It takes hundreds of hours of facing the unknown to get the unknown to yield one little insight, one little piece at a time. If you are going to be any good at it, you have to be lucky enough to escape the trap of thinking that you can learn anything from books. You can learn anything at all about outside reality from a book, but when it comes to your own inner reality it cannot by definition ever be described by anyone else. It can only be described by yourself. No one else has access to it. It is a totally solo trip and a totally into - the - unknown trip. The natural process of deep meditation is built in. You don't make it that way, you discover it. A natural function gets you where you're trying to go. Going to sleep is the same process as deep meditation. It is good to learn to go to sleep slowly and wake up slowly.
Find yourself - your Overself, and you will begin to find the meaning of life and begin to unveil the mystery of the universe.
The Will of the Spirit is not the will of blind matter, of mechanical self-assertion or aggressive self-defense.
256-257 A man is not on the path of righteousness if he settles matters in violent haste. A wise man calmly considers what is right and what is wrong, and faces different opinions with truth, non-violence and peace. This man is guarded by truth and is a guardian of truth. He is righteous and he is wise.
It is characteristic of nearly all religious systems that their adherents are dominated by fear. My father, for example, a pious man, walked out of the room if any mention was made of death. The fear of hell was stigmatized as the hangman's whip to keep the wretch in order. The wretches do not appear to benefit from it. Canon Farrar's sermons on Eternal Hope did much to banish this fear, but many like my father, were afraid to read them, just as many in the present day are afraid to read theosophical literature. Such fear is not consistent with professional belief in a God of Love. For the Theosophist who knows the divine Law of Karma, and that nothing can happen to him that he does not himself initiate; there is no occasion for fear. No evil thing can befall anyone who lives a sober, righteous and godly life. But who wants to live a godly or godlike life, it may be asked. The Theosophist certainly should, and that means that he casts out fear. It is really astonishing the number of professing theosophists, not to mention Christians, who are afraid of the Master, or of being disloyal, or some other fancy. The theosophist is expected to be loyal to Truth, Beauty and Goodness and to nothing and nobody else. We have the edifying spectacle of the representatives of two vast empires calling each other liars and then shaking hands and then sitting to chat amiably. Theosophists, it would seem, prefer to suppress contradictory opinions rather than encourage explorations of the truth. Are they afraid of the truth who adopt this attitude? As long as the Theosophical Society is unable to include the four Freedoms in its policies and practice it cannot expect to make much progress in the modern world. The Anglican Church in one of its fine Collects speaks of its service as perfect freedom. We look in vain for such perfection at Adyar. It is part of the form side of life and of those who devote themselves to the drill and parade ground of religious ceremonial to lay all the emphasis of their service on the correct posture of him who prays rather than on the spirit of the prayer or the value of prayer in itself. The visible thus becomes more important than the invisible and the prophet is ousted by the priest. No one who knows and understands the operation of the Law of Karma can harbor any fears whatever. At first when the student begins to think, he may have some difficulty in eradicating the fear of death and hell implanted by Sunday School and Church teaching, but he will soon come to see that the processes of Life and natural law do not justify any fear of the results of a development which is directed towards perfection and Life more abundantly.
Hi Katinka,Mark Harris is one of the contributors to Katinka Hesselink Net, he wrote a piece on karma for Buddha's World: Self World and Incarnation.
I am unsure about what Wikipedia says about karma, but...
Upon death, the first three skandhas are said to return to a common pool of some sort. The fourth and fifth link up and then condition a fetus in a womb somewhere. So, not all the skandhas reincarnate; just the fourth and fifth.
What this means is, to me, that upon the extinction (nirvana) of the fourth skandha, consciousness is liberated. The fourth skandha can be seen to be thoughts and volitions, also known as compositional factors. That wording is an important clue as to what constitutes nirvana: no subject/object split and no objects. Form is not an object.
To look at karma as a system of reward and punishment, then, is a serious mistake. Karma is action and consequence, but it doesn't happen to a separate person that is reincarnating; that is an illusion. Reward and punishment then, is a matter of the fourth skandha.
Sincerely,
Mark Harriss
Recently I overheard a mother
and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. They had
announced the departure.
Standing near the
security gate, they hugged and the mother said, "I love you and I wish
you enough".
The
daughter replied, "Mom, our life together has been more than enough.
Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom".
They
kissed and the daughter left. The mother walked over to the window
where I was seated. Standing there I could see she wanted and needed to
cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by
asking, "Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be
forever?".
Yes, I have," I replied.
"Forgive me for asking, but why is this a forever good-bye?".
"I
am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the
reality is - the next trip back will be for my funeral," she said.
"When
you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, 'I wish you enough'. May I
ask what that means?".
She
began to smile. "That's a wish that has been handed down from other
generations. My parents used to say it to everyone". She paused a
moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she
smiled even more. "When we said , 'I wish you enough', we were wanting
the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to
sustain them". Then turning toward me, she shared the following as if
she were reciting it from memory.
I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.
I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.
She then began to cry and walked away.
They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them but then an entire life to forget them.
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