I would like to propose a better way to look at the idea of karma, or any belief system that purports to pass judgment on anything, for any reason.
Honestly, I am not a big fan of karma or reincarnation as they are defined today. Especially karma! karma is currently defined as “ the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.”, to which my visceral response is “*%$# that $#@!!”
The main problem I have with the idea of karma is that I have no freaking idea what I did in my last life(s)! Come on, if I am going to have to pay for my crimes at least remind me what they were. I am asked to accept that I was a real piece of work in my last life, and I am paying for it now. Was I Ghengis Khan? Adolf Hitler? Tiglath Pilisar the 3rd (who made Hitler and Khan look like amateurs)? Of course, not all karma is ‘bad’ karma. Some is ‘good’. This just muddies the waters even more because the concepts of good and bad shift like the desert sands. Once upon a time, it was good to slaughter Canaanite men, women, and children, as it made god very happy, much like the killing of infidels makes Allah giggle with glee. Ok, so that should be good karma, no? But the Buddhists claim it is bad karma to kill even a worm. Come on guys, form a committee or something and get your shit together. You're totally messing with my future lives because I don’t know if I should be saving bugs or beheading atheists.
And what about retroactive karma? I mean, Gandhi, considered one of the greatest men of modern times, certainly would be a candidate for the Good Karma award due to his heroic efforts to bring peace and independence to India, Hindus, and Muslims. But now that Pakistan, a country he literally created, and India both have nuclear weapons pointing at one another, would Gandhi be karmically responsible for the millions of deaths if these two countries started nuking each other? Or Hitler, the poster boy for Bad Karma… had he chosen to remain an artist and the Soviets rolled through Europe, as was Stalin’s plan, with no resistance as there would be no war machine stop him, would the death toll be higher? Would all of Europe be plunged into Soviet oppression for generations? And if so, does he get good karma points for not letting that happen? Just a little bit of thinking and one is left with the realization that karma is silly at best, totally messed up and manipulative at worst.
To make matters all the more confusing, the Jesus comes along with the all loving, all forgiving god, totally throwing a monkey wrench into the fear-based model that had been working so well up until then, although the Christians have done a pretty good job of rebuilding that.
All dogma aside, here is what I have come to understand regarding the 'reality' behind karma. First off, there is no judging god. In fact, there is no god at all, in the classic sense. The only being that judges us is ourselves. But not by the 'self' that is wrapped up in ego, personality, fear, materialism, etc. that occupies so much of our life and identity, but by the 'self' that is free of all of that crap. For when we are free of these things we see life, reality, existence, in a very different way. Without these impediments, we are much more connected to and part of existence, which includes many things we have no awareness of while living in our earthling spacesuit. I can not say for certain that this is the case when we die, but it is the case when the consciousness leaves the body, and I assume death is just that but without the option to return.
One of the more remarkable things I experience when I have an OOBE is that 99% of all the desires, interests, goals I have as a human are of absolutely no significance when I leave my body. This was very surprising to me at first, and often frustrating because I had big ideas on how to tweak my physical reality from the 'higher' planes. For example, In my last OOBE, a few weeks ago as of this writing, I had the clear, and what I would refer to as high minded, intention to work on my energy and my health while out of the body. Instead, as soon as I was out I had no recollection or desire to do that and instead chose to visit the garden, wherein I met a stray cat. The cat and I begin to 'speak' to one another, and then I realized he was trying to trick me (it was an Argentine cat, so, no surprise there) and I made a joke about his intentions to him, whereby he lost all interest in continuing our conversation. I then looked back to my apartment building and saw a lot of crazy energy coming out of the room next to mine, so much so it was overflowing into my room. I realized I needed to go back to my room and attempt to keep this energy from overflowing into my space, which I kinda did, although not as successfully as I would have liked. Over the next few weeks, the energy did change radically in the person that lives in that room in that his energy, and his life, completely changed into something that was far less ‘crazy’.
Ok, so what is the point of this? I left my body with a human intention. When I was OOB my human condition was no more important than a forgotten dream, but there was an energetic condition I was made aware of that needed immediate attention, which may have resulted in changes on the human spectrum. In other words, things that are important in the human consciousness may not be in hyper-consciousness.
There is a more important point, which is this: The goals of hyper-consciousness are more centered around maintaining a harmonious state of energies within the 'Whole' (the All-That-is) in as far as it has the ability to. It is not to punish. It is not to suffer. It is to enable the opportunity for harmony in everyone's life. The intention and desires in hyper-consciousness are for the betterment of the Whole, not the 'one'. Of course, I am only speaking for myself. I have run across hyper-entities that are most definitely not on the same page. So, this is my experience. If your true nature is that of an evil demonic overlord or a cat who thinks he is very clever, you will most likely not resonate with what I am saying here.
With this in mind, and assuming you are not a demonic overlord, imagine now how that hyper-consciousness, your hyper-self, as it were, would review your life if you live life as a 'horrible' person. Maybe you had become lost in greed or fear and ended up working for Goldman-Sachs, or Pablo Escobar (or both). Is it in the best interest of the Whole, and therefore you, to punish yourself, to deliberately cause more misery and suffering to 'teach yourself a lesson'? It’s a rhetorical question, and the answer is "no". Perhaps hyper-you, upon seeing that the human you became got lost in a sea of darkness (fear, greed, anger, insecurity, etc), would respond with the desire to have the experience of working to help others rather than exploit them. Of course, once you enter the new experience as a human you may also get distracted and go down a different road, but again, you will have the opportunity to balance yourself in the Whole again and again and again until you no longer desire to experience the space-time reality. From this perspective, each of these experiences is an opportunity we have given ourselves.
In this sense, "coming back" poor, or crippled, rich or beautiful is nothing more than an experience your hyper-self chose to have to create more of a balance in the Whole, and consequently in your true being. In all cases, it is an act of love and a gift, but this is easy to forget once we suit up and descend into this spacetime density.
We forget we are part of the Whole, and the Whole is part of us. Rather than moving with the Universe we fight against it, much like the cultures of ego that exist today that fight against nature. Karma, divine judgment, heaven, hell... these are all creations from the same mind that builds prisons and murders wrongdoers. It is no mystery that when the heart and mind of a being is isolated from the Whole, resulting in pain, suffering, and misery, that same mind and heart will punish others by imposing the same pain and suffering by the same means: isolation and separation. That is how and why prisons exist. Isolation and punishment based forms of justice are not justice at all. They are society's fear-based projections. There will never be social justice until the individual realizes he is part of the Whole. It is no coincidence that original Greek prisons were called "The place of chains", a metaphor also used to describe the effects of karma.
In a word, karma, defined as a cosmic court of justice, is bullshit. It is only as real as one chooses to have faith in such an idea. Love[2] and balance is real, for even without faith in them, they exist as a natural law of the Universe. The truth is you are the only one that judges yourself, but from a perspective that is much more in harmony with your true being.
However, the planes of existence that we transcend to when we are liberated from our human spacesuit are not all angels and harps. Compared to this world, it’s pretty heavenly, but it is not free of many of the same issues we have here. This is the case for every plane of existence where a duality exists, for as long as there is a duality, there is separation.
We have the many tales of divine separation that go back to the beginning of creation, in every belief system around the world, and there is a good reason for this. Separation is the root of all suffering, but it is also the entire reason anything exists in the first place. This may be why Buddha said “All life is suffering” [1]. Buddha is speaking of the condition of separation, not the reason it exists in the first place. It’s like a mountain climber saying "My arms are tired", without any explanation as to why the mountain is being climbed, or why the mountain, and the climber, even exist. Why then would separation exist in the first place? The answer, for me, is quite simple: Separation is how the Whole experiences itself. It is the One as Many. If I accept that, I must then also accept that the One is everything that ever did, does, or will ever exist. With this understanding the question then becomes not what is good or bad, but what experience do I want to create to add to the Whole? This belief is free of morality, free of judgment, free of any meaning, other than the meaning that I, as a bona fide, pre-approved(as evidenced by the fact that I exist) agent of the All-That-Is with all the powers and authority of All-That-Is that I am able to accept..
Footnotes:
Dukkha, (Pāli: “sorrow,” “suffering”), Sanskrit Duhkha, in Buddhist thought, the true nature of all existence. Much Buddhist doctrine is based on the fact of suffering; its reality, cause, and means of suppression formed the subject of the Buddha’s first sermon (see Four Noble Truths). Recognition of the fact of suffering as one of three basic characteristics of existence—along with impermanence (anichcha) and the absence of a self (anatta)—constitutes the “right knowledge.” Three types of suffering are distinguished: they result, respectively, from pain, such as old age, sickness, and death; from pleasure changing to pain; and from the fact that, because of impermanence, beings are susceptible to pain in the next moment.
