Rules #16d:
Your Karma Will Run Over Your Dogma: Karmic Fatalism
You Don't Understand: It's My Karma!
Karmic Fatalism - Defined:
how the "it is karma" attitude robs
someone of the desire and power to change their destiny.
Karmic Fatalism - Adversaries:
how the human fear of death, despair,
and darkness creates the belief in karmic fatalism.
Karmic Doom:
why and how adversity in past
lives contributes to karmic fatalism.
Karmic Fate:
why and how the belief in fate
contributes to karmic fatalism.
Karmic Gravity:
the impersonal operation of karma
contributes to karmic fatalism.
"There is a destiny that makes us brothers:
none goes his way alone, All that we send into the lives of others,
comes back into our own." (Edwin Markham)
Nothing improves if you take the "it's my karma"
attitude and chant away the day to forget your misery.
*
Karmic Force:
People in the East are so fatalistic about life
because they believe that the forces of karma are so strong that they
cannot be overcome. So they simply throw up their hands and give over
their lives to their karmic fate. Yet, we do live in a loving and
compassionate universe. If you show the universe that you are prepared
to act in a responsible and loving manner toward all those around you,
then you can improve your karmic situation... dramatically.
*
Fatalistic Feeling:
The first step in improving your karma is
to recognize how it manifests itself. Here is a description of how
"bad" karma "feels" from someone who used to be a "helpless victim
of it".
"It feels like I am pushing against
something, an unknown force that is lurking deep inside. It feels
overwhelming like a heavy weight inside that always stops me from
improving my life. It holds me back. It resists my best effort to
change. I really want to change but it's like I am forbidding myself
somehow. It took me a long time to see it but I have been sabotaging
my best efforts to change all along. I just could not help myself..."
Once this individual confronted the karmic reasons for this
"feeling", this bad karmic "feeling" left them...
forever.
*
Karma's Goal:
What must always be remembered about karma is
it exists to teach you lessons, not to punish you endlessly. Bad karma
is meant to push you to examine your life and to make changes that will
bring you to greater levels of love, joy, and awareness. They are
meant make you take action (which is what "karma" means translated from
Sanskrit to English) to improve your destiny.
*
Beyond Karma:
The only way your situation can improve is if
you take the attitude that "today is the first day of the rest of my
life which I am determined to make better". Show that you want to
change by actively working to improve your life by trying to live in
a "karma free" life. All you have to lose are your problems.
"Beware the Three Adversaries: Death, Despair,
and Darkness." (Karmic Proverb)
Karmic Fatalists: those who do not change and
use the mantra "It's my karma" to excuse everything.
*
Classic Karma:
A man, who ran a religious school which taught
the precepts of karma, routinely sexually abused his students. When any
of them pointed out that his molesting them was bad karma that would
come back to him, all he would say was
"It's your karma!"
After years of molesting children, the man was
arrested by the police. All he had to say was
"It's my karma!"
His attitude - that all was predetermined
karma - is a perfect demonstration of karmic fatalism.
*
Karma's Mission:
Ironically, knowledge of karma was meant to
prevent "Karmic Fatalism": the belief that all is pre-determined and
all that you say and do means nothing, effects nothing, and changes
nothing.
Karma was meant to free humans from the fears that would otherwise rob
them of the motivation to heal/improve their lives. These fears are:
*
Death:
The fear of death is
"Nothingness":
that what you are now will cease to be
and will be lost forever.
*
Despair:
The fear of life is
"Hopelessness":
that nothing you believe or say or
do can make your life better.
*
Darkness:
The fear of living is
"Ignorance":
that others who know more will hurt and
take advantage of you.
*
Karma's Message:
What karma teaches frees those who believe
in it from being trapped by those fatalistic fears… because:
*
Immortality:
That as Soul
you are immortal:
what you have been/are now/will be
is eternal and indestructible.
*
Inspiration:
That as Soul
you are the creator
of your life:
what you believe or say or do can creates your life.
*
Illumination:
That as Soul
you are divine:
you are learning to be an infinite
CoWorker with God.
*
Remember:
"Karmic Fatalism" is directly contrary to
what karma means to teach.
Karma means to set up the circumstances in
your life that will challenge you to transcend them and not to accept
them (which is what fatalism gets you to do). Karma challenges you
to manifest health, wealth, and happiness while fatalism causes you
to accept the lack of all these.
Simply put, mastering karma makes you powerful
while being fatalistic keeps you powerless.
"Ragnarökkr, the Doom of the Gods, means man is
doomed as well." (Old Norse Proverb)
If, like the Norse, you believe whatever you do,
you are doomed... you are suffering from "Karmic Doom".
*
Doomed Feeling:
It goes like this:
"I have only felt sadness for far too long.
I need to feel happiness. Why?"
This is a genuine problem in and carryover
from past lives. Fortunately, this problem can be overcome with
effort and patience!
*
Pursuit of Happiness:
In past lives, happiness was elusive. That is
why Thomas Jefferson wrote that "life" (as in not being killed capriciously
by governments), "liberty" (as in not being jailed randomly by governments),
and the "pursuit of happiness" (as in freedom from government persecution)
were so important.
Notice it is the "pursuit" that was important as actual happiness was
hard to come by. Jefferson himself lost a beloved wife early on and
never quite recovered the happiness he enjoyed with her.
*
Bleak Existence:
For most of human history, life was bleak for
the average person. Consider what they had to endure.
When the weather was good, life was continuous work from sunrise to
sunset. Raising crops and livestock was/is a labor intensive process
and required back breaking, endless toil. When the weather was bad,
life was the struggle to stay warm enough to survive.
People were lucky to eat 3 times a week and to bathe once a year whether
it was needed it or not. Random violence by humans, attacks by animals,
and natural disasters, were facts of life as were life ending illnesses.
Women were damaged or died in childbirth. Men who were injured ended up
permanently impaired. Life sucked!
*
Inevitable Suffering:
Given the overwhelming hardships in past
lives, many chose to protect their hearts by accepting the inevitable
suffering of life on Earth. Choosing to believe that life doomed one to
adversity was a defense mechanism many adopted (like the Norse) to cope
with the reality of their harsh existence. This, in turn, became the
perfect breeding ground for karmic fatalism.
*
Sadness Carryover:
When one has reincarnated into one tough
environment after another, the sadness over suffering can become a
permanent part of one's character. Yet, in the present, one can always
choose to cultivate joy. Now one can pursue happiness and actually
find it! All it takes is
more love.
"Do not be afraid; our fate cannot be taken from
us; it is a gift." (Dante Alighieri, "Inferno")
What is fate really but the karma we choose not
to take any action to resolve or to improve upon.
*
Health Issues:
Most receive the majority of their health
problems at birth. What they are not born with usually comes during
young adulthood. Each individual is prone to the ailments they inherit
from their parents' genetics. What health issues they attach to is
directly dependent on their actions and inactions. If they do nothing,
their health fate becomes what karma handed them at birth and in youth.
*
Wealth Issues:
Most replicate the financial situation of their
immediate and/or extended family. This is why the rich get richer and
the poor stay poorer. If the person accepts the money programming they
have learned from birth without trying to improve upon it, their
financial fate remains unchanged for the rest of their life.
*
Happiness Issues:
Most repeat the emotional choices of their
immediate and/or extended family. Children live what they have learned
from their parents unless they choose to change it. If they do what
their parents have done or choose to do the exact opposite, their fate
becomes these inherited emotional patterns.
*
Doing Nothing:
Most believe - incorrectly - that doing nothing
keeps them safe. The reality is that doing nothing is actually choosing
our default karma which can be quite unsafe. Those who are the most
trapped by karma are those who believe that they are powerless to escape
their fate (the "its my karma" attitude).
*
Doing Something:
Most believe - correctly - that doing something
is better than doing nothing, especially if they can see that they have
improved their situation by their actions. Taking action is the only way
that someone can improve their fate and so transcend what karma has
planned for the rest of their life.
*
Harvesting the Gift:
The gift lurking inside karma is a permanent
improvement in our life's circumstances: whether they be health, wealth,
or happiness. All it takes is wanting to improve life's circumstances
and working toward that goal.
"Some men think the Earth is round. Others think
it flat. It is a matter of capable of question. But if it is flat,
will the King's command make it round? If it is round, will the King's
command flatten it? No, it will not."
(Robert Bolt, "A Man for All Seasons")
*
Karmic Gravity:
Karma is a law like any other in the universe.
Like Gravity, it operates whether we believe in it or not... and whether
we want it to or not. It is the "not wanting it" to work that contributes
to and perpetuates karmic fatalism.
*
"Scientific Law"
is defined as: "a phenomenon of nature [karma]
that has been proven to invariably occur [what goes around comes around]
whenever certain conditions exist or are met [imbalances in love and
compassion]."
*
No Exceptions:
"We are solely responsible for our choices,
and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought
throughout our lifetime." (Elizabeth Kübler-Ross)
The law of karma operates impersonally and
applies to everyone everywhere at all times no exceptions. Whether
you believe in karma or not, it applies to you. Karma, like gravity,
operates equally when the religious beliefs of the individual are
agree with it or are diametrically opposed to it.
*
No Excuses:
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse!" (John
Selden)Ironically, those who are most
in denial of the reality of karma are the most firmly in its grip.
Those who commit crimes to gain money, power, or sex, will reap what
they have sewn later on in their present life… or more likely in a
future one. They must and will repay the effects of the causes they
have set in motion. Quite simply, when you do the crime, karma
ensures justice: that you will do the time.
*
No Evasion:
"Though the mills of the God grind slowly, yet
they grind exceedingly small: though with patience He stands waiting,
with exactness He grinds them all." (Friedrich von Logan)
The way karma works is through an examination
of the feelings and thoughts which surrounded the actions we take in
life. We are the ones who make that examination and decide, at a Soul
level, what and how we need to balance our actions over the cycle of
our reincarnations.
*
No Errors:
"We meet no Stranger, but Ourself." (Emily
Dickinson)
There are no errors when it comes to karma…
because we are the ones who examine ourselves. We are the ones who
have agreed to the life experiences necessary to balance our actions
from the past to learn how to become a CoWorker with God in the future.
Knowing who we really are inside and learning more love, joy, and
awareness is what
karma
and
reincarnation
mean to teach us all.
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