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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Spirituality & Beliefs > Spiritual Development

View Poll Results: Removing karma or keeping it?
Keeping it 1 12.50%
Remove it 2 25.00%
Other 5 62.50%
Voters: 8. You may not vote on this poll

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  #21  
Old 24-08-2020, 03:49 PM
Jyotir Jyotir is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,847
 
Quote:
Fundamentally, the meaning of Karma is that all existence is the working of a universal Energy, a process and an action and a building of things by that action,—an unbuilding too, but as a step to farther building,—that all is a continuous chain in which every one link is bound indissolubly to the past infinity of numberless links, and the whole governed by fixed relations, by a fixed association of cause and effect, present action the result of past action as future action will be the result of present action, all cause a working of energy and all effect too a working of energy. The moral significance is that all our existence is a putting out of an energy which is in us and by which we are made and as is the nature of the energy which is put forth as cause, so shall be that of the energy which returns as effect, that this is the universal law and nothing in the world can, being of and in our world, escape from its governing incidence.
- Sri Aurobindo, Essays in Philosophy and Yoga, Karma, pg.332

Excellent readings on the subject of karma by the same author as listed by chapter headings below can be found in

Essays in Philosophy and Yoga - Volume 13 - at this link
(same as in my signature)


The Problem of Rebirth

Section I: Rebirth and Karma
Rebirth 259
The Reincarnating Soul 270
Rebirth, Evolution, Heredity 277
Rebirth and Soul Evolution 285
The Significance of Rebirth 295
The Ascending Unity 307
Involution and Evolution 317
Karma 330
Karma and Freedom 338
Karma, Will and Consequence 351
Rebirth and Karma 358
Karma and Justice 367
Section II: The Lines of Karma
The Foundation 379
The Terrestrial Law 386
Mind Nature and Law of Karma 398
The Higher Lines of Karma 413
Appendix I: The Tangle of Karma 427
Appendix II: A Clarification 433

~J
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  #22  
Old 24-08-2020, 03:56 PM
Jyotir Jyotir is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,847
 
(edited from a previous post of mine in another thread)


Keep in mind that karma is always being generated at every moment by every life, and can be altered as part of free-will within that incessant generation. It is not arbitrary. Neither is it antithetical to, or mutually exclusive of free-will. Rather it is essential to it, otherwise there would be chaos, and utter randomicity - "accidents" (which the mind in its ignorance assigns as attribute to what it cannot fathom as cause-effect relationship. The entire universe(s) is formed of the Intention, Vision, and Will of Lives. We as individuals have a limited version in our little lives, personal "universe" which is part and parcel of greater lives and wills...

All life is subsumed (like the individual cells within a body) within greater "Lives" who or which are also generating karma which is necessarily recipient by those subsumed. Adding to that, human beings are a ceaselessly shifting complex amalgam of vastly different consciousness/energetics that we as individuals are not fully aware of the activity or import in our lives...even as these are instrumental to the generation of karma, but gradually become more aware of as the soul appropriates the life, or seen another way, as the lower aspects of life begin to surrender to the higher.

Note that >>>Intention is also "action" and as such also generates karma.

There are 3 kinds of karma:

1) that which is currently being generated (offers the potential for alteration of #2 or 3,
is the innate capacity to transform "fate", or generate new possibility, including ascension of consciousness)

2) that which is already generated, is latent but not currently expressing

3) that which has been generated and is currently expressing

There are no accidents - that is a mental superimposition based on an aversion to the Law (and as seen as concept) of karma (i.e., accident being something the being finds inconvenient, disturbing, destructive to expectation etc., or "good accidents" - simply karma from previous action or intention seen as beneficial. All of it cause and effect regardless of how perceived by ego-mind. Interpretation doesn't alter LAW. But that still doesn’t negate free-will which includes the possibility of altering previous karma - - also part of that LAW.

In a Life that is a multiplicity of individual wills and forces, there is also the possibility of intrusion of another's will/free will into any other life or being which also generates karma.

There is an infallible and continuous preservation and transformation (re-creation) of the entire universe at every moment which also includes the increasing free-will of beings who generate karma that eventually manifests or is altered. That alteration is also karma!

It is spirituality which is the personal revolution - the recognition, invocation, and utilization of That which accelerates the ascension of consciousness by the receptivity to available free-will to transform within the evolutionary scheme. The important thing is that the new experiences and developing patterns be progressive, and that is really what spirituality is: when that life-process becomes conscious and deliberate, not random and haphazard. It is a concentration of deliberate karma generation in the progressive direction.

It's complex and nuanced with innumerable 'moving parts' and layers, and why so little understood by simplistic theories, platitudes, and dismissals.


~ J
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  #23  
Old 24-08-2020, 05:03 PM
Altair Altair is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenslade
In the original Sanskrit karma meant cause, then sometime later it came to mean cause and effect. At that time it was 'mechanical' and there was no morality involved. Nowadays it's reward/victim mentality, and when Past Lives come into the equation it becomes silliness. The supposed morality comes from kamma-vipaka, which means the results of intention and this is what Spiritual people need to think about. What is the intention behind thinking karma can be removed? Is the intention of using the word 'karma' thinking you (not you personally) are Spiritual or is the intention to gain understanding? The two have very different 'results'. Thinking that you are Spiritual because you use the word 'karma' with the intention to gain status/self esteem may well be right to some but that mentality becomes the basis for their Spirituality. Both Mother Teresa and Lady Diana (amongst others) said that we should do kind acts with no expectation of rewards, and these have the 'best results', very loosely.
Hey Greenslade...

'What is the intention behind thinking karma can be removed?'' ~ A nice question. Why, if assuming 'karma' exists, even try to do it? It sounds meaningful when dealing with a long quarrel or a negative characteristic in one's personality but ''karma'' is not just the 'bad' things, it's also any sort of bond you have with a family member, a friend, a lover, a pet, a place. What the hardcore ''spiritual practitioners'' do ((the ones that usually write and come up with these kind of things, unbeknown to the masses that offer their loyalty to these masters)) is they seek to break the bonds, and want you to do it too. They call them ''attachments''. That is the end-game for the ''karma believers'' but how many know this? I do not believe that kind of attitude is healthy.

There was a time where I took much of it for granted too, but I've grown up and took the red pill. I view it like I view astrology, it 'works' and 'makes sense' because of how our mind works. We are desperate for 'meaning' itself to be objective and our mind will fill the gaps. It's a psychological process. I think that's okay as a belief system if it offers comfort.

Last edited by Altair : 24-08-2020 at 06:24 PM.
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  #24  
Old 24-08-2020, 06:27 PM
CosmicWonder CosmicWonder is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 1,486
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Altair
Hey Greenslade...

'What is the intention behind thinking karma can be removed?'' ~ A nice question. Why, if assuming 'karma' exists, even try to do it? It sounds meaningful when dealing with a long quarrel or a negative characteristic in one's personality but ''karma'' is not just the 'bad' things, it's also any sort of bond you have with a family member, a friend, a lover, a pet, a place. What the hardcore ''spiritual practitioners'' do ((the ones that usually write and come up with these kind of things, unbeknown to the masses that offer their loyalty to these masters)) is they seek to break the bonds, and want you to do it too. They call them ''attachments''. That is the end-game for the ''karma believers'' but how many know this? I do not believe that kind of attitude is healthy.

There was a time where I took much of it for granted too, but I've grown up and took the red pill. I view it like I view astrology, it 'works' and 'makes sense' because of how our mind works. We are desperate for 'meaning' itself to be objective and our mind will fill the gaps. It's a psychological process. I think that's okay as a belief system if it offers comfort.

So... is it unhealthy to remove attachments? What have you discovered about that? I’m clearing a lot of them in a spiritual group and also by myself
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  #25  
Old 24-08-2020, 06:28 PM
running running is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: in my truck. anywhere usa
Posts: 8,524
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jyotir
(edited from a previous post of mine in another thread)


Keep in mind that karma is always being generated at every moment by every life, and can be altered as part of free-will within that incessant generation. It is not arbitrary. Neither is it antithetical to, or mutually exclusive of free-will. Rather it is essential to it, otherwise there would be chaos, and utter randomicity - "accidents" (which the mind in its ignorance assigns as attribute to what it cannot fathom as cause-effect relationship. The entire universe(s) is formed of the Intention, Vision, and Will of Lives. We as individuals have a limited version in our little lives, personal "universe" which is part and parcel of greater lives and wills...

All life is subsumed (like the individual cells within a body) within greater "Lives" who or which are also generating karma which is necessarily recipient by those subsumed. Adding to that, human beings are a ceaselessly shifting complex amalgam of vastly different consciousness/energetics that we as individuals are not fully aware of the activity or import in our lives...even as these are instrumental to the generation of karma, but gradually become more aware of as the soul appropriates the life, or seen another way, as the lower aspects of life begin to surrender to the higher.

Note that >>>Intention is also "action" and as such also generates karma.

There are 3 kinds of karma:

1) that which is currently being generated (offers the potential for alteration of #2 or 3,
is the innate capacity to transform "fate", or generate new possibility, including ascension of consciousness)

2) that which is already generated, is latent but not currently expressing

3) that which has been generated and is currently expressing

There are no accidents - that is a mental superimposition based on an aversion to the Law (and as seen as concept) of karma (i.e., accident being something the being finds inconvenient, disturbing, destructive to expectation etc., or "good accidents" - simply karma from previous action or intention seen as beneficial. All of it cause and effect regardless of how perceived by ego-mind. Interpretation doesn't alter LAW. But that still doesn’t negate free-will which includes the possibility of altering previous karma - - also part of that LAW.

In a Life that is a multiplicity of individual wills and forces, there is also the possibility of intrusion of another's will/free will into any other life or being which also generates karma.

There is an infallible and continuous preservation and transformation (re-creation) of the entire universe at every moment which also includes the increasing free-will of beings who generate karma that eventually manifests or is altered. That alteration is also karma!

It is spirituality which is the personal revolution - the recognition, invocation, and utilization of That which accelerates the ascension of consciousness by the receptivity to available free-will to transform within the evolutionary scheme. The important thing is that the new experiences and developing patterns be progressive, and that is really what spirituality is: when that life-process becomes conscious and deliberate, not random and haphazard. It is a concentration of deliberate karma generation in the progressive direction.

It's complex and nuanced with innumerable 'moving parts' and layers, and why so little understood by simplistic theories, platitudes, and dismissals.


~ J
something has to happen to drive one beyond mind. how, and what is a mystery. even for the one whom is driven out. all one can probably do is speculate. was it through suffering? persecution? or time spent meditating? combination?

for me i spent a couple of years reliving my past. pure anger and hate of the circumstance of those in control of me set me free. should i thank the evil done to me a couple lives ago? should i thank it? i don't know. what i do know is somehow in the memory of that was enough hate to lift me and bring me to a place where i can no longer suffer in the ways of the mind and emotional body like before. bliss and silence. beyond mind can not be impeded by what is. i am thankful to that! was it what i did that brought the original jews into me to lift me up? the sending of spiritual relics to france? or the torture i received for doing so? maybe. but it seemed more like they were just there to accommodate me to where i was being lifted to. i could speculate forever. mystery.

and of course going backwards in memory is also just speculation. mystery. one that i think about every day. and get no closer to understand.
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  #26  
Old 24-08-2020, 06:46 PM
Altair Altair is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by realizefun
So... is it unhealthy to remove attachments? What have you discovered about that? I’m clearing a lot of them in a spiritual group and also by myself

'Attachment' is a word, and the way it is used in spiritual context is often loaded.
In one context you can call it a bond you have with a loved one, and in another context you can call it an addiction to an unhealthy substance.

A couple of relevant definitions...

Attachment:
''The emotional bond between an infant and caregiver'' (Psychology Today)
''A bond, as of affection or loyalty; fond regard'' (Duckduckgo search)
''affectionate regard'' (Merriam Webster)
''a feeling of love for somebody/something'' (Oxford)

Does this sound healthy or unhealthy to you?

The people who created spiritual traditions were ascetics. Often it seems to have started with a man, or a bunch of men that couldn't find happiness in society, and believed they could find an escape from either rebirth and/or suffering by getting rid of bonds (''attachments'') and likes and joys ((''desires'')). We may not be aware of the context in which these concepts were formed. Who's to say you or me should buy into their 'logic'? Does it apply to you?
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  #27  
Old 25-08-2020, 09:50 AM
Greenslade
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by realizefun
Thank you very much greenslade :)
You're very welcome.
Quote:
Originally Posted by realizefun
So... is it unhealthy to remove attachments? What have you discovered about that? I’m clearing a lot of them in a spiritual group and also by myself
There is a time when the removing of attachments becomes a dissociative disorders and even plain old denial, and some people can become attached to removing attachments. Some people become attached to Spirituality and the idea that they are A Spiritual being - which can dissociate themselves from their human aspects. Very often people clear attachments and not the cognitive structures that create them, so all that's really happening is that the attachments 'shift' - they become attached to the idea that they are non-attached. Some are also attached to the reward/punishment that they believe karma to be, if you step back from the conversations.


Attachments can tell you so much about yourself, especially if you 'explore' how they were formed in the first place and what they have to say about you as a person. They're seldom bad per se, often they're a reaction to Life in general, they can be triggered by events and our subsequent emotional reactions and perceptions. Attachments have their causes and once you find the root cause you can then alter your perceptual reality to something more constructive. Once that happens your cognitive processes change and your perceptions change along with them.

Last edited by Greenslade : 25-08-2020 at 10:53 AM.
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  #28  
Old 25-08-2020, 10:29 AM
Greenslade
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Altair
Hey Greenslade...

'What is the intention behind thinking karma can be removed?'' ~ A nice question. Why, if assuming 'karma' exists, even try to do it? It sounds meaningful when dealing with a long quarrel or a negative characteristic in one's personality but ''karma'' is not just the 'bad' things, it's also any sort of bond you have with a family member, a friend, a lover, a pet, a place. What the hardcore ''spiritual practitioners'' do ((the ones that usually write and come up with these kind of things, unbeknown to the masses that offer their loyalty to these masters)) is they seek to break the bonds, and want you to do it too. They call them ''attachments''. That is the end-game for the ''karma believers'' but how many know this? I do not believe that kind of attitude is healthy.

There was a time where I took much of it for granted too, but I've grown up and took the red pill. I view it like I view astrology, it 'works' and 'makes sense' because of how our mind works. We are desperate for 'meaning' itself to be objective and our mind will fill the gaps. It's a psychological process. I think that's okay as a belief system if it offers comfort.
Hi there Altair


Assuming karma exists, what is it? As far as I can see today's karma is nothing more than reward/punishment mentality, it's fodder for the guilt complexes and the downward spirals of a lack of self esteem. That's usually how the discussions play out in the threads at least. Today's bad karma is for something that was done in a Past Life, and that may well have been driven by something other than Spirituality. Someone very wise once said "Change the word, change the paradigm" and that's very insightful because our reality is largely based on words and our definitions of them. As for it being a bond, personally I'd call that Love not karma - the cliche of the things we do for Love.


Most people are looking for two things in the discussion of karma - agency and reason, so yes, people are looking for rhyme and reasons for the 'bad things' that happen to them. By the way, Spirituality is dependent on psychological frameworks and in this discussion those are very obvious. Karma isn't it, if anything it's Life's Purpose if people are looking for some kind of external driving influence/factor. I can understand people looking for comfort but I think there comes a time when people naturally come to find that a veneer of comfort just doesn't have the substance any more. If people are looking for meaning in their Lives there's nothing stopping them creating their own meanings. Perhaps if people started turning their hurts into halos instead of karma discussions they might see some Spiritual growth beyond the ideologies and theologies. But then again, each to their own.
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  #29  
Old 25-08-2020, 10:40 AM
Greenslade
Posts: n/a
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jyotir

There are 3 kinds of karma:

1) that which is currently being generated (offers the potential for alteration of #2 or 3,
is the innate capacity to transform "fate", or generate new possibility, including ascension of consciousness)

2) that which is already generated, is latent but not currently expressing

3) that which has been generated and is currently expressing
Which is relative to the ego-mind that exists within the constraints of linear time. In Spirituality there is no time and in science, all of time is happening all of the time and all of time affects all of time all of the time. That means causality loops where effect can come before cause. 'Ascension' is also a word of the ego-mind, it only has validity in the dimensions of form where there is a 'here' and 'there'. The ego-mind can use 'ascension' as an object of status.
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  #30  
Old 25-08-2020, 08:17 PM
BlueElephant BlueElephant is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2018
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Greenslade
Which is relative to the ego-mind that exists within the constraints of linear time. In Spirituality there is no time and in science, all of time is happening all of the time and all of time affects all of time all of the time. That means causality loops where effect can come before cause. 'Ascension' is also a word of the ego-mind, it only has validity in the dimensions of form where there is a 'here' and 'there'. The ego-mind can use 'ascension' as an object of status.
.


Interesting Greenslade. I have had the experience of seeing effects before the cause - it only happened once - but it was so clear at the time.
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