I have no intention of continuing the book .. It from my opinion is trying to clump everything into a box and life isn't that simple. We are complex beings.
Karma tends to go hand in hand with reincarnation. It doesn't really make much sense to think about it otherwise.
Granted, it's never nice to hear that people are placed in a negative environment due to the negative environment they created a while back.
But, it's not a judgement based system. It's merely a reflection mechanism. It's akin to the spiritual idea floating around that when people pass away, they do a reflection on their entire life span and experience the pain of those they hurt and stuff so they can know what it felt like. It's not punishment, it's learning.
What's the point of learning if you are not aware of what you learned?
Why do people believe in this crap? Sorry, but every now and then I have to perform a little catharsis. I wonder if anyone in the west would "arrive" to the same "conclusions" if we had never had contact with eastern religions...
Err... The point is that the soul is learning? It chooses to incarnate to learn lessons. One path is to learn with knowledge, the other path is to come in with no knowledge and learn from a completely new perspective that isn't influenced.
.Sure, feel free to make fun of religion in general about how there is no proof of anything. I don't mind
But I'd appreciate it if you actually bothered looking up Taoism/Buddhism and how it works exactly before you start making snide comments about how it doesn't make sense. It just makes you seem ignorant of it's own logical system. Sort of like the athiest who comes in ranting about some theological problem that they didn't even bother looking into.
If you don't feel like doing that, then I'd appreciate you word your skeptical questioning in a non-hostile way. I would have then just answered the question in a straight forward manner. You can decide afterwards whether it works or not.
Karma is a concept from the east. If the eastern religions didn't meet the west. Karma as a concept would probably not be known. You'd needn't worry about the people in the west coming to such conclusions in that case. The problem lies in that most people use it interchangably with justice (My name is Earl probably doesn't help.) hence it's often perceived as a Punish/Reward system when it's totally not.
Learning for what?
Who said I was making fun of religion in general? This was directed at the concept of reincarnation.
I don't mind being seen as ignorant. There is no shame in being ignorant. There is more shame in being adamant in one's following of other people's ideas about something as mysterious as what happens after death. Believing is just as arbitrary as not knowing. I don't know much about how it's supposed to work no, but then again, you didn't know that.
Oh, but I do. It is too convenient. Why don't people from different parts of the world, different eras ever agree when it comes to religion, unless there has been communication between them....these phenomenons or facts of life should be verifiable everywhere in the world. Like discovering fire, or something.
Let's see...
Perhaps self-realisation? To better the world? Why do people bother learning in this world?
Otherwise, I could equally make a claim 'Who the hell believes that people only have one chance at life and if they fail goes to hell?!'
What? Just because I merely pointed out that Karma is usually connected to reincarnation?
I never claimed that I knew what happened after death. I'm just throwing out one of the known ideas that might potentially offer further insight by viewing things through a different lens. FYI I'm agnostic.
Meh whatever. I don't really care if you think the idea of reincarnation is rubbish, because they aren't exactly my own personal views. All I'm still going to think it's ridiculous to insult something without having looked into it properly. That applies to everything. It's just reminds me of individuals who come in here attempting to debunk the MBTI with the argument. It's rubbish. /END.
If you are curious about a non-religious perspective, just look towards the communities that claim to be psychic, intuitive or spiritual. You'll find most places share an idea, that all individuals are connected, and people are here to learn about love etc before returning to a source. But whatever. I won't bother anymore with this thread. Salsou should know what I'm talking about if she's dabbled with the tarot cards etc. It means she's looked into the community and their ideas.
I am currently reading The Power of Karma by Mary Browne
Quote - Karma is justice. It does not punish or reward. We will suffer for the pain we have caused and we will reap from the good we've produced.
So if each individual is solely responsible for their own karma, be it good or bad how then can it be justified when bad shit happens to good people other than a bloody hard learning curve.
Children learn from their role models ..If the role model is not an exceptionally good one such as a mother or father (so pretty much stuck with them) Then is this somehow the kids karma.
I am aware if i put karma into the realm of life paths then it makes more sense but this book (at present) isn't going there so i am curious as to your thoughts on the subject.
Do you believe in karma?
It is said that all the action-reaction-responses that we experience in life are from the force our karmic debt accumulations (karma quotient). These are said to include the results of all activities that one does in any state, whether in knowledge, ignorance, or by chance, accident or otherwise. In other words all work, activity or energy debts are karmic (action) debts.
This necessarily means that to balance out the accumulations of action-reaction, the individual consciousness needs to 're-incarnate' since the results of the actions cannot balance out in one lifetime.
Using sophisticated carbon 14 dating methods, Dr. Frisen and his team of a stem cell researchers in the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, found that the average age of cells in an adult body would be between seven and ten years.
Most molecules in a cell are constantly being replaced but the DNA is not. All the carbon 14 in a cell's DNA is acquired on the cell's birth date, the day its parent cell divided. Hence the extent of carbon 14 enrichment could be used to figure out the cell's age, Dr. Frisen surmised. In practice, the method has to be performed on tissues, not individual cells, because not enough carbon 14 gets into any single cell to signal its age.
Our consciousness of who we are remains unchanging. Our identification of ourselves, the 'I-consciousness' (I-con) factor remains constant and unchanging. Even though we may develop our likes and dislikes and thinking over the years, we always know who we are in the sense of personal continuity or personal 'being-ness'.
Err... The point is that the soul is still learning? It chooses to incarnate to learn lessons. One path is to learn with knowledge, the other path is learn without the influence of previous knowledge. There are benefits to not knowing about your past while learning.
Sure, feel free to make fun of religion in general about how there is no proof of anything. I don't mind.
But I'd appreciate it if you actually bothered looking up Taoism/Buddhism and how it works exactly before you start making snide comments about how it doesn't make sense. It just makes you seem ignorant and closed minded about the possibility that there could be a logical explanation within it's own paradigm. Sort of like the athiest who comes in ranting about some theological problem that they didn't even bother looking into.
If you don't feel like doing that, then I'd appreciate you word your skeptical questioning in a non-hostile way. I would have then just answered the question in a straight forward manner. You can decide afterwards whether it works or not.
Karma is a concept from the east. If the eastern religions didn't meet the west. Karma as a concept would probably not be known. You'd needn't worry about the people in the west coming to such conclusions in that case. The problem lies in that most people use it interchangably with justice (My name is Earl probably doesn't help.) hence it's often perceived as a Punish/Reward system when it's totally not.
Karma goes hand and hand with reincarnation, especially if we view karma as "conditioning" or "impact from previous actions."
I've read before, in books on Buddhism or Hinduism, that ALL karma takes affect in future lifetimes/existences.
Personally I think of karma as being like momentum. It takes time and effort to alter momentum. Sustained time and effort.
Karma is poetic. All we need to do to believe in Karma is suspend our disbelief.
Karma is exactly the same as transubstantiation. For transubstantiation is pure poetry and all we need to do is suspend our disbelief for poetry to work its magic.
So Karma and transubstantiation are beautiful magical poetry.
But alas they are not compatible. For those that believe in Karma don't believe in transubstantiation; and those who believe in transubstantiation don't believe in Karma.
And although they tell me poetry does nothing, poetry is so powerful. Why just the other day, I mentioned transubstantiation to an Anglican priest and he bristled because the big difference between Catholics and Anglicans is transubstantiation. And only a short time ago they were killing each other over transubstantiation. So it is not too much to say that poetry is a matter of life and death.
Reason, we know, can never kill a poem. It takes a poem to kill another poem.
They say my God is a jealous God, and each poem is mad with jealousy of every other poem.