Lesson 2: Karma and Reincarnation
Karma is the law of cause and effect. What you sow, so shall you reap. Sounds simple but the profoundness of it can be lost in the simplicity of the statement. Let’s dig further.
Karma. What do we understand or know?
When it comes to understanding karma, you may find many schools of thought on the subject. All of them have different understanding about karma. I would like to share with you the most common schools of thought, and what I believe is about their understanding about karma.
Karma and Reincarnation. What is the link?
The Taoist believe that when you die, you will all be judged in hell before being sent to your respective realms, be it the realms of heaven, demi-gods, humans, hungry ghosts or hell itself. Everyone must go to hell for judgement. You get a free pass to heaven only when you have done 100% good deeds in your life. The merits you have accumulated is referred to as karma. The type of karmic merits you have, begets you the respective realm.
The Buddhists believe likewise but their teachings include teachings from other schools too. In Pure Light Buddhism, when you die, you are automatically reincarnated to become a human again. This will go on until a time when you would have achieved sufficient cultivation for you to return to the pure light that has no form. According to Pure Light Buddhism, the Buddha does not have Bodhisattvas or Arahats. They believe that Buddha himself returned to pure light. To clarify, pure light can be understood better as “nothingness”.
As I see it, in Pure Light Buddhism, you still have attachments. This could be in the form of attachment towards loved ones, materials, animals or plants. As long as you have these attachments, you will still be reincarnated on earth and only those who are free from these attachments can return to the pure light.
Likewise, in Hinduism, Lord Shiva was considered as pure light. Then came thousands of existences (or interpretations) of Lord Shiva, depending on how the people wanted to know him. I say “him”, is just to give the Lord Shiva a gender for better understanding. The understanding of heaven and hell in Hinduism is almost similar to that of the Buddhism and Taoism. Hinduism, by no means is young. In fact, Hinduism is the oldest religion known in history.
The Christians, however do not believe in reincarnation, but they do believe in resurrection. All who are in heaven will rule together with Christ in the new heaven and the new earth after his final battle with Satan (after a millennium of Christ’s rule on earth).
From the point of view of Christianity, karma simply means what you sow, so shall you reap. Which means, when you do good, begets good and when you do bad, begets bad.
It may not be as simple as that. Let me explain with an example.
If you plant a fruit seed, say an apple seed, it grows to a tree that bears apples. The apple tree would then bear both good and bad apples. Similarly, in our normal daily lives we cannot possibly end up doing only good (or bad) all the time. Do you agree? That is the reason why we have blessings and sufferings in our lives.
Now the new awareness and understanding from a school that cannot be named. This school’s belief of karma is somewhat similar to what others schools have been believing. This school believes, what you sow, so shall you reap. If you plant an apple tree you will get both good and bad apples. But if you do lots of cultivation, (the good and the bad apple will ripe together) you will get blessings and sufferings almost the same time. The good deeds cannot cancel bad deeds or vice versa. Everyone have to partake in the fruits of their labor.
That is why sometimes you can hear people saying,
“He is such a good man but how come he has so much troubles or sufferings?” or “He is such a bad person and yet he is blessed with fame and fortune!”.
Have you heard these phrases being uttered? This school also believes that when you die, you will go to those realms like in Taoism or Hinduism but with an understanding that those realms are created by the persons themselves.
Guilt causes fear and emotions is the power. Power follow thoughts and thoughts become things and in this case their sufferings. But how can anyone want to suffer? It is the subconscious guilt or their belief system that created it for them.
This school also does not believe you can carry forward your bad and good karma, because if you understand it properly, we all pay our dues in hell or enjoy our benefits in heaven. Right? When people say, “Oh your bad karma or good karma was from your past lives”, how can that be? All of us do have a somewhat similar belief system.
Am I right? Can the karma then be canceled? Your argument is as good as mine.
This is from another school that cannot be named. They believe that whenever we die, according to our belief system, we still end up on earth. Our suffering or happiness is just a hormone that is induced into our mind. We come back years after years, millenniums after millenniums, because our energy is the living food for those who created us. They don’t care whether you are happy or sad. When you die, you will go to either a happy heaven or a painful hell. But you can’t stay forever in either of these realms. The earth is actually considered a prison. We just generate the moving momentum of energy for the creator to feed on.
Though I have only spoken about these schools, I am sure there are more.
Karma is just a phrase or a term to differentiate good and bad. Nothing more nothing less.
Further reading – A view point presented by Master Badrushah.
When people talk about God, it is always directly associated with good and evil. They missed the whole point. God is about the creator and its creation. Good and evil are then by-product of creation.
When you sum up all the good and evil in the universe you will get zero. Yin + Yang.
We are actually immortal soul beings having a temporary 3D life on earth through human bio-vessel or vehicle. When our human vessel kaput (or dies), our soul will go back to 4D world. Our soul can descend to 3D world again and again (reincarnation) or can ascend (incarnation) to 5D world which some people call it heavenly. But there are also the 6th and 7th dimension and so on, until you merge yourself with the creator God.
So life is multi-dimensional and eternal.
All religions are mental bondage to imprison us by the Archons. Archons are also god’s creation just like everything else in this universe. We are food to the Archons just like what chicken are to human beings. They are 4D beings that feed on our negative energy. That’s why this earth is full of human suffering. This earth is a prison planet and reincarnations make our souls stay imprisoned on this earth.
Lot of information! I need to keep it simple. What is the best approach? How to deal with karma?
To minimize negative karma, don’t do anything deemed negative, even though you feel it is right such as killing roaches, ants or even mosquitoes.
To maximize positive karma, do something good even though you don’t want to do it because of fear, anger or jealousy.
Just be more aware of your thoughts, emotions, and actions. Then you would know whether it is generating negative or positive karma.
Cultivating good karma. How to apply it in practical sense?
The fastest way possible to cultivate good karma (or blessings) is to be aware of your surroundings. For example, don’t walk carelessly and step on small insects, go out of your way to make someone smile or happy, especially the less fortunate (big blessings), or help elder people cross the road (big blessings). Additionally, cook for the underprivileged (big blessings) and show mercy to everyone and gratitude for all the lessons they bring whether by being hurtful, being cheated or getting scolded. Being in service of others is part of Dharma. In the time of Jesus, he said, if someone slaps you on the right cheek let him slap you on the left as well. Dharma was this challenging during His time.
The secret – Forget what goodness you have done as if it was part of your life just like breathing. Don’t count or remember good deeds.
Do you remember how many times you breathe in a day? Why, because it is simply a need and a natural process. If you don’t breathe, suddenly you are aware, right? That is not natural. Earlier, I said we must be conscious of our surroundings. Being aware of our surroundings refers to the happenings around us. Later I said it is natural not to be aware of our breathing. Hence, I am talking about natural happenings that we do automatically. Please don’t get confused with this two.
Imagine our cultivation became so natural that we forgot whether it was hard, sweaty and time-consuming as if we have been doing this for many years. Even if you don’t want to get the blessings, you will still receive it.