Karma and raising your vibration

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Frankly the whole discussion of what karma is or isn't is a mess. There seems to be any number of definitions and models of what karma is or isn't from any number of gurus and swamis, I unintenionally listened to another two that I hadn't heard before just prior to reading this post. I'm not going to argue right or wrong because that's down to whose interpretation you choose. If you started a thread on karma every expert would have something different to say and much of it different. Sometimes it comes down to mentality not beliefs.

Still the questions remain unanswered as far as I'm concerned. If within Spirituallity there is no time, how does that affect karma? In science all of time is happening all of the time, and all of time affacts all of time all of the time. How does it affect karma when effect can precede cause? Since it's one's own perceptual reality that decides if anything is good or bad, what then?

Be IN the world but not OF it, which is where this discussion began when I tongue-in-cheek used quotes that said much the same thing but in a more contemporary and easier to understand way. It's one thing to say that one dooes not wear a form and therefore is free of karma or that Thou art That, but sometimes those are of the form and Thou may not be That after all.

The wheel of karma is not the wheel or karma, the wheel of karma is the cycle of intention -> cause -> effect -> results -> results influencing intention - karma wrapped in kamma-vipaka wrapped in all things human. An interesting question is, did you go looking for that information or did it come to you?

I wasn't actively seeking, nor did I go looking for any of this. I was merely trying to get my life back on track after hitting rock-bottom, and the methods I chose were practical. Discipline in my personal life and mindfulness meditation to reduce reactivity and not take things so personally. Then for reasons I still don't understand I became obsessed with consciousness studies and after roughly ten years YouTube suddenly fed me some Sadhguru videos and then videos from Vedanta NY. After several weeks I had the weirdest week of my life that turned into what I refer to as a waking equivalent of a lucid dream that lasted several weeks. It was then that I started digging deeply into Advaita Vedanta and signed up with this site.

That experience is the single most defining event of my life and by many orders of magnitude. There's everything before that weird week and several weeks that followed and everything after. Night and day, out of the dark and into the light, lost and found. https://youtu.be/Na-G_Z5A9dU?t=48

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

I wasn't actively seeking, nor did I go looking for any of this. I was merely trying to get my life back on track after hitting rock-bottom, and the methods I chose were practical. Discipline in my personal life and mindfulness meditation to reduce reactivity and not take things so personally. Then for reasons I still don't understand I became obsessed with consciousness studies and after roughly ten years YouTube suddenly fed me some Sadhguru videos and then videos from Vedanta NY. After several weeks I had the weirdest week of my life that turned into what I refer to as a waking equivalent of a lucid dream that lasted several weeks. It was then that I started digging deeply into Advaita Vedanta and signed up with this site.

That experience is the single most defining event of my life and by many orders of magnitude. There's everything before that weird week and several weeks that followed and everything after. Night and day, out of the dark and into the light, lost and found. https://youtu.be/Na-G_Z5A9dU?t=48

When I was writing that last reply to you I was trying to remember the name of the guru who said that karma was action and nothing more - and it was Sadhguru, isn't it? Can't remember the Youtube off-hand because if I remember rightly it was about something different entirely. Don't that beat all? I didn't go looking for that either and there you go serving it up on a plate after saying you didn't go looking for any of this. Good job I'm a big fan of this stuff.

Just a week of weirdness? You're pretty lucky though. I don't know if there's a timescale for this because I haven't heard anything on this particcular subject for quite a while, but likely Matt Khan might say your your experience was in line with the First Wave of Ascension, but I guess you'd have to watch the Youtube and compare for yourself. I went through something simillar, and it just keeps on coming.

I have the boxset of everything Babylon 5 and was a huge fan when it first came out, every once in a while I'll watch the whole lot - and movies in snyc - once again for the first time. As to Jeffrey Sinclair -
"To be with him was to have the strangest feeling, as though he were only visiting this life and did not want to be overly burdened by it."
Rathenn to Delenn, 2260

That sounds like someone you know?

His whole Life made no sense to him until he became Valen, then everything dropped into place and he want forwards with a single-minded purpose. After having taken Babylon 5 and gone back in time to help the Minbarri to defeat the Shadows and founded the Spirituality that became the framework of their race..... What of that karma? Spirituality doesn't always wear a badge that says "This is Spiritual."

So none of that post of yours is a great surprise, I couldn't put my finger on it but now it all drops straight into place. So while you might not have gone looking for any of this, YOU went lookinjg for this otherwise you woudn't have found it. The most fundamental question so many have - Spiritual or not - is "Who am I?" I think this is why you are here, in this forum and looking at the material you seem to be expressing here, because you are looking for you.

Have you heard the term 'Old Soul'?

Originally Posted by Greenslade

When I was writing that last reply to you I was trying to remember the name of the guru who said that karma was action and nothing more - and it was Sadhguru, isn't it? Can't remember the Youtube off-hand because if I remember rightly it was about something different entirely. Don't that beat all? I didn't go looking for that either and there you go serving it up on a plate after saying you didn't go looking for any of this. Good job I'm a big fan of this stuff.

Just a week of weirdness? You're pretty lucky though. I don't know if there's a timescale for this because I haven't heard anything on this particcular subject for quite a while, but likely Matt Khan might say your your experience was in line with the First Wave of Ascension, but I guess you'd have to watch the Youtube and compare for yourself. I went through something simillar, and it just keeps on coming.

I have the boxset of everything Babylon 5 and was a huge fan when it first came out, every once in a while I'll watch the whole lot - and movies in snyc - once again for the first time. As to Jeffrey Sinclair -
"To be with him was to have the strangest feeling, as though he were only visiting this life and did not want to be overly burdened by it."
Rathenn to Delenn, 2260

That sounds like someone you know?

His whole Life made no sense to him until he became Valen, then everything dropped into place and he want forwards with a single-minded purpose. After having taken Babylon 5 and gone back in time to help the Minbarri to defeat the Shadows and founded the Spirituality that became the framework of their race..... What of that karma? Spirituality doesn't always wear a badge that says "This is Spiritual."

So none of that post of yours is a great surprise, I couldn't put my finger on it but now it all drops straight into place. So while you might not have gone looking for any of this, YOU went lookinjg for this otherwise you woudn't have found it. The most fundamental question so many have - Spiritual or not - is "Who am I?" I think this is why you are here, in this forum and looking at the material you seem to be expressing here, because you are looking for you.

Have you heard the term 'Old Soul'?

Okay, so here's my honest assessment.

https://ideapod.com/4-stages-enlight...e-can-achieve/

From the Buddhist perspective I'd say I'm somewhere between Stream-enterer (Sotapanna) and Once-returner (Sakadagami), perhaps closer to the latter than the prior. It's not really important anyway. What is important is just moving forward to the best of my abilities and what comes will come.

My stream entry was the several weeks of waking reality experienced like a lucid dream. That followed the weird week that culminated in a mind-blowing and very disturbing precognition episode.

This was all very recent, starting in the last week of October 2019, and to be totally honest after the intensity of the waking lucid dream experience slowly subsided I grew very distraught with a feeling of being lost my whole life, finally finding home only to get lost again. It took a good six months to work through it all, taking a couple of breaks from this forum because it seemed to be detrimental, but eventually I came to the realization the core of that experience never left me, just the intensity. A sort of consolidation and stabilization I suppose.

Concerning Sadhguru, I tired of him after a couple of weeks as his talks were more like a stump speech and especially when I found the much deeper and philosophically rich tradition of Advaita Vedanta.

On a Sci-Fi related note have you checked out "The Expanse"? it's currently in Season 5 on Amazon Prime and new episodes air Tuesday night shortly after 7 PM EST. It's pretty good.

EDIT: Tying the Buddhism levels of Enlightenment to Karma, if one's identification does shift from the self to Self (I know, Buddhist don't subscrive to Self but I'm looking at it from the Advaita perspective and in any case both disavow the self) and it's genuine consider the implications of a Karma Yoga practice such as Work as Witness. One detaches from the fruits of actions while still engaged in action because one is Self and not the self and merely witnessing the actions of the self. It's a surrender of doership and hence does not generate karma.

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

Okay, so here's my honest assessment.

https://ideapod.com/4-stages-enlight...e-can-achieve/

From the Buddhist perspective I'd say I'm somewhere between Stream-enterer (Sotapanna) and Once-returner (Sakadagami), perhaps closer to the latter than the prior. It's not really important anyway. What is important is just moving forward to the best of my abilities and what comes will come.

My stream entry was the several weeks of waking reality experienced like a lucid dream. That followed the weird week that culminated in a mind-blowing and very disturbing precognition episode.

This was all very recent, starting in the last week of October 2019, and to be totally honest after the intensity of the waking lucid dream experience slowly subsided I grew very distraught with a feeling of being lost my whole life, finally finding home only to get lost again. It took a good six months to work through it all, taking a couple of breaks from this forum because it seemed to be detrimental, but eventually I came to the realization the core of that experience never left me, just the intensity. A sort of consolidation and stabilization I suppose.

What you're telling me here is typical Old Soul -

https://medium.com/stories-by-aurora...e-864dbf789c87
http://personalityspirituality.net/a..._Realised_Self

The part about you feeling home is one of the 'keys', another is feeling lost your whole Life. No, the experience doesn't leave you because the experience IS you. What sometimes happens isw that these things can wax and wane depending on what else is happening in your Life and how you feel, but it's never really gone. One day it's like a full moon and other days like a crescent in the background. And depending on the individual it can consolidate and stablise, it can take a little adjustment but the trick is to ride the waves and simply be present to whatever arises.

And yes, I can understand the threads being detrimental. Sometimes it just doesn't resonate.

According to the link you gave me, I'm Aarahant but I'm not sure about the Nirvana part. Being honest Enlightenment doesn't bother me that much, when I pop my clogs I'll be as Enlightened as it gets - unless what they've said in the brochure about being Spirit is phoney.

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

Concerning Sadhguru, I tired of him after a couple of weeks as his talks were more like a stump speech and especially when I found the much deeper and philosophically rich tradition of Advaita Vedanta.

I don't hold to any guru or school in particular because I find Life itself far more interesting. I guess for Haile Selassie's perspective that makes me Spiritual because it's about the connection to myself and others. That's why I don't put too much store in the ideologies and theologies, although granted I'll pick up on things that help me along the way. That's one reason I spent some time on karma and kamma-vipaka, karma has never really answered any questions for me and I've always felt something was missing. The addition of kamma-vipaka put it all into perspective and also slotted into the rest of my paradigm. Kamma-vipaka is also energetic and it makes sense there.

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

On a Sci-Fi related note have you checked out "The Expanse"? it's currently in Season 5 on Amazon Prime and new episodes air Tuesday night shortly after 7 PM EST. It's pretty good.

I've downloaded all I can find on the expanse for now but I haven't watched it. It's on my list though. I'm currently watching Altered Carbon and for a sci-fi series I'm finding it very Spiritual, it deals with mortality, reincarnation and altered realities in ways that Spirituality doesn't.

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

EDIT: Tying the Buddhism levels of Enlightenment to Karma, if one's identification does shift from the self to Self (I know, Buddhist don't subscrive to Self but I'm looking at it from the Advaita perspective and in any case both disavow the self) and it's genuine consider the implications of a Karma Yoga practice such as Work as Witness. One detaches from the fruits of actions while still engaged in action because one is Self and not the self and merely witnessing the actions of the self. It's a surrender of doership and hence does not generate karma.

Sometimes Working as Witness isn't working as a witness because there are often unconscious intentions at work. Working as Witness can be seen as having Spiritual status and an individual's ego (the Jungian one) can seek that Spiritual status as much as another would seek status in wealth. If you consider the implications then you are not working as a witness, you are within kamma-vipaka. Detaching from the fruits of actions is an action in itself. and to some that action has fruits in that it's the 'Spiritual thing to do'. Thinking that you're more Spiritual because you detach from the fruits of the action is an attachment to the fruits of the action.

I think what you're looking for is not having any expectations at all, and it's very much an inward Journey. Reasons and expectations are where it all begins. If you practice Work as Witness, do you expect to gain something out of it? If you consider the implications of it, what next? Humans don't do anything without a reason. It's one thing knowing the theory, the pactice is a very different beastie. There are reasons for you being here so what is Enlightenment? Are you Enlightened because you follow this Swami or that school, or are you Enlightened because you did what Buddha says you should and asked the questions and were very honest about what you found there?

Originally Posted by Greenslade

I think what you're looking for is not having any expectations at all, and it's very much an inward Journey. Reasons and expectations are where it all begins. If you practice Work as Witness, do you expect to gain something out of it? If you consider the implications of it, what next? Humans don't do anything without a reason. It's one thing knowing the theory, the pactice is a very different beastie. There are reasons for you being here so what is Enlightenment? Are you Enlightened because you follow this Swami or that school, or are you Enlightened because you did what Buddha says you should and asked the questions and were very honest about what you found there?

It's a practice just like any other spiritual practice. If I was more inclined to devotion I would engage the Karma Yoga practice of Work for God where action and its fruit, physical and mental, is offered up to God. Since I'm more inclined to the path of knowledge Work as Witness compliments that practice and even my meditation techniques are geared towards that path, so all three are mutually reinforcing. Plus it suits my nature, my temperament, as I'm naturally analytical and introspective.

It's also why I'm attracted to Advaita Vedanta because it doesn't say believe this or believe that but lays out a philosophy centered on personal experience and then provides the tools to explore one's own experience and find out directly for one's self. Nothing is to be taken on faith alone.

Jnana Yoga - Philosophical argumentation one is the Witness consciousness.
Raja Yoga - Do nothing meditation is formal practice of resting in consciousness.
Krama Yoga - Work as Witness is in effect resting in consciousness but throughout the day and while fully engaged in the world, at least to the extent one remembers and that increases with practice.

The only way to get beyond mind is through mind. The only way to get beyond practice is through practice. There is no path but only a fool doesn't follow it. It's like using a stick to tend a fire, carefully pushing any unburned pieces of wood into the fire until, at the end, even the stick used to tend the fire is consumed. Consider all the teachings and practices as the stick.

[Godspark]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

Okay, so here's my honest assessment.

From the Buddhist perspective I'd say I'm somewhere between Stream-enterer (Sotapanna) and Once-returner (Sakadagami), perhaps closer to the latter than the prior. It's not really important anyway. What is important is just moving forward to the best of my abilities and what comes will come.

My stream entry was the several weeks of waking reality experienced like a lucid dream. That followed the weird week that culminated in a mind-blowing and very disturbing precognition episode.

This was all very recent, starting in the last week of October 2019, and to be totally honest after the intensity of the waking lucid dream experience slowly subsided I grew very distraught with a feeling of being lost my whole life, finally finding home only to get lost again. It took a good six months to work through it all, taking a couple of breaks from this forum because it seemed to be detrimental, but eventually I came to the realization the core of that experience never left me, just the intensity. A sort of consolidation and stabilization I suppose.

Concerning Sadhguru, I tired of him after a couple of weeks as his talks were more like a stump speech and especially when I found the much deeper and philosophically rich tradition of Advaita Vedanta.

On a Sci-Fi related note have you checked out "The Expanse"? it's currently in Season 5 on Amazon Prime and new episodes air Tuesday night shortly after 7 PM EST. It's pretty good.

EDIT: Tying the Buddhism levels of Enlightenment to Karma, if one's identification does shift from the self to Self (I know, Buddhist don't subscrive to Self but I'm looking at it from the Advaita perspective and in any case both disavow the self) and it's genuine consider the implications of a Karma Yoga practice such as Work as Witness. One detaches from the fruits of actions while still engaged in action because one is Self and not the self and merely witnessing the actions of the self. It's a surrender of doership and hence does not generate karma.

Here is the problem with that link.

You are the one who produces your own emotions correct? so then, producing a constant feeling of happiness, peacefulness or nirvana is just you producing that emotion on a regular basis. Not having a craving or being dependent on anything, is just a mindset when it comes down to it really.

What I'm saying is, we can just simply choose to always feel good and develop a mindset in which we aren't so affected by desires or outside interference/events. Unless the other person is an empath or telepath, they aren't going to know that you inside you always feel humble and content, even then wouldn't matter if they did. So next time you are arguing with your spouse, friend, boss or co-worker, you can pretend you are sorry and look upset but inside you are actually happy and unaffected by their argument, because at the end of the day it's you that chooses whether to think or feel the way you do!

There is a quote I posted on facebook couple days ago which works here "If being the change you want to see in the world is too difficult, then be the feeling you want to feel in the world"

Although I respect Sadhguru, he often dribbles a lot of nonsense and makes his points in a round-about way instead of being clear and concise. Sometimes he is clear and concise but I feel he doesn't explain things very well or takes an unnecessary long path towards explaining them. Just my personal opinion, but I do respect him for the work he's doing and done.

I tried watching Expanse, got a few episodes in but it didn't appeal that much to me even though I've heard great things about it. Same thing with Game of Thrones, I used to watch a lot of TV and play a lot of video games but I'm stepping away from technology more and more, as much as I can really because I am finding I love meditating, exercising, being in nature and socializing with people more now, and realized I have much more free-time to do these things without it. I might be a bit unusual or abnormal not getting into the expanse or game of thrones, but I've been through many unusual or abnormal events in life so that could be why, either way I'm okay with it since there isn't really a definition for a 'normal' person anyway. I've been maladjusted before so know what that's like, but I'm very well-adjusted these days and have been for a long time.

Originally Posted by Godspark

Here is the problem with that link.

You are the one who produces your own emotions correct? so then, producing a constant feeling of happiness, peacefulness or nirvana is just you producing that emotion on a regular basis. Not having a craving or being dependent on anything, is just a mindset when it comes down to it really.

What I'm saying is, we can just simply choose to always feel good and develop a mindset in which we aren't so affected by desires or outside interference/events. Unless the other person is an empath or telepath, they aren't going to know that you inside you always feel humble and content, even then wouldn't matter if they did. So next time you are arguing with your spouse, friend, boss or co-worker, you can pretend you are sorry and look upset but inside you are actually happy and unaffected by their argument, because at the end of the day it's you that chooses whether to think or feel the way you do!

This link? https://ideapod.com/4-stages-enlight...e-can-achieve/ What's the problem? As far as I can determine it's spot-on.

Concerning emotions... What produces them? What controls them? From the perspective of Self-realization it's mind-body and I'm simply the Witness of experience, wholly unaffected. If I identify with mind-body and strive to control them then I am a prisoner of mind-body and all its baggage including emotions, not to mention aging, injury, sickness and eventually death.

I can watch a sad movie and be moved and yet not suffer. Life is no different and I'm not suggesting being an emotionless robot. What I am suggesting is there's a way of being where we can fully experience the full range of the human condition and yet not be in its throws, tossed about like a ship on a stormy sea. Be the calm in the storm.

A truly Enlightened Master doesn't move within the world. The world and all of spacetime moves within him/her.

[Godspark]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

This link? https://ideapod.com/4-stages-enlight...e-can-achieve/ What's the problem? As far as I can determine it's spot-on.

Concerning emotions... What produces them? What controls them? From the perspective of Self-realization it's mind-body and I'm simply the Witness of experience, wholly unaffected. If I identify with mind-body and strive to control them then I am a prisoner of mind-body and all its baggage including emotions, not to mention aging, injury, sickness and eventually death.

I can watch a sad movie and be moved and yet not suffer. Life is no different and I'm not suggesting being an emotionless robot. What I am suggesting is there's a way of being where we can fully experience the full range of the human condition and yet not be in its throws, tossed about like a ship on a stormy sea. Be the calm in the storm.

A truly Enlightened Master doesn't move within the world. The world and all of spacetime moves within him/her.

Yes that link.

You realize you contradicted yourself there right? even if you are just a witness of experience you are still doing it from a perspective of having a self, it's called self-realization correct? you said at the end there as well that all spacetime move around him/her - which means it moves around themself.

Going deeper to reach levels of pure self, finding the self that is connected with divinity and goes beyond space and time, helps achieve constant bliss and while being very beneficial and helpful to achieve a constant state of bliss, is not essential. Just having an understanding that you can change your own mindset, mental attitude and emotional state over time is enough for anyone to get started on being more peaceful and loving on a continual basis.

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

It's a practice just like any other spiritual practice. If I was more inclined to devotion I would engage the Karma Yoga practice of Work for God where action and its fruit, physical and mental, is offered up to God. Since I'm more inclined to the path of knowledge Work as Witness compliments that practice and even my meditation techniques are geared towards that path, so all three are mutually reinforcing. Plus it suits my nature, my temperament, as I'm naturally analytical and introspective.

It's also why I'm attracted to Advaita Vedanta because it doesn't say believe this or believe that but lays out a philosophy centered on personal experience and then provides the tools to explore one's own experience and find out directly for one's self. Nothing is to be taken on faith alone.

Jnana Yoga - Philosophical argumentation one is the Witness consciousness.
Raja Yoga - Do nothing meditation is formal practice of resting in consciousness.
Krama Yoga - Work as Witness is in effect resting in consciousness but throughout the day and while fully engaged in the world, at least to the extent one remembers and that increases with practice.

For you yes, the inward Journey because the 'external' and 'internal' very much reflect each other. But what if I said there were things that you have yet to tap into?

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

The only way to get beyond mind is through mind. The only way to get beyond practice is through practice. There is no path but only a fool doesn't follow it. It's like using a stick to tend a fire, carefully pushing any unburned pieces of wood into the fire until, at the end, even the stick used to tend the fire is consumed. Consider all the teachings and practices as the stick.

It's the mind that thinks you have to go through mind to go beyond mind and it's the mind that thinks you have to go beyond mind. Similarly with going beyond/through practice. What are the reasons you think yhat, do you really think that or is that a 'product' of your beliefs?

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

Concerning emotions... What produces them? What controls them? From the perspective of Self-realization it's mind-body and I'm simply the Witness of experience, wholly unaffected. If I identify with mind-body and strive to control them then I am a prisoner of mind-body and all its baggage including emotions, not to mention aging, injury, sickness and eventually death.

The unconscious 'subsystems' produce them and they are in a feedback loop with your (Jungian) ego. You are the experience, there is no separation between the experiencer and the experienced. Nothing to do with mind/body. As for Self, which one are you talking about? Often the ego superimposes itself on the self and unless you can make the unconscious conscious, what you consider as self is ego - according to Jung anyway. If you're talking about Spiritual Self that hasn't really been defined in any meaningful way that I'm aware of.

Death is a fact of Life, as is aging and the degradation of the mind and body.

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

I can watch a sad movie and be moved and yet not suffer. Life is no different and I'm not suggesting being an emotionless robot. What I am suggesting is there's a way of being where we can fully experience the full range of the human condition and yet not be in its throws, tossed about like a ship on a stormy sea. Be the calm in the storm.

There are many ways this can be done and one of them is a personality disorder. The other is denial, another personality disorder. It's never about WHAT you experience, it's all about HOW you experience and how you meet your experiences - and therefore yourself. You can still have the experience of growing old and fragile and if we're lucky we can all do that, but you don't have to suffer because of it. That doesn't need Spirituality yet it's a very Spiritual thing to do. The Enlightened Master has mastered his/her response by using what the ancients would have known as Right Thinking, what in modern psychology is known as cognitive behaviour.

There is only a storm because you create a storm.