Modern-day
definition of Karma: “Karma means action, work, or deed; it also
refers to the principle of causality where intent and actions of an individual
influence the future of that individual.” (As shown in online Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia;
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma.) Ancient
definition of Karma: “the force generated by a person’s actions
held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and its ethical
consequences to determine the nature of the person’s next existence.” (as shown in Merriam-Webster’s
Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed., page 638.) Biblical
definition of Karma: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for
whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows
to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit
will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.” (Galatians 6: 7 & 8; New King James Bible
(NKJV). One might think that the
subject of Karma is just some old, new-age thing that died out after the 1960’s
and 70’s along with the ‘love-ins’ and Woodstock. A few of my friends became hippies, back
then, but you wouldn’t know them today.
Most are retired, respectable grandparents now, having learned that a
regular paycheck had its value, after all.
Still, it was a turbulent, but exciting time for the country. People
talked about good karma and bad karma quite a bit, in those days; but the
meaning was somewhat different from the religious view. In those days, karma generally meant that one was born with behavioral faults they
couldn’t fight against, such as their need or urges for drugs, sex, or
liquor. It “was their ‘karma,” they said, “and
since they were born with it, no use to fight against it.” This mental view, of course, allowed
individuals to throw out common sense and, instead, go to extremes of unwise
behavior. There was a lot of
self-destruction going on, with some of the bad health effects continuing, even
to this day. Yet, the concept of karma is something in which nearly
everyone still lives and mentally entertains.
It is a hidden thing, locked into the world’s belief systems, particularly
into the medical profession. Hidden
under the disguise of heredity beliefs, it
exists in the notion that we can’t be free of certain health conditions when
they are ‘inherited’ from an ancestor.
This belief has been sold to almost everyone on this planet. More
precisely, this belief claims that ill-health, and bad traits, are passed on
from family members, as a law, to all God’s children. In other words, it is believed that God
doesn’t protect any of Its children from the accepted beliefs of material
heredity. This universal belief grows
stronger every day in the collective world consciousness. It declares that, whatever bad health one is
exhibiting (whether physical or mental conditions) it is passed on to us from
one or another of the physical links in our family tree. We are educated to believe that physical and
mental heredity can’t be avoided, so we shouldn’t even try; we should just
accept it and live with it. Historically, it is odd
that the belief in material heredity has become so strong on this planet. For there actually IS a biblical warning of
this false and wrongful hereditary law, which lies buried in the pages of the
Old Testament, Chapter 18, verses 1-4 of Ezekiel. (The New King James Bible says it in the most
modern English.) Back in the Old
Testament times, this warning was told to the prophet Ezekiel to give to the
children of Israel: “The
word of the Lord came to me again, saying, “What do you mean when you use
this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, And the children’s teeth are set on edge’? “As
I live,” says the Lord God, “you shall no longer use this
proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are
Mine; The soul of the father as
well as the soul of the son is Mine;” This ancient teaching rules out and condemns the
whole subject of material heredity, showing God as our only Authority, and we
are not to be punished for another’s life style. The
reason this proverb is still so important today is that it shows that no divine
penalty, punishment or danger is ever done against God’s own off-spring, (who
we really are). As I’ve already stated,
our divine Parent, or Creator is never the cause of whatever consequences occur
as the effect of the many unwise actions we’re indulging in our daily lives. It is not God who punishes us. Disharmony is the logical consequences
of erroneous health beliefs and any destructive actions against others. Wrong thinking, and doing, brings predictable consequences
we won’t like. So, it is wise to correct
our beliefs and undo whatever wrong we’ve done to any of God’s other children,
or ourselves. When asked, the divine Mind
will show us the way to correct and overturn our wrongs; for universal Love is
always the main road we are to take. As
residents of this whole material experience, we come by our erroneous, material
beliefs honestly. We’ve all been born, (entered
this material realm) on the same planet.
We share everything…particularly beliefs. In our computerized world, the tiniest, new
belief spreads across the whole earth, in a matter of seconds. So, today, more than ever, we must be alert
in what we accept as truth. What is
considered as truth comes and goes, only to resurface back to old beliefs
again. This
completely material sense of being leaves out of consideration the innate,
spiritual consciousness of every living thing and being. Thus, physical science more likely treats only
the body form, but ignores the mind, or consciousness, which ultimately controls
the action of the physical body. Often,
medical practitioners shoot only to maintain
or contain an affliction at some level, instead of actually healing, or
bringing one back to wholeness. Lots of
guessing and experimenting goes with this narrow view of maintaining health. Concerning
sickness: Christ Jesus spent his short
time here, in this earthly theater, healing the masses of all types of disease,
showing that disease is not from God. He even brought Lazarus, and a young girl
back to life from the physical death experience. He said that the kingdom of God is “within
us”, meaning within our deeper, spiritual consciousness. (See the New Testament Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John chapters for his teachings.) Our
immortal, spiritual health from God is with us, even when we are believing that
our material sickness has reality. It
does not. We believe we have sickness,
but it is really more like sickness has us…it has our attention…it has our
mental acceptance. But it’s always the illusion of sensation in the material
form. The illusion of sickness never
touches our true being, which is immortal.
Ponder
this: When Christ Jesus healed all
manner of sicknesses that the human mind could imagine, he called no disease by
any name. He knew it was only a manifestation
of a belief. God’s children are
ever-lasting, but it is our spiritual essence that is ever-lasting. The material form is only a false sense of
being. When this human experience
(being in a finite fleshly body) is over, we will realize that we were never
sick, hurt, or mortal. But we won’t be
in the flesh, because once we are spiritually awake, we won’t be trapped in a
finite, material form or false sense of being, anymore. Someone,
(I don’t remember who) once said, we
won’t be truly well until we lose our ability
to be sick. That will occur more and
more as we ‘put on’ the Christ identity (spiritual identity) and shed the
false, physical sense of body. In the
ascension, Christ Jesus ‘put on’ his own spiritual identity when he rose above
the finite body-form and disappeared to the view of those left here. That’s the real way Home. It’s our awakening from the dream of being
separated from God, our Source. It is
what occurs when we are fully, spiritually awake, and the false material
identity is seen as reality no more.
Until then, we can be ‘in the flesh’ but not ‘of the flesh’. While
we seem to be physical beings trapped in a finite, material body, we create our
own health, and ill-health, in so many ways because we forget that we are spiritual
beings, just passing through this human experience. We will have temporary ‘trials and
tribulations’ while working ourselves through this human experience, where we
seem to be made of both spirit and matter.
But as we awaken more to the spiritual truth of our being, we suffer
less from even believing in the many seeming forms of evil. Healing
has become a lost art. Studying the bad
health, life and decisions of one’s ancestors and relying upon this information
to try to heal someone (by treating only the material form) seems like a quick
fix; but it does little to bring sick people back to wholeness and health. Instead, it sets up a maintenance or level of
containment, putting individuals each on a ‘cocktail’ of medicines, rarely to
be removed from them. Then they are told
that they must live with their affliction because material heredity is the big law that’s present to be obeyed. The belief that one must
‘copy’ the diseases and mental conditions of one’s ancestors is, sadly, the
common approach concerning the subject of health today. This approach is built only around the belief
in the cause and effect of matter, relying on the notion that matter is the
only substance of being, when it has nothing to do with the conscious spirit
that is using the finite form to move around in this human experience. Going along with the world’s current view of
health-care causes the consciousness to be ignored almost completely. When addressing health-care, people seeking
health are rarely told to examine their mental thoughts, which brings
dis-equilibrium to the body form. Mental
distress, of any kind, stirs up the body functions and upsets the physical
body’s natural equilibrium. Dis-ease means ‘lack of
ease’, and it is one’s consciousness
that is the key to the peace of mind that results in natural health. One must see and incorporate into treatment
the state of one’s consciousness, before the body functions properly. The false belief that whatever bad health you
have, (both physical and mental conditions) were passed on to you from your physical
parents or some ancestor, leaves many passive individuals, in their
consciousness, from even trying to be well.
Mindless acceptance of disease and the lack of any belief in wellness enforces
the power, presence, and legitimacy of disease as the natural state of being, when, in fact, it is an unnatural state of being.
We mentally accept false
‘laws’ and then manifest them in and on the body form. This is why I say that belief is everything in this human experience. As children of Creative Mind, we have the
power to manifest whatever we believe, for our own good, or bad. Sickness isn’t a gift from God. Sickness isn’t a punishment from God. Sickness is nothing to God. It only has reality in the fleshly form,
because we believe ourselves to be fleshly creatures. And as seeming fleshly creatures, we think
that the material form is us. But it
isn’t. We are spiritual creatures. Our true bodies are spiritual. The
changes in the physical form follow our own belief about ourselves. Aging beliefs, health beliefs, and the
manifestation of our belief in the absence of God’s love for us all reinforce disease as the norm. We actually fear our physical form and what
it can do to us. We take every potion
recommended to heal us, but aren’t trained to examine our consciousness and
beliefs that cause discords to manifest.
We are taught that our finite, physical forms are the master of us, rather
than the servants of us. Whatever we believe to be our master (whether the
physical body, or our consciousness) will be what rules the day. What we believe about our individual self is what we manifest in the flesh. The flesh, itself, has no consciousness. WE are the master of the fleshly form, not
its servant. God,
is the infinite, Creative Mind, and our deeper, spiritual consciousness (called
the Christ-consciousness) lives within all life forms, And as children of this Creative Mind, we
have the power to manifest whatever we believe, for our own good, or for our
own bad. The choice is left to
us. That is what is meant by
free-will. God, our Source and Origin
has said, “The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.” (Jeremiah 31:3: King James Bible (KJV). Does
this sound like a creator who allows Its divine children to really be sick and die? No. We
are still spiritually whole; but we must remember that truth when we are manifesting discord in the fleshly body
or mind, in order for the fleshly discord to disappear into the nothingness
from whence it came. Also,
our God-ordained free-will allows us to turn our back on the Creator and
reject God’s invisible presence and sovereignty over all. Yet, when
we conquer all fear in the material-seeming power of our trouble, our own trust in the Almighty (as the only real
Power) will change our discords back to harmony and our sickness back to normalcy. Why?
Because the physical discord never touched our true, spiritual being
in the first place! Only our own
belief-system keeps the physical illusion of discord going. God’s
children and creation are all ever-lastingly whole, so God doesn’t have to change anything. It is WE who must change our beliefs back to
the spiritual, not material, reality of being.
This is what is meant by ‘putting on the Christ’. Put on (remember)
your true identity as the Christ Identity…which signifies the universal
spiritual identity of each and every one of us. So,
I repeat: it is not God who punishes us for anything. It is the logical consequences of erroneous
thinking and wrong-doing that punishes us.
Self-destructive actions, as well as false health beliefs will naturally come to no good end when we
have turned away from God’s harmonious realm (the invisible kingdom of God). This has everything to do with our peace of
mind; and our own peace of mind has everything to do with our God-given
health. When we entertain harmful
thoughts against someone, it is our own thinking that leads us to harmful
actions. That’s when we have taken a
wrong turn, so to speak; and some type of disharmony will result from it. We are wise to recognize this cause and
effect relationship. For
example, when we are unkind to a neighbor, or someone at our work place, we
have set up, against ourselves, a hostile environment. Disharmony has been activated and brought into
our own experience. This situation won’t
heal until we undo it. The cycle of
revenge is not an option; (just study the middle-east that thrives on the
principle of revenge). The
Almighty does not allow bad things to occur in Its heavenly, harmonious realm. If disease or destructive actions were to
occur in the invisible, but ever-present kingdom of God, the kingdom of God would
collapse. Therefore, our sojourn here in this human (materialistic) experience
is to learn what not to do. Disease
beliefs and destructive actions against others will take some type of physical
form in our own experience because we manifest what we believe. This natural
effect of our destructive acts teaches us not to do them. Yet, everlasting
harmony is the divine Law, and heaven would collapse without it. Therefore, we must each learn how to become
loving, kind, and non-destructive, which allows our inner peace and natural equilibrium
to operate in our human experience. Christ
Jesus, our spiritual brother and way-shower said before his ascension out of
the material realm, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the
world ye shall have tribulation:
but be of good cheer; I have overcome
the world.” (Words
of Christ Jesus recorded in John 16:33; King James Bible). |
