What a rare punishment is avarice to itself.
— Ben Johnson[i]
Few of the descriptions of cause and effect found in this article will be found in the dictionary and will also not seem to fit in the conventional worldview (P-B), and that is precisely why we can entertain the existence of an alternative narrative for humanity (P-A). The current way that most of us live on this planet is not the only possible way, we do have a choice of living an unconventional life.
Fundamentally, cause and effect or karma simply means that we each create our own reality, we reap what we sow in other words. In P-B, this principle is rarely understood and therefore not acknowledged in a mindful behavioral practice which is why the culture of the Global Village is unsustainable. We must come to acknowledge that with our current worldview, our dominant identity and our mindless behavior “what goes around comes around.”
It may not be exactly like Newton’s Law stating that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, but we can see the resemblance. For an unconscious person, who may be unwittingly creating something that they don’t want, we have to say that the Law of Cause and Effect is a cousin of the Law of Unintended Consequences. P-B is the unintended and unsustainable paradigm and the false self is the identity that no one would want if they had enough awareness to stop giving it energy
We will examine cause and effect from several different perspectives and each will tend to support the basic contentions of the others. The world’s major religions, mystics, disembodied sources (e.g. Seth) and psychologists all affirm that the concept of cause and effect is central to a profound understanding of human behavior. A psychologist could define karma, as John Ruskan does in his book Emotional Clearing, as “the subconscious reservoir of negative energies, which we project outward and then experienced as being directed toward us from other persons or circumstances.”[ii] It would be important to add that we “imagine” that others are treating us as the other because of the almost constant state of paranoia experienced by our false self.
Speaking as we did earlier of a “mindful behavioral practice” we can transcend the consequences of cause and effect by choosing to respond and remain in the present moment. Ruskan supports this possibility for all of us if we want to enter into the process of self-transformation. “Being in the moment is the end point of all psychological, spiritual, or true religious teachings. It has been called peak experience, cosmic consciousness, self-realization, or God consciousness, but all these names refer to the experience of the eternal ‘NOW.’”[iii]
“Stopping effort [having, doing and knowing] is the first step toward liberation. Release from anxiety will follow, as will the pressure to be or do anything in an addicted manner.”[iv] What he means is “stop reacting” or wanting life to be different than it is.
Gladys McGarey in her article “Karma is Just Memory,” also emphasizes the importance of not reacting to our experience of life. “Goodness recreates itself, but badness or evil destroys itself. If karma is memory, what it seems to be saying is that as we remember the hard times, our weaknesses, the things we have done wrong, the way others have wronged us, we continue to feed bad karma. That is the only way bad karma can continue. If we stop feeding the memories of the hurts and the pain we have sustained, they no longer exist.”[v] Learning to master the “monkey mind” by not identifying with it is essential to escaping the effects of negative karma.
It can be said that the process of psychotherapy involves facing the false self and its self-destructive behavior. Our only Hell, Jung often said, is self-created and we have “dealt the devil [no] serious blow by calling him neurosis.”[vi] In other words, The Point of Power Practice is the ultimate practice of self-reliance and self-healing and therapists can only temporarily ease the pain and suffering experienced by the false self in P-B.
The following colorful description in Sheldon B. Kopp’s essay “Tale of a Descent Into Hell,” illustrates the temptation to use religious language which is often a barrier to an objective understanding of human behavior. His description of Hell was influenced by reading Dante’s Inferno. “Because of the darkness of their sin, they run through the darkness. As they pursued every passing opportunity in life, so they must now chase an elusive banner forever. Stung by swarms of conscience, feeding the maggots in death, as they produced moral filth in life, they are punished in accordance with their sins. This is the Law of Symbolic Retribution, the Immutable Law of Hell. The punishment is already implied in each sin. Turned back upon the sinner, it causes him to suffer in a way he really has brought upon himself.”[vii]
We would, of course, in examining the concept of karma in the East, expect to encounter not only different ideas than that found in the West but different descriptions and images. “But in the Buddhist theory of karma it has a specific meaning: it means only ‘volitional action,’ not all action. [A liberated person] does not accumulate karma, [good or bad] because he is free from the false idea of self, free from the ‘thirst’ for continuity and becoming.”[viii] And yet, the essence of the meaning of cause and effect is still there. “[Because] Karma, which means ‘action,’ refers to action within our mind; it refers to the movement of thoughts, intentions, and motivations.”[ix]
Regarded by many as the most profound Eastern philosopher, Shankara sheds light on cause and effect by placing it in the context of illusion and reality. “The sun is reflected upon water. Water moves, and the fool [false self] thinks that the sun is moving. The Atman is reflected upon the physical and mental bodies. The bodies move and act, and the fool thinks: ‘I act, I experience, I am killed.’”[x] In contrast, the True self living in the present moment has transcended karma. “He is fully conscious, but free from any craving. His heart knows no anxiety. Good and evil fortune may come. He regards them both with indifference, and remains unaffected by either. He has no feeling of ownership.”[xi]
Now we turn to the mystic David Hawkins. “Classically, the unconscious software programs [the survival strategy of the false self that is unconscious] are called ‘karma.”[xii] He acknowledges human free will and that we always at any moment face the choice of Hell (reaction) or Heaven (response).
“Q: It sounds as though all life is pretty much predetermined. Isn’t that predestination? A: No. Predestination is something quite different. As a term, predestination implies limitation and outcomes, whereas, karma sets up opportunities and areas of freedom for choice. The range of choices available is limited by prevailing conditions which are attracted or set by one’s karmically patterned energy field. Choice supersedes karma and can overrule it or change it by an act of the will.”[xiii]
Seth has a way of challenging our conventional thinking encouraging us to consider moving outside the box of convergent thinking. “Seth sees reincarnational lives as all existing at once, so there is constant give-and-take among them. A ‘future’ life then, can affect a ‘past’ one, so karma as it is usually considered does not apply.”[xiv] This gives an unconventional and profound twist to living in the NOW “You chose the circumstances. This does not mean that you are at the mercy of those circumstances. It means that you set challenges to be overcome, set goals to be reached, set up frameworks of experience [a worldview] through which you could develop, understand and fulfill certain abilities. Each person chooses for himself the individual patterns [an identity] within which he will create this personal reality. But inside these bounds are infinite varieties of actions and unlimited resources.”[xv]
We close this article with Emmet Fox, author of the insightful The Sermon on the Mount. “Now we can choose the sort of thoughts that we entertain. We can choose how we think—in point of fact, we always do choose—and therefore our lives are just the result of the kind of thoughts we have chosen to hold; and therefore, they are of our own ordering; and therefore, there is perfect justice in the universe. We have free will, but our free will lies in our choice of thought. This is in essence what Jesus taught. It is the underlying message of the whole Bible.”[xvi]
This is also the essence of the teaching found in the Simple Reality Project.
[i] Magill, Frank N. [ed.]. Critical Survey of Drama. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Salem Press, 1985, p. 1019.
[ii] Ruskan, John. Emotional Clearing. New York: Broadway Books, 2000, p. 109.
[iii] Ibid., p. 160.
[iv] Ibid., p. 199.
[v] McGarey, Gladys. “Karma Is Just Memory.” Venture Inward. Virginia Beach: VA: A.R.E. Press, November/ December 2006, p. 7.
[vi] Zweig, Connie and Jeremiah Abrams. Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1991, p. 245.
[vii] Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1959, p. 244.
[viii] Rinpoche, Dzogchen Ponlop. “What the Buddha Taught.” Shambhala Sun. Boulder, Colorado, May 2006, p. 32.
[ix] Shankara, Adi Sankaracharya (788-820 CE), translated by John Richards. The Crest-Jewel of Discrimination. New York: New American Library, 1947, p. 42.
[x] Ibid., p. 107.
[xi] Ibid., pp. 96-97.
[xii] Hawkins, David. The Eye of the I. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing, 2001, p. 18.
[xiii] Ibid., p. 172.
[xiv] Roberts, Jane. The Nature of Personal Reality. New York: Bantam, 1974, p. 24.
[xv] Ibid., pp. 31-32.
[xvi] Fox, Emmet. The Sermon on the Mount. New York: Harper, 1934, p. 13.
