The Universal Laws of Karma Our deeds still travel with us from afar, And what we have been makes us what we are. George Elliot There are many universal laws, which are above the laws of any country. To quote a few, there are laws of gravity, electricity, interstellar planetary forces, weather, and the earth revolving on its own axis. There are also laws of �like begets like� and � as above so below� There are innumerable more laws, which act upon and control the entire universe and us. These are the laws that no country or international laws or dictator can annul or eradicate. The laws that concern us most here are Karma and Reincarnation. For every universal law there is a reason for it. For instance, the law of gravity is there to prevent us from falling off the earth. Definition of Karma What is Karma? Karma is the Sanskrit word for action. It is equivalent to Newton�s law of �every action must have a reaction�. When we think, speak or act we initiate a force that will react accordingly. This returning force maybe modified, changed or suspended, but most people will not be able eradicate it. This law of cause and effect is not punishment, but is wholly for the sake of education or learning. A person may not escape the consequences of his actions, but he will suffer only if he himself has made the conditions ripe for his suffering. If he were to continue acting in such a way that the retribution cannot come about, because the conditions are not appropriate, then he may postpone the fruition of his karma. If he can suspend it until he is in the spirit world, then he may work at this particular karma in this intermission between death and next life. Or he may wait until another life in which he is more developed so that he can gleaned the educational value of this retribution. Conversely, his life could be so derelict that the blessings due to him cannot fructify until a later date or a subsequent life. All these fall into the category of suspension of karma to a more propitious period or life. Why are we born at all? In this section we will discuss the purpose of karma and why it is loaded with moral content. We have to start from the very beginning. After being through stages of mineral, vegetable, animal and birds we have been resting in the comfortable lap of the Source (Godhead or Absolute) for aeons. Then we decided to re-circulate as the last sentient beings, namely humans on planet earth. So in the Big Bang many of us would be released from the source at the same time. Innumerable showers of souls have taken place since the first arrival of man on earth. All souls in each dispersal would become soul mates. We have free will from the very first incarnation, and consequently we earned karma. The accumulation of good and bad karma dictates that we have to face them in each life, and resolve them as best we can. Our main aim is to learn through experience to become better souls. It is through the process of purification until we become perfect. In this way we may finally return to the Source or Absolute so that God (which is all-inclusive) may be a better one. It is so obvious that this cannot be done in one incarnation, because the karma accumulated is far too much. As we carry on in ignorance we tend to deem ourselves as separate individuals, and thus, we begin our journey of delusion. Thence onwards, we not only need more than one incarnation, but hundreds or thousands of them to clear the backlog. In order to reach the goal of being solely filled with love and compassion, we require a moral and guiding Law of Karma. So that at the end of our journeys our purity would be regained. With free will, we begin to make mistakes in our very first incarnation, thus incurring karma. Beneficial karma is also earned if we do things for the benefit of others. In other words a bank account of good and bad karma, (positive and negative balance) is opened in our very first incarnation. From here onwards, we will die and reborn many times with our soul mates and others. Every incarnation is endowed with forgetfulness of past events; otherwise it is impossible to go forward in our journeys. Without this total amnesia, we cannot perform with the knowledge that our dear ones were our past enemies. It is only in the intermissions between death and life that we realise that we have reared a family of enemies, who turned out to be very good and loving in this last incarnation. It is in the spirit world that we are able to practice forgiveness to our family members in retrospect. So even our adversaries can promote our spiritual progress. This classroom of planet earth is a very varied one. We have to learn all manners of occupations, professions and vocations to experience greed, anger, selfishness and pride. After acquiring these selfish traits in the separate self we then have to relinquish them to return back to interconnectedness. That means we have to be not only in all trades, but all nationalities, all sexes (including homosexual) and all grades of criminals as well as all classes of saintliness. With hundreds or thousands of incarnations for us to act out all these categories, we start to let go and transform ourselves to better souls. Does Karma preclude chance? Some authors think that there is no place for chance in the Law of Karma. They think that chance cannot play any part in the unfolding of Karma. What about incidents and happenings that are non-karmic in origin? Do they occur? Edgar Cayce certainly believed they do. Many a case was brought to him, and he deemed them to be not karmic in origin. Some of these are due the fact that an individual wanted to learn a lesson, say on starvation. He subsequently asked for a life where he starved to death. As we are learning and living with other people, the unfolding of their karma could accidentally involve us in a passive way. However, the purists would say that even here there is some linkage to the distant past. What about national karma, which implicates us, even though we have not erred? The rationale here is that we are members of a group, soul mates, and therefore �we live together and err together.� The soul mates that stayed together and perpetrated certain negative activities together would finally find themselves born in the same nation. There may not be a 100% commitment in all these citizens, but with their silence they tacitly gave consent. Notwithstanding the occasional accident due to associations of soul mates, all in all karma certainly plays a predominant role in the major events of our lives. If accidents form the major part of the causes of events, then karma cannot function as a law. So the purists have a point here. True happenstance makes a mockery of the law of karma. How is Karma caused? Of all the sentient beings we humans are the only ones that possess self-consciousness. That means we begin to ask questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I go from here? Then we begin to realise right from wrong because of the establishment of the self and selfishness. We can only become selfish because we have free will. If everything were fated, then we would have been robots without responsibility. This is the rub. With karma as the guiding law, we must be totally responsible for our actions. That means we have to suffer the consequences of our thoughts, speech and actions, whether they are wholesome or unwholesome. Self-conscious humans are now able to have concepts with which we can plan our future on the material side of things. Planning means intention. And it is intention that counts for most in karma production. If one�s intention were salutary then the karma produced would be good even though the result is negative. If the intention were evil or selfish, then the karma produced would be bad even if the result is beneficial. The next point to consider is that not every action is karma productive. For instance, one knows that the glass contains poison, and if one believes that one�s luck is so good that the poison would not effect one, then one drinks the poison. The result is fatal. This is not karma; it is stupidity. Similarly, thinking that one�s fate is so fine and powerful, he jumps from the 3rd floor of the building thinking that nothing will touch him. This again is due to stupidity and gravity kills him. These chemical reactions (poison) and gravity, which give immediate results, are not karmic in nature. Karma usually takes place for no apparent reason, for the cause might have originated from previous lives. We cannot remember the connection. Of course in this fast moving world, karma is coming back to us very quickly. For instance, a young man who, started to accumulate his millions through wheeling and dealing with unsavoury methods, became a multimillionaire by the time he reached fifty years old. But the present currency turmoil taking place in his region devastated him completely in six months. This is his karma returning like a boomerang. He ends up a bankrupt and may even go to jail for his illegal pursuits. Of course, if his karma is carried over to the next life, he will deem it as bad luck during that life because he cannot see the connection. Now summarising, we have free will, we have intention and we must be responsible for our thoughts, speech and actions. The fundamental and basic principle is simple--- whatever we do to benefit ourselves and to hurt others produces bad karma. Whatever we do to benefit others will generate good karma. Therefore any thought that is inimical to others should be avoided. Any speech that is detrimental to others should not be uttered. Any action that will benefit the self and hurt others should never be contemplated let alone be enacted. The above are general principles with regards to actions (thoughts and speech are taken as action here). The next thing to consider is desire and attachment. Ill will, selfishness...
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