I have a tendency to believe in both the ideas of reincarnation and karma. I am not adamant because I am far too much a child of Christendom to not also feel that this one life is incredibly important. A full hearted embrace of reincarnation would seem to level this life into one among uncounted many. So for a man like me reincarnation does not solve all dilemmas and in fact raises one.
I take as a matter of faith that doing science makes sense because the universe is tricky and complex but it is not false. There is something that passes for objectivity that is meaningful. If something really strongly manifests, then there is something true in back of that manifestation. I take this to mean that since men sincerely take a self centered position that there is something to it. Self centered vision is not false, madness, hallucination but is instead an illusion that needs explaining and that explanation must reveal why it is so difficult to bust self centeredness even if you know better.
That is tantamount to saying if I am self centered, then there some way in which I am genuinely a center. Not only is there a God, but I am in His Image and Likeness, a meaningful center. That is not so easy to establish from the reincarnational point of view.
Yet, there is no better answer than reincarnation and karma to an equally difficult problem, which is why injustice can appear in a fundamentally just universe. If the universe lacks justice in this fundamental way, then it is difficult in that arena to accept a Just God. By its nature an Unjust God unravels. A Capricious God is worthy of disbelief. I have a problem with a godless universe. That unravels me.
Sorry. Here's the poem.
Karmic Life
That I should see you
Like that, over many lives-
Now like this, now here
Serving me for pay
When once we were family,
Or lovers, soldiers
In combat, and you
Killed me then. I will forgive
You in the next life.
January 25, 2009 8:49 PM
*****************************
Heh. It was a song and video that was my muse.
My Cold Dark Dream
The sparrow flew in
Through the window, landed here
On the strewn papers,
On the table beside
My heavy heart on this rain
Filled night without you.
This could be a song
But it is my life that plays
In this cold dark dream.
Sparrow dying now
On the floor and the cold grows
Colder in my shell
Of an empty life.
My dream shatters. I break down,
Then wake to gray dawn.
January 26, 2009 9:23 PM
Contraction
1 week ago
I too have pondered Karma, mercy, justice and the laws of the universe.
ReplyDeleteThis is how I see it (in a nut shell).
There are basic laws to the universe, cause and effect. If you lie, steal, covet... something happens to your soul and it is not good.
If there are laws, and I believe there are, then why are there laws? Why are we bound by laws and not animals. Does something happen to dogs if they steal meat from their friends? Sure they may start a fight and they could get hurt, but that's the end of it, they don't sit around mulling about it later.
I think there are laws, there are consequences, there is justice and there is mercy.
and I believe in Karma in a way as well, that what goes around comes around.
I have really been enjoying your thoughts and poetry, you are an excellent writer.
SG
Wow...I like to keep it short and hopefully sweet. I love these....karma, for me, it's instant these days, which is how I know it actually is. As for forgiveness, this life or another, it'll happen eventually...or so I believe. Intention is kind of a key ingredient there too :)
ReplyDeletehmmm... i like what you write!
ReplyDeleteIt confirms for me, that there is no striaght answer to the matter.
I actually have a tendency not to believe in reincarnation and karma.
And some of the things you write confirm that. (or not? depends how i look at them)
'something true in the back of that manifestation' and the 'self centeredness'.
Sitting here, i am a manifestation and clearly a self centered one. As i am sitting here and not there.:)
But then there is the question, why am i sitting here like this and not there like that?
And so i dream on
my empty life,
full.
dreams shattered
the broken pieces
glittering like diamonds
outside gray rain
in here
warm and cozy
An illusion or not
a sparrow did fly in
Back to concepts of reality again - true for me, true for you? Do we truly pay in this life? Are we truly rewarded? I have seen many people who do evil things prosper, yet I wonder if their souls aren't heavier than we know and see...
ReplyDeleteSometimes, I wish for reincarnation. I love the idea of being joined to someone throughout all time and space, whether as sister, mother, friend, or child - not having the connection to my loved ones is almost an unbearable thought.
Wow. I am not alien in this bunch. Thanks, all.
ReplyDeleteJozien, nice to have a comment from you. :) Love you girl.
Christopher, after your poem on my blog about your old cat, I have to tell you this. My old guy died this morning. Maybe sometime during the night. We think a coon got him -- at least there were signs of a fight. He was 15 and fiesty. Wouldn't come in last night, and we're both feeling guilt that we didn't chase him down. I believe he went just as he'd want to go - not getting sick and wasting away.
ReplyDeleteSad, though.
I wonder if somehow we are simply dispersed energy. Could we be a fractured god? Don't know. It just came to me for the first time here, considering all of us. I haven't thought it out. Probably never will. Something else will occur to me and I'll be all new again, onto a fresh trail.
ReplyDeleteI am at this moment so pissed that any one of us has to endure pain. It hurts me, you know, to know that others have to endure pain, whether it is lonliness or health related or what have you. A million things to choose from, pain. And why pissed? 'Cause there's not a thing I can do about it.
Christopher! where is your post for today? i am sitting here twiddling my thumbs waiting for it.
ReplyDeleteNo, in the meantime i did read some other blogs, and i am feeling beter already, :)
...getting worried here...
ReplyDeleteI do believe in karma , not sure about reincarnation, but it is plausible. I like the idea of us as a fractured God, that one rang of truth..
ReplyDeleteCherie *hugs*
Oh, poor sparrow. Poor dreams.
ReplyDeleteI hope all is well, Christopher. I've been offline, and now I see you also haven't posted anything in a few days.
Oh my, the karma one is unsettling. Who knows in what context we might find our companions next time around?
ReplyDeleteOn God, Christianity, and reincarnation, though: my own twisty religious beliefs aside, remember Kipling...
"They will come back — come back again —
as long as the red Earth rolls.
He never wasted a leaf or a tree.
Do you think He would squander souls?"
I got busy, there is nothing to worry for except my poor pitiful soul, ever grayer and less substantial. Pity, pity me!
ReplyDelete:)
{{{Cherie}}}
You all understand I hope that I am not any sort of evangel. I hold my own beliefs firmly but am not worried if they don't conform to any others except those already like my own. I long ago saw it was not my place to insist on anything in this spiritual realm. It is as far from my calling as anything can be. In fact arrogance is my primary defect, has caused me more trouble in my past and mostly broken now, I try really hard not to revive it. I cannot see how I can be insistent spiritually without also being arrogant.
Karen, I understand about your cat. I have kept cats nearly my whole life, get them as kittens and hold them til they die. I have had six before, counting the ones who gather, live on the porch. Some of my best cats have been the strays who come and stay. It is my practice to put them down, staying with them as the vet gives the shot. I don't mind that I am shattered after.
Erin, your idea of a shattered god is quite sophisticated theology. As with most good ideas it is simple once you see it. Our experience on the planet is that grief is the shattering emotion. Pain too, but pain actually removes you before it shatters you. Thus when I say grief is the emotion that shatters, what I mean is that grief shatters but you remember. That is why people are so fearful of it. Thus is we are in His Image and Likeness, then if there is a shattered God, it is grief that has done it. The Grieving God shatters and we are the children. We yearn to return. As I said, this is deep theology.
Joseph, thank you for the Kipling, that is a nice take on the thing, that if souls only show once it is not economical. However, we know much more now and see many instances on the planet where God seems to use the possibility of overabundance as a check and balance on things. Ecologies crash that way, like when there are too many deer or rabbits or dogs or rats, or weeds, or too much monoculture (like we cause). Thus though it sounds good, there is probably no such thing as squandered souls.
:) You are back:)
ReplyDeleteOh, Faith :)
ReplyDeleteI do not mean to cause you worry.