I have a bone to pick with "karma"

[lmfao]

Making this post because I have a lot of problems with this idea of "karma" and seeing many people holding it in a delusional way. Randomly reading  ' A Course in Miracles' was the spark which made all these things in my mind click.

Notions of "karma", a branch of that being "sin", engenders fear. 

"Karma". Within all the undifferentiated myriad of associations and ways you can hold this idea, I see an underlying false thread which you can get caught in. 
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Extending from karma, a notion that you have "sinned" somehow to get to where you are. That Eve ever sinned in the garden of eden is a lie. What this view of karma leads to is a few things. 


You think  you have sinned against god, "fear god's wrath" , and hence you see the world as a form of vengeance which will strike you at any moment. You walk around thinking the world always has strings attached. Zero sum game attitude.  You are stingy, on guard  and non generous , because fundamentally, you are scared of being hurt.   

But it can go deeper than just  fear of being hurt. In it's ultimate conclusion, the thread can lead to a dark place.

The notion of "sinning" in a dark twist can lead to shame and guilt about one's own existence, thinking that you are unworthy of anything good, and you think you deserve to be thrown in hell. And so your mind creates your own hell. 


A tangible manifestation of the things I'm talking about are found in Fundamentalist Abrahamic religions. They contain projected/channeled material that show delusional worldviews you project onto reality/truth
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EVE'S ONLY "SIN" WAS IMAGINING AND MAKING UP THE STORY THAT SHE EVER SINNED IN THE FIRST PLACE. Eve thinks she's in duality and fears she killed non-duality but there was never duality in the first place. The great contradiction/paradox. 

[lmfao]

I haven't even gone into the more straight forward obvious angle, about how a notion like karma will hold you back from deconstructing causality and time. And how it's often just an added belief system and rationalisation. Perhaps there's some relativistic use to it and poetic flair but I personally am done with it. 

Edited December 5, 2020 by lmfao

[Leo Gura]

Karma is for children. A real man only sees Love

[Preety_India]

I do believe in karma. But it's not about sin. 

The Hindu version of Karma is wrongly advertised in the West as a weird concept where everyone is sinning. 

Karma is not about that. It's about being an authentic person. 

Too many wrongs in the western understanding of karma. 

 

[73809]

2 hours ago, Preety_India said:

I do believe in karma. But it's not about sin. 

The Hindu version of Karma is wrongly advertised in the West as a weird concept where everyone is sinning. 

Karma is not about that. It's about being an authentic person. 

Too many wrongs in the western understanding of karma. 

 

That’s all you going to say? You got juicy beans to spill! Tell me more!

 What is karma and what does it say about being authentic?

[Preety_India]

Just now, 73809 said:

That’s all you going to say? You got juicy beans to spill! Tell me more!

 What is karma and what does it say about being authentic?

Karma is what you do.. It's who you are. It's who you were. It's who you are going to be. 

Karma is developing yourself spiritually. It is realizing the extent to which your words, thoughts actions impact yourself, those who you cross paths with and the entire world and consciousness. 

Karma is a process of evolution. It's about what you sow and what you reap. It's the most basic principle guiding life and the universe. You cannot sow devilry into the system and magically expect good things to happen. What goes around comes around. You can't at the same time hurt someone and expect yourself to find happiness and peace. 

Karma is about fairness. How the universe by its inherent mechanism is trying to bring fairness into the system so that every part of the system is cleaned inside out and energy and entropy is equitably distributed throughout the universe. Where there is suffering the universe tries to bring peace, where there is complacency the universe bring chaos, it tries to bring an order to the system of deep entropy. 

 

[UnbornTao]

You jump into a river and get wet.

Instant Karma!

[Gesundheit]

In Abrahamic religions, there's not much emphasis on Karma as in this realm. Everything will be settled in the afterlife by Allah, the Just.

People always used to object to prophets about Karma, I suppose that's because it was the popular belief back in Purple societies before Abraham. At some point, people started waking up to the fact that Karma is impossible to prove and that it goes against direct experience. People saw criminals who actually got away with their crimes and lived in materialistic bliss, and they also saw poor people who were oppressed and tortured with no one and nothing to consolidate them. Karma - that popular Purple belief - stopped making sense. And they had to come up with Allah and the afterlife.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Gesundheit

[blackchair]

burning Karma is hard.

[Eren Eeager]

I love the concept of karma. For me it is equal to reposnsibility for yourself to raise your level to access God. It is the most intelligent explanation for how things work. But still everything will be explained in a wrong way including karma. Low karma leads to low levels of consciousness. Nothing more or less. It does not lead to poverty or illness. That would be a silly explanation. Karma is what prevents you from God. God = you with zero karma 

Edited December 5, 2020 by Eren Eeager

[Display_Name]

The original meaning of “to sin” is “to miss the mark”

As in, to misunderstand reality, whoopsie.

A much lighter meaning.

[Moksha]

The idea of sin is egoic. It attaches people to a false identity as "sinner", and creates suffering, which only binds them further. I know this one well. Conversely, it attaches people to a false identity as "saint", and creates false superiority, which only binds them further.

@Preety_India described karma beautifully. It is not about any sense of identity, but simply the accumulation of personality, as the result of that personality's expressions. Every personality is constantly evolving, based on how it interacts with other forms. The more loving it becomes, the more free it is, until ultimately it sublimates to reunion with its Source.

[gettoefl]

5 hours ago, Moksha said:

The idea of sin is egoic. It attaches people to a false identity as "sinner", and creates suffering, which only binds them further. I know this one well. Conversely, it attaches people to a false identity as "saint", and creates false superiority, which only binds them further.

@Preety_India described karma beautifully. It is not about any sense of identity, but simply the accumulation of personality, as the result of that personality's expressions. Every personality is constantly evolving, based on how it interacts with other forms. The more loving it becomes, the more free it is, until ultimately it sublimates to reunion with its Source.

suffering identity normalised, take each first letter

i got this from your post

namaste

[Moksha]

2 hours ago, gettoefl said:

suffering identity normalised

?

[Nahm]

Karma is not conceptual, it’s direct experience. ‘Picking a bone’ with it is creating more of it. It can be held off but it is felt & known by the holder, though one might not understand what it actually is, how it clouds them, and how to release it. Karma is also individuated as well as collective, and transcendent of time. 

[seeking_brilliance]

8 hours ago, Display_Name said:

The original meaning of “to sin” is “to miss the mark”

As in, to misunderstand reality, whoopsie.

A much lighter meaning.

It's funny because my dad preaches the whole 'to miss the mark thing' but he believes it's missing the mark of pleasing God ?

I'd rather it say to miss the pointer. There is no apparent mark ?

[seeking_brilliance]

7 minutes ago, Nahm said:

  what it actually is, how it clouds them, and how to release it.

8 hours ago, Display_Name said:

Phone bug

Could you elaborate? 

[PopoyeSailor]

Karma is not about sin or good works. The concept simply is about the Cause & Effect interactions of an individual with his/her environment and further causes & effects, as well as continuation of such interactions within the whole.

 

The core thing about karma which everyone really wants to know is this:

Karma means Cause & Effect. It is the RESULTANT CONDITIONING that an individual has attained through his previous(lives as well) interactions with the world and the future actions which are influenced by that conditioning and the TENDENCIES and BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS that are deeply ingrained in his psyche. Karma is just as much as of the Environment/World/Universe as it is of the Individual.

Does karma determine whether you'll go to hell or heaven after death?

State of mind at the time of death determines what one will experience after death. Just as state of mind before sleep determines what type of dreams one will have.

Hell / Heaven are simply imaginary creations which are experienced after death based on the resultant karmic tendencies one has acquired during his/her living state, just like dreams are experienced at night which are based on the memories & behavioral patterns of the waking state. Constant thinking, remembering & meditation on God & Heaven while alive will ensure that similar state of mind is maintained during the time of death, so that, the mind upon leaving the body will automatically create pleasant realities which are experienced as heaven. Meeting of deceased relatives and deities happen because of strong yearning or attachment towards such entities subconsciously(A Kind of conditioning), which makes you share the afterlife reality with them.

 

Since Karma( Conditioning / Tendencies / Behavioral Patterns / Environment ) determines how we experience both of our living and afterlife experiences; More pleasant ways of living creates pleasant kinds of conditioning and violent ways of living creates violent ways of conditioning which further breeds more of what one already has.