What Am I Doing Here?
De Simple Silence.
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[modifier] Karma
A debate has been going on for centuries about whether we have free will, or whether that old bogey predestination actually exists. If it does, what’s the use of trying ?
God, being perfect, couldn’t just fashion the substance and energy in space into millions of stars, planets and constellations and let them whirl just anywhere. So He put the whole system under a set of laws, called « karma » in the East. These laws which govern all are greatly misunderstood. It is the process by which we grow and advance and it was never meant that we should just fold up our map and say, « My karma is so bad, I can’t travel any further. » There is just as much good karma as bad, and the universes are indeed very well regulated. The system is one of polarities. We learn by action and reaction and the opposites of experience.
We think of Time as a straight line—past, present and future—and we are apt to regard life in the same way, but Meher Baba has explained that our development zigzags like a river, even though it moves forward. If a river had no banks, the water would just spread all over the land and the river would never reach its destination. Our life-force also would dissipate itself if it were not confined between the two poles of opposites. I guess most children have had large plastic dolls or animals with weighted, rounded bases to which they can give a good push and the doll starts swaying back and forth without toppling. After a time the sway gets less and less, until finally the toy is erect and quiet.
Well, the pushes or whacks which we undergo in life are from one side to its opposite. Suppose you have been rich and important ; in another life you will be poor and unimportant. Perhaps you have been a good servant—in another life you will be served and waited upon. If you kill somebody you will have to be killed—not because it is always « sinful » to kill (i.e. protecting someone from being murdered), but because of what happens with accumulated impressions. You can learn to like olives, an acquired taste, by eating them several times. You can even acquire a taste for poor music if constantly exposed to it. I have been told by cooks that after you wring the neck of one chicken, you do not mind killing chickens. And you can become so calloused about killing your fellowmen that you might acquire a taste for it, so the chain reaction has to be broken up.
Sometimes it is necessary to kill, to save one’s country or for self-protection or the protection of another ; but to keep us from wanting to kill, we then go through the opposite experience of being killed. One may be the fellow wandering around in a forest when someone shoots him, thinking he is a deer. Or one may be the innocent bystander walking down the street where a robber is holding up a store ; the proprietor shoots and the bullet misses and hits the bystander, a person he never meant to kill—karmic destiny had to be fulfilled.
If one kills out of malice and from some criminal intent, he will be killed in the same manner, so that he will never want to do it again. It does not follow that the person you killed will kill you, for he might not have reincarnated at the same time you did, but it will be someone with similar sanskaras. If we kill a sick animal, knowing inwardly that we would not want this done to us, we might have to spend our next life caring for animals, perhaps as a shepherd or cowherd or veterinarian.
[modifier] Planets
« The ego is the affirmation of being separate from the other ; and love is the affirmation of being one with the other ; so the ego can be dissolved only through real love. »
While there are drop-bubbles or forms evolving all the time, one might say that there are also wave-bubbles or forms evolving. These are chains or ranges of earths, or gross worlds. Some of them have only stones upon them. Some have stones and wind. Some have stones, wind and metals. Some have stones, wind, metals and water. Others have stones, wind, metals, water and vegetation. Some have stones, wind, metals, water, vegetation and animals, and the main chain, which is closest to the Creation point of God, contains all the above plus human beings. Our own earth is billions of years old and will last billions of years more. However, one day it will become a moon like our present moon (a cooled-down earth) is. Another earth will take its place when it slips aside.
Our earth, according to Meher Baba, is linked with two other planets like a tree with two branches. The people on one of these planets have 100% intelligence and no love. They are far more intelligent than we are. On the other planet the people have a ratio of 75% intellect and 25% love. Eventually they reincarnate on our earth, because only on our earth is true love in all its forms and relationships really learned. And, if we are to achieve the goal of our long journey, we will have to learn to love divinely, for God IS love and God IS divine. He can never be reached or understood through the intellect. So, after innumerable lifetimes, people from those planets must incarnate here to learn the biggest lesson of all—love : love for home, kindred and country, marital love, parental love, love for animals, etc., etc., and eventually, love for God.
[modifier] Suicide And Past Lives
One of the most tragic things today is to hear of people, especially young people in school or college, committing suicide because of a sense of failure. This is because they have no conviction of a God of Love, or of an orderly universe, or of the endless chances which they will have to « make good » and achieve their aspirations. Only the Christian Church has failed to teach the truth of reincarnation ; all other faiths acknowledge it. And the pity is that the doctrine was taught in the Christian Church until the fifth ecumenical council was held in Constantinople in 543 A.D., at which the Church fathers suddenly decided, and passed a resolution (still on record in the minutes of the meeting), that they would « no longer teach the doctrine of rebirth ». This was done in spite of many passages in the Bible referring to reincarnation, of which the one most often quoted is Matthew XVII : 12, where Jesus states that the old prophecy of Malachi, that Elijah was to come again to the world before the Messiah, had been fulfilled in John the Baptist. This ban left us Christians to face an unjust and unloving God who gave us only one chance and sometimes, if we died in infancy, we did not even have that ! Yet He created redwoods to live five thousand years ! And what is sillier than saying God is Love, but that He would still plunge us into hell and keep us there eternally if we were not good here ! As far as God is concerned, evil is only, as the song goes, « a some-time thing ». During our long journey we learn to discard it. There really is no death ! All we do is drop or discard one body for another, and most of us like a new suit of clothes. But the worst possible thing we can ever do is to commit suicide. This is done by people who have the false idea they are getting away from their problems that way. They may be ill with cancer and so they say, « I don’t want to be a burden to my family, » but inside they want to escape the pain and helplessness. Or they are lonely, so they want to rejoin someone who has passed over. They feel they have a right to do what they want with their lives. But nobody owns his life—it belongs to God. There are certain lessons to be learned in each lifetime, and certain sanskaras to be worked out. When we « welsh » on the job, the toll we have to pay isn’t worth it. No problem we have to cope with is as bad as having the problem still facing us and no physical body with which to work. When we suicide, we can neither go forward nor backward, so we stay earthbound for a long time. We realize what we should have done while we had a body, and we can’t do it without one. We did not finish our appointed tasks so we cannot go ahead in the astral world. It is much better to face our lot as it unfolds—even if one tries and fails, sooner or later he must succeed. People get discouraged over love, finances, all sorts of things—and yet a brighter life could be awaiting them two months hence. We really never have more than we can bear—if we believe in God ! Lack of endurance is our weakness. God loves bravery ! Life constantly persists and renews itself, and we should not be so attached to our present form. Death is only the interval between two lives. One of the old church fathers, Origen (A.D. 185 — 254), wrote : « Every soul has existed from the beginning—and comes into this world strengthened by the victories or weakened by the defeats of its previous life—its work in this world determines its place in the world which is to follow this. » At the time of death, the soul drops its physical body. The subtle body, with its astral sheath (soon to be discarded), has its link—commonly known as the « silver cord »—snapped and is free to leave its gross form and go into the astral world. The mind remains with the subtle body. Nobody can believe that each soul is newly created when a baby is born and that God, or whatever power creates, is having fun by producing vicious or idiotic or retarded babies, and that instead of a perfect plan for evolution, God created an irrational chaos without any mercy or justice. How explain infant genius (music, etc.) or the Shakespeares and Einsteins of this world ? Could a St. Francis of Assisi just happen ? Genius is not inherited, nor moral character, but often physical likeness is. This is because in evolution a soul is directed to take birth in a family where it can acquire the body needed for such roles as a musician or a prize fighter, etc., and where it contacts people formerly known.
Most people of the western world pooh-pooh reincarnation because they have no memory of past lives. As a matter of fact, lots of small children do have such memories, and they are listened to attentively in countries of the East. Also, their parents do not scoff at their invisible playmates and label them « imaginary ». Usually the memories fade somewhere between the ages of four and seven, and they no longer see those on the astral plane. When they retain their psychic perception, they have a difficult time in school and at home because of the scoldings and ridicule to which they are subjected. It may take some years before they realize that their friends and parents do not see what they see, and this can be a bewildering experience also. It is a far more merciful plan that we do not remember our past lives for we probably could not function as we should. The book of our life has its pages filled with good deeds and bad deeds, with successes and failures, all connected in some way with other people. When we give up the physical body and go to live in the astral world, we are given time to sort all this out and assess what the accounts of our life’s ledger show in the way of debits and credits. We go through our days so fast here that we seldom take a real look at ourselves, our behaviour and motives, and can remember little of what happens. But it is all stored in our minds, and « over there » we watch the movie film of our life-span unwind. Some of the scenes are happy, some funny, some miserable. In making a beef potroast, after the meat is cooked the cook keeps the liquid boiling until only the real essence remains for the gravy. So the essence, the real meaning of all our experiences, is packed down in our subconscious where it remains for our next life. The ego has its roots in the subconscious. If we died in a hideous fire, we may in our next life show some fear of fire but we will not have to remember the agony. If our cousin happens to be someone we cheated or injured in our past life, we will not avoid him but will inevitably make it up to him, because the law of karma demands that we balance such things. By the same token, we may regard as luck something wonderful done for us, but it will represent another debt due us, paid by someone. There is no such thing in life as getting something for nothing, and nothing that happens ever happens by chance. St. Paul talked about « whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. » Since the new year is the time of turning over a new leaf, here is an interesting quotation from the Talmud on repentance. --- It is told that Elazar ben Dordaya did not leave a single harlot whom he did not visit. He once heard of a certain harlot on a distant island, whose price was a purse of gold coins. He took a purse of gold coins, crossing seven rivers to meet her. During the act, she belched, and in jest said, « Just as this gas cannot return to its place, so Elazar ben Dordaya will not be accepted if he tries to repent. » He went and sat between two mountains and hills. He said, « Mountains and hills, seek mercy for me ! » They replied, « Before we seek mercy for you, let us seek it for ourselves, since it is written, ‘The mountains will depart, and the hills will be removed’ » (Isaiah 54 :10). He said, « Heaven and Earth, seek mercy for me ! » They replied, « Before we seek mercy for you, let us seek it for ourselves, since it is written, ‘The heavens will vanish like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment’ » (Isaiah 51 :6). He said, « Sun and Moon, seek mercy for me ! » They replied, « Before we seek mercy for you, let us seek it for ourselves, since it is written, ‘The moon will be confounded, and the sun will be ashamed’ » (Isaiah 24 :23). He said, « Stars and constellations, seek mercy for me ! » They replied, « Before we seek mercy for you, let us seek it for ourselves, since it is written, ‘The host of heaven will moulder away’ » (Isaiah 34 :4. He then said, « It depends on no one but me alone. » He placed his head between his knees and moaned with weeping until his soul left him. A heavenly voice then exclaimed, « Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya is prepared for life in the World to Come. »... Rabbi said, « Not only are those who repent accepted by God, but they are even called Rabbi. »
- Talmud, Avodah Zarah 17a
This is taken from Aryeh Kaplan’s Meditation and the Bible (York Beach, Maine : Samuel Weiser, 1988), where it is used to illustrate meditation positions of the prophets, in this case placing the head between the knees.
[modifier] The First And The Second Turn
We can thank A. K. Abdulla for putting down the following, as related by Meher Baba:
"The compact latent human form takes four straight turns and afterwards, one inverse turn (in all, five turns) before it becomes completely manifested. In order to understand these five turns, we must glance at some of the species:
"Stone is the first important form which is visible to the naked eye. Every stone has eyes, nose, mouth, hands and feet — in fact, a complete body, exactly like the human body, but as it is compact to the last degree, it is extremely latent in this form. It is like the cloth doll which can be made to look like a lumpy piece of stone when it is carefully folded up. With the evolution from the stone, these imperceptible compact parts of its body begin getting unfolded. In the metal kingdom they are still invisible to the naked eye, but in the vegetable kingdom, the crude manifestation of the latent form is perceptible to some extent.
"The latent form in the stone evolves with the head going towards the ground and the feet rising up, gradually becoming upside down in the vegetable kingdom with the head completely underneath the ground and the feet straight up, as is the case with a tree. The tree form is the FIRST TURN of this latent human form. Observe the tree carefully. The mesh of roots are the hairs on the head of the tree. The mouth is there, though latent, and so it is not seen by the naked eye. Water and manure are given to the trees in order that they may drink and eat at their bottoms, and not on their tops, for their mouths are underneath the ground. The entire portion, from throat upwards, of the body of every tree stands out above the ground. The lowest visible portion of the trunk is the throat of the tree, and the remaining trunk is its main body. The bigger branches are its hands and feet, and the smaller branches are the fingers and toes.
"With the evolution from the vegetable kingdom, the feet of the crudely manifested inverse human form in the tree gradually come down and down as the soul passes through different forms until they (the feet) lie flat on the ground in the form of a worm, whose mouth is upwards and not underneath the ground. This is the SECOND TURN."
[modifier] Our Own Personal Small Flashlight
We cannot penetrate the dark jungle of our sanskaras with our own personal small flashlight — the light of our consciousness. We have to have more light, such as our master carries, to see by. How did he get more light? His master did for him what he will do for us....
Meher Baba has given the description of a ball of string. We can liken our sanskaras to a long series of pieces of string tied together and wound over a piece of stick into a ball. The stick would represent our inner light or soul-ray. The Sadguru (Perfect Master) has the power to cut through or unwind this mass of string and set us free, IF we give ourselves unconditionally to him and obey him in the conduct of our lives. He knows our karma and can lead us out of the maze of our good and bad sanskaras. We do not take prescriptions from two doctors at the same time for our malady. We go to a specialist. Sometimes we have to have a surgeon!
This idea is particularly repugnant to the average person of the western world who is insistent on free will and sure that, if he is given enough literature, he can read himself into Heaven. He overlooks the fact that it takes a much stronger exercise of his free will to be obedient to a master than to have his own way all the time. He is very sure that it was only in the past God produced saints. He even restricts those to his own form of religion and thereby whittles the infinite God down to his size!
[modifier] Shakings
We now have to go through a process called "shakings" — a sort of rearrangement of the sanskaras or impressions we have been so busy gathering. This takes a few million more lifetimes, beginning with experiences as primitive peoples, and progressing through all the fields of skill and knowledge existing in the world. We incarnate sometimes as men, sometimes as women, living in different parts of the globe, with different colored skins, experiencing all aspects of life and of love. The sanskaras we gathered in the animal form are particularly difficult to get rid of, and one quite often sees some animal characteristic in people's faces. They actually remind you of a pig, a sheep, a dog, a crane, a fish, a tiger, etc., and how they show their claws!
[modifier] Inspiration And Knowledge
During our many, many lifetimes the mirror of our mind becomes completely overlaid with myriads of sanskaras (impressions) like lines of vari-colored chalks, so that its surface is no longer clear enough to reflect correctly. It is as if we were totally enveloped in thousands of those colored paper streamers used in carnivals, etc., and trying to peer through them. At the same time, the light within cannot shine through the glass as it did. The result is that we are in darkness. Our minds are almost always active, even agitated, and therefore cannot hold the inspiration which is always coming from God (and which should easily be reflected on the mind's surface). For a beautiful reflection of the moon on a lake, the water must be fairly still. Also, we seem separated from God within — as the light of our soul is enveloped in this darkness. Thus the sages say we live in "ignorance". God seems to be somewhere far away from us, and the light of true intuition from within is almost imperceptible.
The only way the waves of the mind can be stilled is by concentration. This means not allowing it to be a scrap-basket any longer. Some scientists are very good at this, and we hear of cases where two men, total strangers, get the same idea for an invention or medical discovery although they are many miles apart. Inspiration and knowledge are always pouring forth from the higher planes, but our mirrors are too fogged to catch the beams.
Ivy O. Duce. Published by © 1966 by Sufism Reoriented Inc.
