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Tuesday, January 7, 2003
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Karma is mostly (maybe even completely) a substitute for the idea of cause and effect
Rule #5 from Light on the Path illustrates the cause and effect of condemning, cursing another person.
Note on Rule 5. -- Do not fancy you can stand aside from the bad man or the foolish man. They are yourself, though in a less degree than your friend or your master. But if you allow the idea of separateness from any evil thing or person to grow up within you, by so doing you create Karma, which will bind you to that thing or person till your soul recognizes that it cannot be isolated. Remember that the sin and shame of the world are your sin and shame; for you are a part of it; your Karma is inextricably interwoven with the great Karma. And before you can attain knowledge you must have passed through all places, foul and clean alike. Therefore, remember that the soiled garment you shrink from touching may have been yours yesterday, may be yours tomorrow. And if you turn with horror from it, when it is flung upon your shoulders, it will cling the more closely to you. The self-righteous man makes for himself a bed of mire. Abstain because it is right to abstain -- not that yourself shall be kept clean.
9:05:02 AM 
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The beginning of an inquiry
This is a small excerpt from the Seven Rays which illuminates that matter, energy, and law are inseparable. With this in mind the question of 'are the laws of cause and effect limited to things outside of our own lives' becomes more poignant. From this scientific view can we begin to extrapolate the implications for our personal lives? Yes, and we shall.
We have observed that in this world of consciousness there are always present three principles, evident in different degrees and proportions at different times. So also in the world of sat there are three principles to be discerned, called tamas, rajas and sattva, translatable as matter, energy and law. Ancient and modern scientists have equally discovered these three in that one, and have also observed their inseparability. They are principles of matter; not properties, but states, of material being, and a body can exhibit them in different degrees at different times, as consciousness can employ will, or love or thought, though all are always present to some extent....
The third constituent property of matter is law. I know that this sounds strange, and that most scientific students will say offhand that the world is composed of only two things, matter and energy, and yet they will affirm that law and order are apparent everywhere. There is some inconsistency in this position, and the ancient scientists of India did not fall into it, for without hesitation they said that sattva or law was one of the properties of the material side of being. It is in fact so, and is really no more difficult a conception than the one that energy is objective. Nowhere in all the world does anybody ever find matter or energy without the exhibition of some law which determines the nature of the body's activity and its relations with other bodies. Every chemical element, every atom, has its function, just as surely as every seed has its tendency to grow and form a particular kind of plant, and the working of this law is part of the routine of nature, sat or being...
8:45:54 AM
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© Copyright 2003 paradox.
Last update: 1/21/03; 3:29:44 PM.
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