57 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
57 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
|
||
Karma, The Three Fold Law, & Grace
|
||
|
||
"As you sew, so shall ye reap". "What goes around, comes around".
|
||
"Whatever you send out returns three times". These are all sayings
|
||
very familiar to all of us, all of them examples of a supposedly
|
||
Universal Law of cause and effect, action and reaction. Of course many
|
||
of the religious systems try to furnish us with some sort of "escape
|
||
clause" that will allow man to either alleviate suffering fo past
|
||
misdeeds, or to escape responsibility totally. Let us take a little
|
||
closer look at these three ideas and ther inter-reationship.
|
||
It seems that, on one level, we do live in a mechanistic universe,
|
||
one pretty much ruled by cause-and-efect. This Newtonian universe
|
||
seems to react in a very mechanical fashion, i.e. every action
|
||
"produces an equal and opposite reaction". A good analogy for this is
|
||
the example of one billiard ball striking another. The energy from the
|
||
striking billiard ball is transfered to the one struck and is used to
|
||
push against the first, imparting motion in the same direction. This
|
||
brings the second law into play, i.e. an object in motion tends to stay
|
||
until acted upon by an outside force.
|
||
The principle of Karma basically says the same thing; i.e. any
|
||
negative or positive action or thought remains that way, until it
|
||
expends its energy by acting upon the originator. Of course this also
|
||
makes implicit the idea that thoughts or mental energy have a reality
|
||
of their own, one that interacts with the physical universe. If this
|
||
idea is accepted, it then implies the existence of at least one more
|
||
"world" or order of the universe, one with a non physical "reality",
|
||
and one where the basic fundamental rules of physics (as we know them)
|
||
may not truly apply.
|
||
The magician can be described as one who "walks between" these two
|
||
worlds. "Walking between two worlds" implies that an individal is
|
||
connected with both and can move between them at will. The purpose of
|
||
magic is to manipulate one world for the benefit of the other, i.e. to
|
||
manipulate the unseen world for the express purpose of influencing
|
||
events in the physical. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a
|
||
"free ride" anywhere in the universe, and when an individual acquires
|
||
the power to do this, they also aquire a great deal of responsibility!
|
||
By accepting the power to exert "leverage" in the unseen world, an
|
||
individual seems to also accept a multiplied succeptibility to
|
||
influences initiated in that world. This is why negative workings are
|
||
so dangerous! This may also be the reasoning behind the "law of three
|
||
fold return".
|
||
Now comes the hard part! If all of this cause and effect stuff is
|
||
absolute, how can any individual ever hope to "pay off" the debts for
|
||
all of the "stupid" things they have done not only in this lifetime,
|
||
but in many others? Must we "pay off" all past transgressions on a one
|
||
for one basis? Is there no ecape clause in this "contract" we seem to
|
||
have for living in the universe?
|
||
This "escape clause" is called Grace by the Christians and by
|
||
other names in other systems, but it does exist in all. Basically, the
|
||
idea is this: "Once a lesson is completely learned and one grows
|
||
beyond a need for this lesson, it need not be repeated, even if the
|
||
'books' are not balanced". This is the "Enlightenment" sought by the
|
||
Buddhist that allows the "breaking" of the wheel. This is also the
|
||
core principle behind the idea of "Divine" forgiveness, but that is a
|
||
topic for another essay. Paul G. Seynour, SYSOP 1:301/9
|
||
|