K A R M A

by Joyce Dean

Iniquities come back home strengthened at least times four. If a person steals, cheats, or in any secret or deceptive way obtains one dollar, he will be denied four or more dollars in the foreseeable future at a time when he can least afford it. The loss seems ten times the gain. Is this person fooling all of the people, some of the people, or only himself? One cannot stop, deter, or slow karmic energy once it's put into motion. This law continues to cycle because each effect is a cause in itself. Karmic energy is true only to the natural laws of metaphysics, which include physics, and cannot be evaded. Karma, the higher law, God's law, is in complete expression in this physical experience we call life.

Profit in fair exchange for goods or services is in tune with the flow of supply. To work within the law of supply one would allow possessions to flow in and out of his life. Hording, basically a fear of poverty, inhibits the flow of what one needs in his life. This creates the very poverty he fears. Profit, colored with even minor deception, sparks negative karmic energy into motion. It WILL return in kind, many times stronger.

Integrity bows to one of our finest assets: the intellect. This great attribute becomes the devil within, justifying our transgressions by convincing our intellect with our intellect. The lower, or ego self believes his identity to be his intellect. The higher self knows his identity to be his soul and his intellect to be one of his best tools. We rationalize away our values with thoughts like, "If he doesn't have the brains to hang onto his assets, he doesn't deserve to keep them; my needs are much greater than his; I'll make it up to him later; he owes me because of favors I've done for him; I'm much too smart to get caught, and the classic, If I don't do it, someone else will." The sharper the intellect the more intricate and persuasive the rationalization. In other words, the smarter one is, the greater his talent for self-deception.

Now, not only is the quadrupled karma of the original crime being conducted back to its source, but additional learning experiences work hard to expose self-deception. Harmony is lost. Internal friction shorts the electrical system and causes chemical imbalances, and finally, the body falls to disease. Refuse to learn from your teacher, karma, and strife will increase. Life will be out of timing and nothing will seem to work.

Help is always here to serve you. Our curiosities, inquiries, and quests draw answers to us through any medium that may catch our attention. Observe, ponder, ask, and you will gain insights. The spark of enlightenment raises your vibration, releasing karmic bonds. Expect tests on your new insights. The best outcome can be yours. Stick to your highest values even if reason or desire is in conflict, then, LET THE CHIPS FALL WHERE THEY MAY.

Leaving those chips lying there against your better judgement is very difficult at first. Experiencing everyone's comfort, joy, and profit, every single time you act in harmony with your higher values, will lure you to adhere to those values out of self-interest.

Don't get caught up in worrying about what the highest values are, nor how you should act according to that. Look to your heart, in there, sense your feelings of right and wrong. From your heart you know your highest values. Have faith that your values are being honed and perfected with every step you take. Even the smallest decision must ultimately be your own. It's solely from your own energy that karma, at its best or its worst, is visited upon you. It is not visited upon one who has directed you, or even coerced you. That person has put out his own energy. His karma would be from directing someone away from the light. False teaching carries a heavy burden. Your karma is from your decision alone. Since you, and only you, have to bear the burdens or joys of your actions, it's only right that you make your choices yourself.

There is not a great guru appointed by God that we should all blindly follow. That would be tantamount to giving our will to someone else, when we must be in control of our own will, so that we may have the power to unfold our own destiny. In owning our own will, we can choose to align our will to the will of God.

Learn from everyone, from great ones of wisdom, to the smallest child. Gather from our furry friends, from the cycles of nature, to the furthest reaches of the ether, but, always come back to your heart, choosing your actions based on your own highest senses.

Of all the laws of nature, the law of Karma is the supreme law under which the other natural laws work. Evolution on this planet is accomplished through cause and effect, from subatomic particles to man. This is accomplished through friction. If you don't like it, don't do it. The power of thought energy creates every manifestation in our lives. This process is ever active whether we are aware of it or not. We cannot escape this law, so we must learn to work within it. Start with observation.

If one starts his observations neither believing nor disbelieving in the validity of karma, he begins to see the connections between the effects and causes he has created in his life. He will begin to see how his own actions and thoughts have created his daily reality. At first, note these possible connections, then put them on the back burner of your subconscious mind. This is done by noticing with interest, drawing no immediate conclusions, and forgetting about it. It's still in the subconscious mind. A perfect place for our mounting notes of interest, as we have now begun a process which will mature.

Ones education is his own responsibility. One should not expect anything to be proven to him. We must each prove or disprove different aspects of the truth to ourselves. Again, it is our own sense of right that we must follow. It's helpful to remember that all aspects of the truth are compatible with each other. Truth is always in harmony. If you note a seeming incompatibility, then whatever does not quite fit needs to be carefully weighed. There are many levels to truth outside of the physical. In the astral there is no gravity. Time as we calculate it in this physical realm of cause and effect is not present on the finer levels of expression. Read any writing that draws your interest, because you are gathering information for yourself. Through experience your information will become knowledge. Through your own expression, on your own journey, your knowledge will become wisdom.

An occult maxim I was given by the author Alice Bailey is liberating. She said, "More than one thing is true at the same time." If you remember this as a very real possibility, it will help disintegrate dogmatic prisons of past programming. For instance, the story of Adam and Eve, evolution of the body, and the evolution of the soul are all true. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, which is spirit. Adaptation creates physical evolution. Growth of the soul is created through rebirths. Are these things true, or not true? Only you can decide for you.

Many of us have, until now, been at the will of past programming. We have been programmed by society, television, family, friends, and experiences. Many have become who they are through willy-nilly programming, much of which has bypassed our conscious mind. Now, it's time for us to take our own growth in hand. We will unfold to our true self by taking responsibility for our own being. Always investigate what lights your mind. 'Ask and ye shall receive'. The bible has given us true words here. This you can rely on, absolutely. Try to notice when answers come, from almost any source. What is missed is missed through inattention. Mind control, your controlling your own mind, not leaving that control up to chance or manipulation, is accepting your own mantle of responsibility.

Impatience plagues most of us. We often believe we are our aspirations, failing over and over again to reach them. We carry much guilt because we don't quite measure up to what we know is right. We are not our aspirations, and never will be. As we reach higher levels of growth, we set our sights on even purer aspirations.

Truly, we must know ourselves as we are, as we are in the here and now. We can only progress from where we are, not from where we wish we were. Karmic energy will not be fooled by our opinion of self. It will act from our true core. Without self-honesty we will fail, falling in confusion to guilt. This is a cause in itself.

Honest self appraisals from a disciplined mind will uncover virtues in the heart. I wish to give you an exercise in self knowledge, once given to me. This exercise can be put into process in two to four weeks of attention. To me, this is as close to a short cut as we will get. During this period of time notice what you experience, and put a name to how you feel. Feel good, feel bad, that won't do. Search deeper until you find a word that exactly describes what you feel. It may be resentment, insecurity, or guilt. Perhaps it's joy, triumph, or serenity. In paying attention to yourself you will begin to notice that certain feelings, (energies), often are felt in about the same place in your body. Resentment may be felt in the solar plexus, the pit of your stomach. Love in your heart, and joy may leap from your heart out the top of your head. This is the greatest of all highs, the spiritual high. After two to four weeks in this exercise of self-attention, the process of learning to know thyself will continue subconsciously. Your conscious mind will be attracted to new awarenesses. This will lead to your control of your own being. Through self-knowledge you shall know what to release, and what to amplify. A kind of separation between your true self and the energies you are running will occur. Being neutral you can choose to erupt into joy, or contemplate anger. You can now begin to choose your state of being based on knowledge and experience. These steps were climbed by you and you alone. These attributes learned and experienced by you, are yours forever.

Taking command of, and responsibility for our own growth, can save what may otherwise take life times to accomplish. Life times of unrelenting hard knocks. Cycles of crisis force us to search for relief. Difficulties mount, assulting us into consciousness.

It's true that some of the energies that are experienced may well be from a past life. If you are very still, perhaps reclining on a couch, you may physically feel an energy which is, in a split second, cloaked by thoughts pertaining to your immediate life. In this case the energy came before the thought, if only by a tenth of a breath. In my case as I laid there, I purposely went straight back to the energy, to experience it, searching for what it felt like. It was resentment. A resentment of never being able to speak my mind. Burning this particular energy in my mind, I isolated it, felt it, so that I could feel it at will. Then I went into meditation, following this resentment back through this life until I found it at three years old. But, this experience was just a trigger that brought the energy into this life. At this young age, I had my mouth washed out with soap for telling a lie, but it was not a lie, it was the truth. My resentment was reborn. So, I went back further, and further, until I experienced the horrible realization of having my tongue cut out. Through terror I fought my way back to neutrality. My punishment was executed. No longer would this Indian man scream out against the atrocities done to his countrymen. The men of the Spanish Inquisition had taken care of that. I lived on with the respect of my countrymen, and love from my wife and children, but harbored a deep resentment to never being able to speak my mind. After finding the source of this resentment through meditation, I worried, "How do I realize this; what should I do?" I tried to bring up the energy of resentment again, but couldn't. I fell asleep. In the morning I looked again for this energy and it wasn't there. Something that was always a part of me was gone. It felt strange. Part of whom I had always been vanished, never to return. I had to do nothing except go back to the source of the resentment. In one sitting I released an energy that had been with me for lifetimes. I believe this is one of the finest tools for liberation available to us.

Some of us have a need to learn how these spiritual energies work. It's the path our soul has chosen. But, not all must go this way. I love a passage in the Bible, it says, "For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified" (Romans 2:13). Karma works precisely whether one knows of it or not. It all comes around; give and you'll receive; live by violence and you'll die by violence; virtue is its own reward; and you reap what you sow: all references to the all powerful, living law of Karma.

We could continue a cycle of conflict and crisis. Never seeing the cause within. The glaring effect is seen as an attack from an outside force. The angry stranger, the driver that cut you off, the chair you tripped over (bad chair), plus not finding a parking place, can trip your emotional switches. Energy follows thought more surely than the sun rises. Our acts, our very thoughts, manifest fully in our lives. Our thoughts have created our daily reality, and are creating our future. Mental discipline will create our success. Throw out any thought that lacks integrity. Do not address such thoughts. It has been said, "Turn your back on evil, and it will flee." Throw unwanted thoughts out again and again. In time they won't even bother coming in. Shedding negative thoughts, like a snake sheds its skin, will make you as radiant as an innocent smile, as free as a bird riding the wind, and as powerful as love.

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