Spirituality Guide

So if Karma is an ethical system with right and wrong built into it, why might that not be a good thing?

The only answer I can see if karma is real is that someone set it up. Someone knew already what is good and what is harmful and arranged an ethically based system to punish and reward. Now to me, that means either what we do here is already known to be good or bad and we’re playing a pretty useless game or else whoever set it up IS NOT US!

If it’s the first option then it smacks of the Christian God - ‘now I know you’re going to fail this because I know it all, and I made you so i know you will be unable to resist the challenge, but don’t eat from that tree over there, because I love you but if you eat from it not only will it doom you both but every single human ever to be born.’

With such love, one doesn’t need an enemy.

If it is the second idea, that whoever set up the karma system is not us, then we seem to be the subjects of some kind of experiment, to not be here of our choosing and to be trying to find our way through a maze more complicated than any we have stuck a mouse into.

And given the religious backing for virtually all the karma principles, one must then suspect the whole foundation of the religions. If someone sets up a system within which you have to live, with no way for you to work out the details of the system without leaving it, and then imposes an unknown punishment/reward system on all within the system, surely we have to suspect the motives of whoever set it up?

Something seems wrong with the whole idea of karma and to be honest, I don’t see a way around it - unless karma simply doesn’t exist at all.

I’ve been exposed to a number of differing versions of the karma story. Some say it is about a life balancing thing – live a bad life now and you pay for it later. For others it can be almost instant where doing something bad now can cause an almost instant bad thing to bounce back at oneself.

I’m not sure I can make it clear but I see a problem with the underpinnings of the concept and I’m unsure how to get it across so others understand where I see the issue.

It’s a dichotomy thing I guess - if life is about experience, then to have a system in place which mandates experience would, to me, imply a prior knowledge of what may be good or bad experience. You see, the problem is this - everyone I’ve heard talk about it is happily telling me that karma means if you experience doing something bad to others (or maybe even to self) then later (sometimes immediately, sometimes in other lives) you will have the bad thing done to you.

What isn’t apparent though is whether or not the same system exists when we do good. It doesn’t seem to balance - if I do a good thing for another, do I later have to be in a position where I need to have that good thing done to me? Or does the fact that it is a good thing I did remove it from the karma cycle?

If I lead a good life this time around, do I have to lead a bad life later to make up for it?

Bit of a trick question really because no matter which way you answer it means karma is somehow biased towards a particular ethical Point of View - all experiences are NOT equal - some get punished and some don’t, or some bring a form of revenge while others require one to suffer just so another gets a chance to visit a reply upon one.

Imagine The Matrix world - what if the computer simulation already had characters running around, operating according to basic programming. Neo wants to join the game, so the computer ‘models’ him and then overlays that model onto a generated character within the Matrix. Neo would need points of interface to be able to make the character do things other than its programming, but when Neo relaxed, the programming would run the body for him.

What would it be like to be Neo? Necessarily he would need to be unaware of his ‘greater’ life or he would not actually be ‘playing’ the Matrix game. In very short order he would become adjusted to using the model to do things - like driving a car, very soon you cease to think through the steps necessary to drive. Neo could even get to the point of wondering about and perhaps reasoning towards a knowledge of a greater life, but until he dropped the body and model imagery, he’d be unaware of the existence of something above his Matrix world.

The model would be like an astral body – a copy inserted into this reality by the original or perhaps by a ‘higher self’ to play and learn. The links back through the astral body might account for some of the mystery things that occur – there have been numerous cases where people have somehow ‘known’ of future events. There is no satisfactory explanations for this, although there have been numerous attempts.

Maybe the reason we have so much trouble identifying who we are and how things work with us is because we are trying to encompass two varieties of life within one description?

If there is one subject that generates an amazing amount of dialogue, discussion and argument without ever apparently reaching a conclusion, it would be Spirituality. Not only do people disagree about what version is most appropriate to our lives, not only do we dispute or seek a wide variety of definitions of such subjects, but whether there is any such thing as spirit is something in which there is little agreement.

It seems to me a part of our confusion about our lives may be due to not recognising we are complex beings rather than seeing ourselves as a single entity.

what if…?

- There is a life force imbibing reality as a planetary entity, or something I’ve wondered a little on, as a Solar System entity?

Such a beingness might have a different focus to our own. Maybe such a beingness came to beingness as a natural part of the Universe game. Perhaps such a life form was the reason for Origin? If so, it (they?) would have it’s own agenda for development, perhaps phasing through a series of experiments towards finding expression in life forms that would permit self-awareness or to explore Self in a way similar to what I have pondered on in regards to THE ALL, in other threads.

Gaia might be growing in the physical, expressing Self as bodies, finding new and perhaps better ways to integrate and store information as S/He grows.

- There is a Life Force who, once the game has begun to run, sits at the console to play the game. Instead of a keyboard and screen, this entity might use, for want of a better term, an astral body, to enter into the game to play - the astral body allows THE ALL life force to interface with a physical ‘player’ so as to be able to participate in the game.

From Kirlian auras, through to electric fields, people have attempted to show that, if we are not just bodies living in a purely physical realm, our ‘spirit’ can be measured or shown to have reality within this cosmos. So far, as far as I know, nobody has yet managed to definitively show that the effects showing up in science have any relationship to what we term ‘spirit.’

I don’t know if what we term spiritual substance has anything to do with atoms and molecules. How I view it is that spirit is the reality, the thing that underlies everything we experience, and that spirit comes to play in the created environment but is not actually a part of it.

Bruce Lipton’s ‘field’ that owns a body isn’t it I think (spirit) but it might be. I keep having the thought (and I am not sure where it originated) that Lipton’s body-owning field is simply the intermediary, a phantasm created to allow spirit to interact with the physical universe. I think Sheldrake’s field is maybe a field ‘grown’ here in this reality by perhaps the life force that maintains it all.

It’s complex I guess but I seem to have found a view that suggests there is more than one growth happening. The Reality Life is growing towards sophistication while we come as avatars of THE ALL to learn from the game. The Gaia life forms are vehicles available for spirit to inhabit to experience. As spirit evolves in knowledge, experience and awareness, so Gaia has been driving in the same path - Gaia is running, if you like, her own God program, using physical bodies of ever increasing abilities to extend her own awareness and sophistication and in a symbiotic relationship with Spirit, is growing towards her own Godhood.

Mind you, it is also quite feasible Gaia IS our ALL, and that the bits of spiritual beingness that we are actually derive from Gaia. But that doesn’t seem to resonate with me as does the prior idea.

I am far from having it all worked out, but conversations here and on other sites are helping to coalesce the nebulosity into what might be insight… one day perhaps

I think maybe ‘lack of self awareness’ creates automatisms - when one is at all self-aware, there is little that is automatic. When one isn’t, almost everything is automatic. Lack of knowledge limits choices, reduces free will and allows manipulation - but it doesn’t automatically generate automatic behaviour.

I seriously doubt betrayal generates an automatism - I think there are too many people betrayed who stay with the betrayer, who line up to allow it to happen again, who defend the one who hurts them, for it to be ‘automatic.’ The love and hate relationship would seem far more active and complex than can be explained by mere automatism.

I’m also not sure hate is emotional - I think maybe the expression of it can be emotional but true hate is cold and reasoning. Rage is hot and unreasoning. Hate allows the use of reason to find satisfaction; rage will lash out even at risk to self.

I also don’t think empathy is the ‘connection between knowledge and emotion’ as empathy doesn’t seem to bring knowledge with it - it instead relies on the experience of the receiver for informational content - normally it is just ‘feeling’ not data.

I see emotions as being at one end of a scale - I don’t think they have opposites, just flavours. Emotions come from peptides, chemical environments added into informational input based on previous experiences being associated with aspect of current environment. Emotions are meant to be informational, but because we have so little training and education in who we are, mostly they become motivational at the expense of reason.

The opposite of the various emotions is Rationality, where the informational input is shown to the being and decided upon based on content and awareness.

And one last thing - ignorance is not necessarily a lack of knowing - only in a rational person is that definition always the case. For a variety of reasons, people may know but still remain ignorant. The Christian with Evolution comes to mind - Evolution as a result of random mutation may not be the ultimate theory nor even well supported by fact, but to willingly line up Creation against it shows a willingness to ignorance that no amount of education can ever overcome.
(in case you’re wondering, Creation and Evolution are not even opposite sides in the same argument)

As I read recently - ‘It is impossible to reason someone out of a position they were not first reasoned into’

Knowing something and allowing it to change your view are two VERY different things.

I was in a discussion recently about Apathy. A person was saying that because of trauma, they were deep in apathy for a good part of the past few years. That raised my interest – I don’t know if shutting off because of pain or trauma can be defined as apathy.

Apathy is a not caring, a no interest, a position so low in level that nothing registers as interest. Being shut off is a situation maintained by pain, a wall (and I know a little of walls) built to cut out the caring - in short it is an act of will or even an act of desperation.

To me, the one thing apathy cannot be or be the result of is an action of any kind - action is the result of motivation and apathy is the negation of motivation. Apathy is not caring and the wall is erected to prevent caring. shutting out all personal feelings is an action, a deliberate (or otherwise) act of consciousness, usually for protection. apathy is the result of nothing left, no path, no hope and no care for anything. An apathetic person doesn’t need a wall.

Love and hate are not, (I think) polar opposites but rather two faces of a coin. Both are feelings and both are positive feelings - I do NOT mean they have positive effects but both will result in actions, in motivation and in direction. apathy is their true opposite because again, love and hate are about caring. It may not be possible to hate someone you couldn’t love - not sure about that but it seems to ’snick’ into place.

I don’t know if being in the presence of an apathetic individual can be harmful - unless the need radiating from said individual results in a draining of the one who responds. In such cases one would need to be a channel for the energy, not provide it from one’s own storage. The very need of such a person may be attractive to one who lives to help - maybe that’s why we see people locked into user relationships?

I wrote this some time ago but I think it applies now…

The smoke-smell was quite strong that day, inhaled deep into breast
The sun was high, the wind was mild, coming from the west.
Crackles came as fire bit in, the next ridge burning bright
It seared the slope across the gulch, all since morning light

Red tongue of flame had reached this side, of gully-bottom’s creek
We’d stop it here or run like hell, as safety we would seek
Heat haze above and viscous smoke, made it hard to see
Wet sacking, shovel, pack on back, fire heroes we would be

It started in the neighbour state, we tried to raise alarm
But National Park authorities, couldn’t see the harm
From 50 hectares at that time, its’ size so quickly grew
It crossed the border 5 miles wide; we’d need a bigger crew

Land round Bendoc’s high and steep, more vertical than flat
Our huge and heavy dozers, couldn’t cope with that
The call went out, resources flowed, firefighters came apace
We set up two more base camps, we really needed space

There’s choppers four, six fixed wings too, nine dozers had come in
When trying to pass the jobs around, we all raised quite a din
And now we stood, the thinnest line, a frail and human wall
We’d stem the tide and save our towns, just fire could make us fall

We knew that when the flames did leap, across the tiny stream
They’d race upslope, our flesh to burn, our tears to turn to steam
We had no choice of where we stood, conflagration chose
Smoked tears we wept, coughing loud, and dribbled from the nose

When first we met our fiery foe, the tiny little burn
Had grown in size a thousand times, and then began to turn
Out of place and miles away, we’d had to rush right in
No choice of where to fight the beast, we took it on the chin

For days we sweat against the roar, the showers of sparks so bright
It stayed so dark from smoke and ash, we knew not day or night
When flame rose high and threatened all, there was no time for fear
Just wet that sack and swing it round, Death is truly near

The flames went by, we ran for life, and got back to the front
Old George was just magnificent; his team now took the brunt
And slowly as reports came in, we saw the tide had turned
We started getting rest breaks then, but not what we had earned

For two long weeks the fire had raged, had torn our lives apart
But folks were safe, though we were spent, from that we all took heart
A mighty celebration raged, pissed workers all around
Then hungover and bleary-eyed, we made our way to town.

Standing in front of a fire place on a cold night is a comfort – we watch the flames leap and cavort, we hold out hands to get warm and we relish the time spent with loved ones in such a room.

A cold burn set by humans to clear the undergrowth can be scary – watching the flames track you as you move along the line, using wet hessian or pigs (water tanks of several hundred gallons) on the back of a Land Cruiser to control the spread of the flames brings realisation of how easily it could get out of hand.

Being closer than miles to a raging inferno of a bushfire is an experience out of this world. Fires such as those which have devastated Victoria are living monsters, demons of heat, noise and awesomeness that can leave the strongest quaking in fear.

The fires rage so hot they suck air in across the front, creating a gale that threatens to suck you into the flames.

The air rises fast as it is heated and feeds the flames. The roar of the fire is deafening, so loud you can feel it in your bones. The doof-doof of the suburban youth has nothing on this. Standing right behind a 747 jet engine might come close.

The heated air reaches for the tree tops, exploding leaves into flames, tearing them from their branches and speeding them across the untouched bush ahead of the fire front.

The heat radiating from the front makes you wonder why you ever thought heat was a good thing. You can almost feel your face peeling off as the blast hits you.

What most people don’t get is that, when you get close to the fire, it is hard to think, let alone reason out what to do. That’s why they only allow trained personnel on the fire line

Most people have by now heard of the fires in Victoria, Australia. The blazes swept across bush and town, moving at incredible speed and burning hot enough to melt metal on the cars it consumed. The body count is nearly two hundred and there are still large areas the searchers have yet to enter, raising the possibility of even higher numbers of dead.

The fires raged through bush left almost untouched by fuel reduction burns – Green pressure of the past fifteen years led to most of the cold burns of the off season being dropped from the schedules of the departments responsible for crown lands, national and state forests.

Yet on Monday, while people were still being consumed by flame, these Greens hit the papers with accusations of the Government being responsible by failing to address Anthropogenic Global warming issues radically enough.

One has to wonder about the callousness of such people who would dive so soon into the blame game. One also wonders how many of those responsible for stopping the fuel reduction burns went to the fire lines to try to help deal with the ravening monster they created. Have any of those with the loudest voices even set foot in the bush they claimed they were trying to save from man’s depredations?

How dare such people start casting blame while the heroes of the CFA (Country Fire Authority) and other organisations, alongside volunteers risking everything to save others, were walking towards conflagration that would have most people screaming in terror?

This is the bad side of disaster – those who choose a political life see an opportunity to rush in and make headlines, forgetting all about the tragedy unfolding around them as they make political points.

In our world it seems everything is becoming more and more geared towards safety. The government passes laws almost daily to curtail injury, to allow them to fine people who might put themselves in harm’s way.

Our children are coddled and swathed in safe environments to prevent anything bad happening to them, yet somehow previous generations were not only able to struggle through such horrendous risks, they seem to have thrived on them.

Some of the sickliest people I have met have come from a coddled environment where they were prevented from having exposure to the world outside. Recent research suggests such exposure is needed to kickstart the immune system. It’s the same principle under which we vaccinate – exposure to a small risk will stimulate the protectiveness that will fend off the potentially fatal version.

When disaster comes, when massive trauma arrives unheralded as nature smacks down the impertinent humans, those who cope best are those who’ve learned early that the world can be a harsh place. Those who’ve never experienced hardship are often the ones most in need of help as they wilt under pressure when they find there is no real haven from disaster.

But sometimes, just sometimes, the least likely people will shine under adversity, while the ones we expect to cope, show they don’t have the grit to function.

Have you been through trauma on a scale that affects entire communities? Have you watched the people around you when all the normal coping mechanisms fail and they stand exposed to the raw power of the world around them?

I want to interrupt the normal flow of posts about the spiritual world. I want to talk about tragedy, drama, disaster because I think sometimes, the only way to see the real people out there, is when events so large they push aside the normal day-to-day masks we wear, that the deep down person hiding inside is visible

It is in times of major events when we see the unexpected, when heroic behaviour arises and when humans can be at their worst or their best. It is hard to face catastrophe, extremely difficult to behave well in the face of overwhelming events, yet over and again we see apparently normal people not only do it, but do it so well they can only be called Hero.

Living in the world around us it is easy to get into the viewpoint that people are pretty much fucked. They cheat, lie, steal, indulge in casual violence for the pettiest of reasons… the list seems endless. It can be a source of depression, a cause for apathy as we look around and see a world where the least common denominator seems to be controlling the state of play of our society.

Yet on occasions of terror, of trauma so massive it is hard to imagine much less face, we often find the apparent scum of our society are those who rise to magnificence.

Recent events here in Australia have once more brought out the best in people. The Aussies have come out to support and cherish those who have suffered hardship and loss when the bushfires showed us Nature’s February Fury as they destroyed lives and towns.

The only way to advance, IMHO, is to rely on Self. It is what YOU understand about YOU that matters. Short of perfect telepathy, nobody can tell you about you. They can suggest things to try and point a direction to follow but it is you who must go there. Find your core, learn who you are and what you will or will not do and you are well on your way.

a good way to start is by thinking back on what makes you emote. What causes feelings in you? What are those feelings? When was the first time you felt those feelings? What can you recall about those feelings that might explain why you have them at all.

Then comes the next step. Those feelings, even the events that spark them off, are all in your head. All we know of the Reality in which we see ourselves is what comes to our attention via the mind. The mind gets it’s Point of View by taking what the brain receives and cataloging it all, forming relationships with other events and pieces of knowledge, using the emotions added to the input by the lower levels of the brain to decide on context of the data. The brain gets it’s data from the nerves, but what it all comes down to is the entire world, the universe and cosmos is all simply an impression created in your mind and presented to you.

There is no need to react to such things - you can take the time, a slight pause to allow yourself to realise this is all second hand and the emotions being felt are actually being generated inside your own head based on past (not present now) events. Then you can think through the situation and perform an original act rather than a reaction programmed either by your past or by the person calculating you will react in a particular way.

If you can bring this attitude into your life - and it is NOT an easy thing to do - you will be well on your way. Being aware of self like this will bring self-awareness. From self-awareness comes the path to other-awareness and this is the true spiritual path. It is unique, it is yours and it will work for any who try it.

When a people are lost, when their society fails to provide needs that are basic to their lives, they look around for what will provide those needs. Our society has fallen a long way from an optimal path - we risk destroying our world in the name of greed and power over others - it is ironic because those seeking most the power over others have not yet begun the journey of power over self that would relieve them of the burden they are trying to relieve.

The Cult of Conformity and Consumerism fails us in many ways - it derails our awareness of things other than the latest model of the most recent time-waster, it destroys our sense of aesthetics but programming us into the flashiest, the hippest etc. and it subverts our goals towards the non-material, towards the areas most people here are seeking.

Many religions and cults are and have been aware of this for a long time now. They have down to a fine art the procedures for seducing and subjugating their congregations, for ensuring that most will never stray from the fold and the best ones even prepare their flock so they will defend themselves against any attempt to open their eyes.

As an example, the Christ taught that salvation is a personal thing, a journey and compact between the being and the Father; somehow however, the bodies representing the Christ message have managed to negate that entire message into one that says salvation comes from listening to an interceder, from following the dictates of a person who, of their own nomination, stands between the being and the Father. That’s a total reversal of the message and the message is still in the book they use for a reference and that they proclaim as the Word of God, yet somehow none of the congregation calls them on it.

That’s how cults work - they are VERY good at it and follow a long tradition of working on the fears and awareness of people to ensure compliance.

There are some problems with the bible. First, if we apply some basic psychology to the early days, it is clear God is at the least, schizophrenic and sadistic. At worst he could be psychotic. The way he creates Man, then sets them up to fail his test so he can kick them out is either very poorly explained or fits the Sadist role quite nicely. Why sadist? Because He has then visited the punishment on every human ever born – the bible makes that quite clear with it’s whole ‘born into sin’ dogma.

Another problem has to do with Adam and Eve. Never mind that even a generous measure of when they lived directly contradicts what we’ve dug up of real history, the Creation story has a gaping hole through it.

God made Adam, then apparently took a rib and made Eve. Genetics denies this, and further, men have nipples.
Some rather strange people have tried to make out that this is due to redundancy – in case women somehow came to be unable to suckle babies, men could take over. Pardon me while I spit coffee over my keyboard.

Genetics tells us that females predate men. If God made us, She made Eve first, then made Adam as a match.

How can I say this?

Well, when looking at genes, the X and Y chromosomes stand out as the major difference between male and female. Females have 23 pairs of chromosomes, all of similar size and conformation. In men, chromosome 23 has been stunted, losing a large amount of the DNA that makes up the normal type. It is quite clear that the Y chromosome was formed from the X, not the other way around.

In genetic terms, the Battle of the Sexes seems to have been quite literally just that. One life form invaded another & they were so nearly equal a compromise was reached where the offspring shared genetic parts from both parents. The compromise was such a good deal in terms of survivability that the lifeform dominated to the point where virtually all life is now sexual to one extent or another.

I’m fairly sure this is how it came about because looking around at all forms of life there is every possible variant of the battle results. In some the female is barely more than host genetically while in others it is the male who lost most inheritance.