response to each present moment, which is the root of our struggle.
Again and again, just as waves form and break, again and again our reactions to situations, our actions to reactions remain unchanged and so does the magnetic duality of all we do.
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We can only breathe in real time. Just as we cannot breathe under water, we cannot breathe in the past any more than we can breathe in the future. Truly, the present-moment is all we have and it is unlimited for the time we are on this earth.
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Interestingly, when we run into a spot of *good luck*, it might be a break we have earned but again maybe not. It might simply be a positive windfall from general good karma that has latched on to us in a nicely synchronistic way. “Never look a gift horse in the mouth,” they say.
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These days of climate change are making it graphically easy to see first-hand how inter-connected all of us we really are.
Not only do we have to trust that, at a time of drought and water restrictions in a city like Brisbane where I live, everyone – including the neighbors I never see – are doing the right thing. However, beyond trusting Australia’s politicians to put in place the best eco-strategies possible, we need to trust that the citizens of all countries will also do the right thing.
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On the topic of group or societal karma, it is interesting to ponder why, globally, the western world is such an avid consumer of books – fiction and non-fiction, films and TV series that rely on violence.
Most of the seemingly innocuous family-viewing TV shows feed us violence, mental disorder and death, even as we try to enjoy our dinner.
Mainstream horror films like Psycho, the Saw series, forensics and even clever police/detective films like The Bone Collector, *thoughtful* films like A History Of Violence, action films like A Man Apart and *thrillers* like Panic Room must surely add up to 90% of all that is consumed for entertainment and escapism.
They all hinge on the violent, often vile or, at the very least, unstable aspects of the human mind.
Serious question: why don’t we all, or at least 70% of us, demand different great books and different memorable films, ones that do not deal with violence, by boycotting 80% of what has been flooding the entertainment market?
Another serious question: on a continuum, where might the karmic responsibility of those involved in all aspects of these industries be placed?
Absorbing too much violence works out the same as eating too much of the same food – eventually the body rebels.
Whether the food in question is too much violence, too much salt or too much chocolate – the body brings it back up.
Again, Karma is inseparable from the whole.
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Karma is thought of as being mostly bad and static, not usually good.
Since karma is energy, it is OK to compare it to the sea and its ebb & flow in the sense that it is never either good or bad – it just is.
Is the sea *bad* because a foolish swimmer strayed away from the patrolled area and almost drowned [or drowned].
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Karma could also be compared to the sun that is neither responsible for the fools’ melanomas nor for the scorched earth of drought-stricken lands nor for the fire that, in October 2007, spread along the Californian coastline, destroying much of the grand real estate, partly because 50 percent of the new housing development had been built in a severe fire-zone.
Fire just is.
The sea just is.
The sun just is.
Karma just is.
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Yes, we can separate the peas on our plate from the broccoli and the pumpkin, but how can we separate the sunlight from dusk and the wind from the sky or from the trees? How would crops grow without sun or rain? Which is more important?
How would they get to our stores if the farmers and the truck drivers did not work together to put them there?
How would we get rid of our smelly rubbish if it were not for the garbage men and all those who work in the refuse industry?
How would we keep our cars on the road without mechanics?
How would we experience a fine holiday without the staff or the locals at the other end? After all, they do make our beds, feed us and entertain us. And if we happen to be there at a time of karmic payback, they do mend us the best way they can.
Because we often receive without thinking, we need to practice an awareness of the symbolic acts of giving and taking.
Though this thinking is best done without expecting anything in return – otherwise it only amounts to manipulation – in return we sometime get a smile, a little more care, an extra L for love added to our alphabet soup.
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The *bad* bits – the present-moments we notice, motifs woven into our life, the small corner of the huge tapestry that spans our soul’s life – are simply challenges we must overcome without getting bitter and twisted, on our way to growing and evolving spiritually. How else can we do it, if not by dealing appropriately with the events of our lives?
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Good intentions do matter, but because they are *forced* intentions, I really do not think that they can do much for any of us, when it comes to karma editing, not any more than mantras, holy water, joss sticks, crystals, offerings, flagellation, praying and absolution, because they are often mechanical and exterior to our selves. It would all be too simple.
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Karmically, all the decisions we make under the influence of our *instinct* or while asleep at the wheel, even the so-called unimportant ones, weave us inside the tapestry that becomes our lives.
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Here is a story written by Simons Roof who spent some time in a monastery in Bengal. I have edited it for style, but only slightly. On the one hand, I couldn’t help myself but, on the other, I did restrain myself from doing more with it J
There was a happy young monk who possessed only a water jug and the threadbare garments he wore on his back. One day, as was his habit, he penetrated deep inside a forest to meditate. There he stayed for a few days.
All went well except that at night mice came to gnaw at his robe. So, to protect his clothing, the young monk went to a nearby village and brought back a cat.
All went well for a while except that the cat was accustomed to milk and howled every time it had to drink water instead. So the young monk arranged to have a cow.
All went well for a while except that the cow wanted fresh grass to chew.
So the monk bartered with a farmhand to clear a pasture and to care for his cow.
All went well for a while except that the farmhand eventually got lonely and brought his family from over the hills to live with him. And so the monk and the farmhand constructed a suitable farmhouse to house the newcomers and the farm.
With all that and the monk playing his part, the farm prospered.
All went well for a while except that farm and household affairs became too time-consuming to manage for only two men. So the monk invited a distant cousin, a young woman who was said to have a good head for matters of commerce, to come to help them.
All went well for a while except that the girl soon thought that, since she and the monk shared the same house, perhaps it would be better for them to get married.
One day the former monk, now white-haired, was approached by one of his grandsons, a boy who was about to become a monk and wanted advice on how to lead a good and simple life. And the old man, musing over the question, suddenly remembered how his life had come to be such as it was. He sat bolt upright: “Child, whatever you do,” he said fervently, “do not ever get a cat!” [2]
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This story reminds me of the need to be in the moment and aware of what I am doing and why I am doing it. What may seem easy, logical and practical in the short –term may have me blind and hog-tied in the long-term, which is no way to evolve and amend karma.
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Admittedly, though calibrated exactly to provide us with the challenge we need to grow beyond the trenches of our comfort zones, not all situations that come
our way are karmically induced as a result of anything we have done, either in this life or in previous ones. There is no way of telling what stems from which, nor should it matter.
What is … is and needs to be addressed in as much a spiritual manner as possible.
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Using humour and parables, as she does to help separate emotions from objective thinking, Moriya sent me the following humorous piece in one of her teaching emails.
“There was a young woman who married a rich old man. Once she understood how boring a marriage she was into, she decided to take a lover. Whenever her husband went about his businesses, she would invite the lover to her house.
One day, while she was making love with him, the husband returned unexpectedly and the woman helped her lover make a narrow escape out of the bedroom.
Seeing her lying on the bed in her best lace undergarment, the husband was quick to interpret the situation.
He shouted, “Where is he?”
The woman feigned innocence and watched as her husband roamed from room to room, opening closets and searching inside cupboards. When he couldn’t find any trace of a lover, he ran to the garden.
In front of the house he saw an open-top sports car. A young man was sitting at the wheel, using the rear-view mirror to adjust his tie.
“Ha!” cried the husband finally satisfied. “Here’s the one who cuckolded me! Bastard, I’ll show you!”
As it turns out, by the gate was an old wooden chest ready to be taken away to the rubbish dump. High on adrenaline, the old man heaved the chest above his head and hurled it at the car with all his might.
****
Now, the scene is in Heaven.
An old man approaches the gate and the angel asks, “And so what brings you here, old man?”
“Well,” said the old man, “I returned home unexpectedly one day and found my wife in a compromising situation. I found her lover in his car ready to drive away. I was so angry that I picked up the old chest by the gate and threw it at him. Alas, the chest was much heavier than expected. My heart gave up and so here I am.”
Then came a young man to the gate, and the angel asked, “What brings you here, young man?”
The young man shrugged. “All I know is that I was parked in the street, minding my own business, waiting to take my mother for a ride in my new car when suddenly a huge chest came crashing me from above, and here I am.”
And then came a naked young man and the angel asked him, “So, what brought you here, young man?”
The newcomer replied, “All I know is that I was hiding from an irate husband inside an old chest and … here I am.”
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At first glance, it might seem that the common factor in the demise of all three men is the old chest. But a chest is a chest is a chest.
On its own it is quite unable to create any drama.
So whose karmic energy was the catalyst for the culminating event that lead to the three deaths?
As in all good thrillers, Cherchez la femme.
The woman, in this joke, provided purpose, time and place for all participants to come together, while the old chest is a mere instrument.
About the Author
By day, a teacher of Senior English and French in Brisbane, Australia, and, by night, first a writer of novels and now a writer of spiritual material, I am on a quest of sorts – I am searching for a connection to my soul, right here, right now.
Admittedly, I have an ulterior motive – quite a strong one at that: I am trying to edit some karma out of my energy field by altering its properties.
This, from me, who a couple of years ago thought about my soul as often as the molecular composition of my body, which was never.
