This week: Karma Edited by: Sophy  
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Hi, I'm Sophy ~ your editor for this edition of the Spiritual Newsletter.
The Rev. Scotty McLennan, author of the book Finding Your Religion, compares humanity's innate need for spiritual searching to climbing a mountain. In his view, we are all endeavoring to climb the same figurative mountain in our search for the divine, we just may take different ways to get there. In other words, there is one "God," but many paths. I honor whatever path or paths you have chosen to climb that mountain in your quest for the Sacred.  |
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Karma
Lao Tzu: Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
Certainly the word karma is bandied about quite a bit in modern conversation. But the actual meaning of karma is more complicated and than our colloquial understanding of it as fate or destiny. Very simply put, karma is based on our actions, what we put out to the universe. The concept of karma is very ancient, and originally comes from India. In Sanskrit, the word karma translates very simply to “actions” – and over time karma has become to be seen as equivalent to Newton’s Third Law of Physics, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” But that is not how it was perceived in the beginning.
Our first glimpse of it is in the Rig Veda, which is dated to about 1900 BCE, and was part of a brahminical religion that was a precursor to modern Hinduism. In the Rig Veda, there is allusion to rebirth from the heavenly realm. In this earliest understanding, karma had nothing to do with performing good or bad actions to determine that rebirth. It had to do with performing certain purifying rituals correctly and pleasing the gods. Moving forward, between the 8th and the 3rd century BCE there was a remarkable period of transformation across many cultures, during which some of the world’s great religions were formed. This period is often called the “Axiel” or pivotal age, which experienced growth in travelling traders and scholars, which led to an increase of small cities and the merchant class.
It was during this Axiel age that the Upanishads appeared around 700 BCE, offering the earliest explanation of karma as a spiritual doctrine within the Hindu tradition. The Upanishads, part of the Vedas, are ancient Sanskrit texts that contain central philosophical concepts and ideas of Hinduism, some of which are shared with religious traditions like Buddhism. Within these texts the views of karma and rebirth began to change, and karma began to be referenced as a kind of spiritual law connected to rebirth and reincarnation, and one’s station in life. People’s actions in this life were believed to lead to an appropriate destiny hereafter, in a heavenly or hellish realm, prior to being reborn.
About the same time the Upanishads, Siddhartha Gautama – who became known as the Buddha – appeared. As a spiritual seeker, he practiced deep meditation and severe austerity for six years, during which he came to realize that the self-denial practices all had to do with externals, while everything that really matters happens internally, within the mind. As a result, the Buddha radically redefined earlier interpretations of karma to mean ethical intention, which leads to ethical action. He considered people autonomous individuals who could make choices and be responsible for him or herself. Thus rituals to any sort of gods were no longer important or necessary. For the Buddha, the word karma meant not only the action, but also the intention behind the action. Because intention is key in the Buddha’s definition of karma, he excluded many of the things that happen to a person as being a result of karma. In one of his earliest sermons, he included conditions brought about by health, illness, weather, and acts of violence against oneself as not being the result of good or bad karma. Only actions brought about by intention resulted in karma. So, for example, if someone fell ill, he did not consider it to be a result of bad karma.
Ambaa Choate describes Karma this way: “The law of action, which most people know as karma, is a system that is in place in the universe. It is easy to see it. You make a mistake and then you learn from it. Could there be anything more loving than that? It’s how the universe is set up. Every action has a reaction. It is reliable and steady and requires no intervention. When you do something that causes you to feel bad, your ‘punishment’ is that it feels bad and doesn’t take your life in the direction you want. So over time you learn to act with compassion and love because those are the things that bring you good results. No one has to man that machine; it just does what it does. Karma is not a being that metes out rewards and punishments. Karma as a word means nothing more than ‘action.’ You only have to look around you to see that every action has a reaction. Ask a physicist. That’s one of the most beautiful things about the world: how balanced it is.”
In other words, karma means that each action is pregnant with consequences, that nothing we do is unimportant. Whether we believe our actions have relevance to any future reincarnated life – we can agree they have consequences in this life. Westerners sometimes look at the idea of karma the same way they view Calvinist predestination — that there is a ball and chain of consequences that we drag behind us that makes our future in this life or any subsequent lives inevitable. But truly karma is the opposite of predestination. As Sogyal Rinpoche says: “Karma means our ability to create and to change.” It is creative because we can determine how and why we act – with intention. We can change. The future is in our hands and in the hands of our heart.
For me, the message of karma, and how to intentionally cultivate good karma, is a message of hope. It’s not a fatalistic view that things will happen to us that we can’t do anything about, or that everything that happens to us is the result of what we did in this lifetime, or worse yet, some other lifetime we don’t know about. The message of karma is to be aware of our intentions, and cultivate intentions that bring kindness to ourselves and to others. The more we act in ethical ways, the more we are inclined to continue to act in ethical ways. Each wholesome action adds to a pattern of wholesome actions, and becomes what the mind will think. This is the way to cultivate good karma. Knowing that our actions reverberate throughout time and space and make up the legacy of our life, we have the choice to make that a legacy of love and compassion or one of neglect and thoughtlessness.
“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”
How satisfied with your thoughts, your words, your actions, which become your habits and ultimately your character? Were your intentions for the well-being of others? Are your words and actions congruent with the greater good? What might be something you can do to adjust your karma?
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Below you'll find some spiritual offerings from other WDC members. Please let the folks know if you read their piece by leaving a thoughtful comment or review. If you have something you would like me to highlight, please do share it with me, thanks!
| |  | karma (E)
we cannot control the world--only our response to it.
#2166761 by Rhyssa  |
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This item number is not valid.
#2166511 by Not Available. |
| | | time's flying (E)
It may be pretty or terrible, and it can mean a lot or be futile; yours to judge
#2166392 by kame  |
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Here is a response to my last newsletter "Spiritual Newsletter (July 25, 2018)" about Miracles:
From shepherd46
Well done! In my opinion, small and big miracles happen every day. I see miracles in my life -- better health, better understanding of my husband and miracles in my country. Faith and miracles, in my opinion, go hand-in-hand.
Well said! 
      
From Shakesbeard
Hello there, I just took the time to read this and it really struck a chord with me . Things I have experienced, messages I have received , paths I have taken up the "mountain" and of course miracles. There certainly is Divine proof, signs, and messages all around us all the time and it is absolutely wonderful when they are recognized. Most are very subtle and one must be tuned to the fact that they are in fact there. The perception of the world is definitely the result of the individual doing the perceiving and I've personally experienced a change of mind due to a particular path I have taken to ascend the mountain towards God there by giving me a complete understanding and mental view of " change your mind, change the world."
Thank you for getting yourself to where you are on your journey. For making it this far, and having the ability to put this in words to give to others.
Thank you for your kind words!
Please keep your comments and suggestions coming! Until next time! Sophy |
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Spiritual: August 22, 2018 Issue [#9058]
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