Why is this happening to me?

[Gerard]

The fruits of karma ripen only from lifetime to lifetime and often many lifetimes ahead: good (charity work) and bad (crime) effects will have their consequences manifesting sometimes along the spiritual continuum (birth-death-rebirth/transformation).

 

For example, while meditating during this last full moon, I had a very revealing vision involving Sharon Tate and her former life as a Mayan priest:

 

 

 

Why a female Aquarius, Water Horse, hypersensitive, famous, extremely attractive suffered such a horrific death while pregnant?

 

She was begging for the life of her child but still she was slaughtered without mercy. However the law of moral order was broken when she committed a similar crime nearly 1,000 years earlier:

 

 

The woman she offered in sacrifice to the Mayan Gods was also pregnant and she also begged for her life.

 

You will reap what you sow.

 

Have a nice day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 15, 2017 by Gerard

[Taomeow]

And what did the Mayan victim do to deserve what happened to her?..

 

You are going to have to make her responsible for a similar crime in her own past life for this to work.  And her victim, in her turn, too. 

 

It's Sharon Tates all the way down?..

 

 

Edited June 14, 2017 by Taomeow

[Goldleaf]

I cannot even view the images.

 

But I can only say that I want to focus on the one thing I can change: promoting peace in the planet.  We cannot change the world but we can change our own hearts, and maybe if enough hearts are changed, then humans would recognise their humanity.  And it will happen.

[Marblehead]

Interesting that I went out shopping yesterday and encounter only nice people.

 

[Fa Xin]

I have also heard it said,

 

that we are all people at one point

 

so I've been Sharon Tate, the Mayan priest and the sacrifice victim. 

 

I don't believe or disbelieve this

But it's interesting to think about. 

 

a sage was asked, "how Long have we been on this journey?" He replied, "imagine a mountain 3 miles high, 3 miles wide, 3 miles long. A bird flies over the mountain every 100 years holding a silk scarf in its beak that brushes against the surface. As long as it takes to wear down the mountain have you been on this journey"

 

this image sticks with me

[Jetsun]

It's a bit arbitrary saying charity work is good and crime is bad. Charity work can just reinforce the identity around being a "good" person, it can be done from a place of pure egotism. While killing someone could be the morally correct thing to do under the circumstances. 

[Marblehead]

But I'm not suggesting that some people should be killed.  Just that the world would be a better place if some people were never born.

 

[Fa Xin]

1 hour ago, Marblehead said:

Interesting that I went out shopping yesterday and encounter only nice people.

 

This is actually a strange and interesting phenomena I've encountered also. 

 

When i I was a teen/early 20s I encountered many angry people & fights. Some was of my own doing; where I hung out and with who. Yet some was completely random, strangers on the street. 

 

Now it seems I only run into kind souls. I'll encounter the random belligerent person every now and then but it seems everyone I come into contact with are happy friendlies. 

 

I have often thought why this is. It is strange. "Change the world start with yourself"

Edited June 14, 2017 by Fa Xin

[Michael Sternbach]

I do believe that everything that happens has a meaning.

 

But I don't buy the karma theory. Not in its simplistic form.

 

It implies that the Universe is differentiating good and evil deeds the way humans do. What the OP calls "the code of moral order." But what is good in one context or from one perspective can be bad from another.

 

And from a non-dualistic perspective, good and bad cease to exist altogether. Things just are what they are. Contributions to the Great Drama.

 

Referring to the OP's example: So Sharon Tate and her child had to die in this gruesome way because she had commited the same kind of act in a past life. But going by that logic, surely, she could only do so because her victim was herself guilty of the same crime? So since, in her life as a Mayan priest, she was only the tool of Divine Justice - why did she deserve to be punished at all?

 

And what is going to happen to the murderers in a future life? The very same again? How can this madness ever end?

 

And we haven't even talked about the role played by the killed babies in all this...

 

I am happy not to be living in the OP's universe ruled by an insane and merciless punishing mechanism. I do believe in certain rules, however. One of them goes:

 

Thou shalt not commit logical fallacies.

 

 

[Taomeow]

3 hours ago, Fa Xin said:

This is actually a strange and interesting phenomena I've encountered also. 

 

When i I was a teen/early 20s I encountered many angry people & fights. Some was of my own doing; where I hung out and with who. Yet some was completely random, strangers on the street. 

 

Now it seems I only run into kind souls. I'll encounter the random belligerent person every now and then but it seems everyone I come into contact with are happy friendlies. 

 

I have often thought why this is. It is strange. "Change the world start with yourself"

 

Of course we influence some of the attitudes of people and the world by our own, and of course our perceptions of other people are colored by who we are.  But but but...  In the taoist paradigm, a change of luck (first you encounter angry people for ten years, then kind people for ten years, then neutral people for ten years, etc.) is explained by what you personally do or think only very partially.  The bulk of it is just the different-luck time coming into your life.  The cosmic flow took you there, and then it will take you elsewhere.  You can help some, hinder some.  But you can't turn that tide 180 degrees by being "good" or "bad."  Not in the vast majority of cases anyway.

 

I've always found all the "me the omnipotent" paradigms more along the lines of defensive ideation.  People compensate for their lack of power by imagining they are all-powerful vis a vis how the world will meet and treat them...  yet for some inexplicable reason most use this potential to screw things up for themselves and others.  Then someone tells them, it's your fault, you've been a bad boy/girl in a past life.  The ultra-wealthy of today even came up with this triumphant belief that they are the ones who were being good boys/girls in their past lives and are merely reaping the rewards.  That wealth itself is a sign of their entitlement to it.  That they have so much money because they deserve it so much more.  The poor have to just suck it up because it's their own fault that they are poor.

 

Would that the world was such a simple equation so easy to figure out.

 

It is not.      

 

[Aetherous]

6 hours ago, Goldleaf said:

I cannot even view the images.

 

Seems in poor taste to have images of someone who was slaughtered on this forum.

[Taomeow]

4 minutes ago, Aetherous said:

 

Seems in poor taste to have images of someone who was slaughtered on this forum.

 

Especially considering there's the "spoiler" feature.  Sneaking images of gruesome violence on the viewer who didn't expect to see something of this nature (someone might have kids around when opening the thread?..) can't possibly generate "good karma" methinks.  

[Brian]

16 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

 

Of course we influence some of the attitudes of people and the world by our own, and of course our perceptions of other people are colored by who we are.  But but but...  In the taoist paradigm, a change of luck (first you encounter angry people for ten years, then kind people for ten years, then neutral people for ten years, etc.) is explained by what you personally do or think only very partially.  The bulk of it is just the different-luck time coming into your life.  The cosmic flow took you there, and then it will take you elsewhere.  You can help some, hinder some.  But you can't turn that tide 180 degrees by being "good" or "bad."  Not in the vast majority of cases anyway.

 

I've always found all the "me the omnipotent" paradigms more along the lines of defensive ideation.  People compensate for their lack of power by imagining they are all-powerful vis a vis how the world will meet and treat them...  yet for some inexplicable reason most use this potential to screw things up for themselves and others.  Then someone tells them, it's your fault, you've been a bad boy/girl in a past life.  The ultra-wealthy of today even came up with this triumphant belief that they are the ones who were being good boys/girls in their past lives and are merely reaping the rewards.  That wealth itself is a sign of their entitlement to it.  That they have so much money because they deserve it so much more.  The poor have to just suck it up because it's their own fault that they are poor.

 

Would that the world was such a simple equation so easy to figure out.

 

It is not.      

 

I would like to request a name-change, please -- "Me the Omnipotent" has a nice ring to it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naaah, not really.

[rex]

15 minutes ago, Aetherous said:

 

Seems in poor taste to have images of someone who was slaughtered on this forum.

And all luridly recounted with a saccharine sweet moralising delight.

[bax44]

so something I did 1000 years ago is why something in my life right now is fucked up? Boy oh boy. Its dissapointing to come to this forum to try and escape from dogmatism that runs rampant everywhere and then encounter the worst type here.

 

And yes that image was disturbing, not sure it was necessary.

[Brian]

26 minutes ago, bax44 said:

so something I did 1000 years ago is why something in my life right now is fucked up? Boy oh boy. Its dissapointing to come to this forum to try and escape from dogmatism that runs rampant everywhere and then encounter the worst type here.

 

And yes that image was disturbing, not sure it was necessary.

Not to worry, though -- any horrible things you might do to others is because of something they did a thousand years ago (or whenever) so...

 

<shrug>

 

It took me a long time to see the reality behind this fundamental and pervasive misunderstanding of the principle.

[bax44]

3 minutes ago, Brian said:

Not to worry, though -- any horrible things you might do to others is because of something they did a thousand years ago (or whenever) so...

 

<shrug>

 

It took me a long time to see the reality behind this fundamental and pervasive misunderstanding of the principle.

 

Its really mind boggling. It also puts one in a total victim mind state so they feel that anything goood or bad  that happens to them is because of lifetime of merits or demerits.. To me its just another religious/mystical type belief system that can very effectively be used to control someone if they buy into it.

[Michael Sternbach]

I do believe that we attract things according to what we carry with us and radiate. This is not arbitrary - whether we look at it psychologically, energetically, astrologically. And it's not fully under control by our will.

 

But no matter where we are on our journey, we do have some choice in how we work with our thoughts and emotions.

[Taomeow]

Incidentally, Mayans were thugs who built their civilization on pillage and plunder and destroyed it by catastrophic deforestation resulting in climate change (man-made droughts) that starved them out of their cities.  (No fossil fuels involved.)  The regular tribal neighbors gave them the widest berth and ran for their lives at the prospect of contact, because these civilized folks robbed, killed, raped, and enslaved whoever they came in contact with.   Yes, they were "sophisticated."  No, "sophistication" is no remedy and no counterbalance for destruction.  If there's a karmic lesson we might want to learn from Mayans, this is it.  

[Marblehead]

3 hours ago, bax44 said:

so something I did 1000 years ago is why something in my life right now is fucked up? Boy oh boy. Its dissapointing to come to this forum to try and escape from dogmatism that runs rampant everywhere and then encounter the worst type here.

 

And yes that image was disturbing, not sure it was necessary.

Stand back.  I'm throwing down a ladder.  (You have to do the climbing though.)

 

[Brian]

3 minutes ago, Marblehead said:

Stand back.  I'm throwing down a ladder.  (You have to do the climbing though.)

 

Throw down an escalator!

[liminal_luke]

Belief in karma generates bad karma.  If bad things happen to others it`s their karma -- so why feel compassion?  If good things happen to us it`s our karma (we`re entitled) -- so why feel humble?

Edited June 14, 2017 by liminal_luke

[Brian]

2 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

Belief in karma generates bad karma.  If bad things happen to others it`s their karma -- so why feel compassion?  If good things happen to us it`s our karma (we`re entitled) -- so why feel humble?

I would agree but I have come to realize that this is the common misunderstanding of karma.  I couldn't figure out how someone supposedly so in-tune as a Buddha could be teaching/preaching such schlock -- until one day the light bulb clicked on for me and I realized how few people have a personal insight into "how it works."  Not saying I understand it all, mind you, much less that I can explain it, but I see now that it isn't a cause-and-effect tit-for-tat machine but a gentle and gradual (and only loosely coupled) positive-feedback drift.  As we sow, so shall we reap, but not all at once and not in a direct one-to-one sort of relationship -- that isn't the point!  In fact, it would be fair to say that exactly not the point.  Doing good with the expectation of being rewarded for it is slightly better than not doing bad to avoid being punished for it, I suppose, but the point is to "do good" and avoid doing "bad" as you see it in each particular situation simply because you know or believe or feel that it is the right thing to do.

 

At least, that's how I see it now.

[Marblehead]

Well Brian, at least you understand "cause and effect".  Better than believing something you can't prove or support with logic.

 

[Stosh]

We could probably all agree , that the world is intimately interconnected , that we cannot predict all the ramifications of any normal event,

( but we can predict some of the less remote consequences to our own actions based on our observations and making analogies ,,

or divining the principles by which events proceed, so as to bring about pleasant outcomes). 

We just cannot rely heavily on those mechanisms to bring about events which we will consider just, without actual effort.

There is a tend for things to balance out however and without effort this may bring about exactly what we might want .

Some actions will work to bring about the outcomes we might want , and others will not,, so one needs to be flexible and work within the system , according to the basic rules of the system ,,,  which are not ours to write.  OR we have to just accept what falls our way and call it a victory. 

(Hey wow , that's just like Daoism!)