Conference hydra::dejavu

    re: .0  (Ann)
    
          Yes, a psychic can "predict" this type of event (and this
    could be broken out into various groupings.)
          Yes, the individual, as all the rest of us, has the power
    to alter any and all events, some more probable than others.
          Karma has more to do with forgiveness than with punishment.
          Each moment is a new moment...what is true this moment may
    not be true in another moment.
    
    Frederick
    

    You know, this raises such an interesting topic that it was
    impossible for me not to reply to  the base note. It seems
    that you are asking 2 questions. The one, more general, is
    about Karma and free will. The other, of which I have no
    experience to draw upon, is not one I can address.

    Free will, free will. Just what is free will? This is a question
    that has bothered me, been pondering, just plain has stuck in my
    crawl for years. I would like to think that I have control
    and make decisions on what to do. Unfortunately, there was a
    connotation of free will offered by my friend who said:
    	"My Master has stated that for a given situation, a person
    	 has free will only once. After that it becomes fact."
    	    (my quotes, actually paraphrasing what he said)
    
    So I don't really know. Over the years this has become more of an
    intellectual pursuit and doesn't really bother me anymore. I
    mean, what is, is.  I just try to do what I perceive my heart is
    telling me. The past is, the future is, the present is now.
    While it may be interesting to know what karma I'm working on
    now, it doesn't matter. It will all present itself sooner or later
    and I will make the RIGHT decision.
    
    You will also.
    

    re: .2
    
            "My Master has stated that for a given situation, a person
             has free will only once. After that it becomes fact."
    
    Okay, maybe I understand this one: Given that you have made the first
    decision completely of your own free will, the next decision has to
    take the first one into account.  You find yourself either making a
    choice that confirms your first decision, or causes you to change that
    first decision.  Most people unconsciously go with the first -
    conforming to previous decisions, making choices that are built upon
    previous choices.  Without completely throwing out all of your previous
    choices and making them all over again, you wind up making choices that
    are somewhat predictable.  So, seeing the future of someone who is 30
    years old shows fewer paths with high probability than seeing the
    future of someone who is 1 year old.  However, if you add in a belief
    in reincarnation, the choices of a past life have impact in the present
    life as well (karma), and may "predetermine" certain things occuring in
    the present life.
    
    This is all, of course, MHO.
    
    Beth

    Re: .2 - Free Will
    
    In reading this I began to see that the concept of "Free Will"
    necessarily contains the assumption that there is some
    internal and/or external force that we have free will against.  Be it
    God, karma, fate, the unconcious or just plain bad luck, there has to
    be the _opposite_ of Free Will in order for the concept of Free Will to
    be valid.  Rather the Yin/Yang sort of view.
    
    Therefore, each individual's concept of Free Will is going to be
    different, depending on his perception of who/what is running the
    universe.
    
    Does this make any sense? 
                                                 
    - Russ.
    

    it makes a certain amount of sense... free from what? ... free from
    the shackles of illusion, of self-doubt, of coercion, of mindlessness. 

re: 1546.6 
HAMER::MONTALVO 

>    <i may love kirshnamurti, but he's still wrong...>

	Actually, he's dead now -- so, many of his opinions may 
	have changed...

	-Art ;-}

>>    <i may love kirshnamurti, but he's still wrong...>
>
>	Actually, he's dead now -- so, many of his opinions may 
>	have changed...
    
    	:-)
    
    	Right, death wouldn't be much use for a person if it didn't
    	at least help broaden their perspective.   Sometimes
    	I think death is the ONLY way some people would change their 
    	opinions.  :*)
    
    						todd	

    
    Re .6,
    
->    in india, the poor are told, "he's rich because in his
->    past life he was a saint. forget your suffering. become a saint and you
->    too shall be rich in the next life."
    
      I'm afraid those sentences are plain trash, somebody's
      misconceptions. That certainly is not even a commonly held 
      idea of Karma in India, leave alone an esoteric view.
    
->    Karma: garbage.
       	
      I like to make more general statements, in keeping with my
      nature. For example, "What I don't understand: garbage".
      Unfortunately, that leaves me with very little in the world
      that I don't recognize immediately as garbage.
    
->    it is used by the politicos, priests and rich to keep
->    the poor at bay.
    
      Not true again, I'm afraid. I've seen "politicos, priests and
      rich" (whoever they are, all of them) use conventional means 
      like high fences, armed guards and vicious dogs to keep the poor
      at bay. Not to mention elaborate legal systems and maximum security
      prisons.
    
	Re a few back,
    
->    the Buddha said "drop it"
->    ..before one drops something one should what was the thing that was
->      dropped.
    
      Misconception again. Before one drops something, its only necessary
      to check what one is "holding". To the Buddha's credit, he has
      explained	in detail numerous times what is being held that needs to
      be dropped, if I'm not mistaken. It goes something like ...
    
      "Drop hatred, drop selfishness, drop wrong thinking, drop thinking,
       drop self..."
    
      Yes, but he did insist walking the eightfold path of virtue before 
      you could understand what he meant when he said 'Drop it'. He said
      'Drop it' to an old Brahmin who came to him, arms laden with gifts.
      Fortunately for that Brahmin, he didn't have any doubts as to what 
      was to be dropped.
    
      Jana

    
      Re .10,
    
->    kirshnamurti was wrong because he said that one didn't have to
->    meditate.
    
      Not to pick on you, Wal, but this statement brings to mind
      something..
    
      Ananda was one of the closest disciples of Buddha, and he is said
      to have remarked to the Buddha, "You are the greatest among the 
      Buddhas, my lord." And the Buddha's reply goes something like this
    
      "Surely, Ananda, you have known all the Buddhas of the past
       completely ?"

      "No, my lord."
    
      "And surely, you have thoroughly penetrated the minds of all future
       Buddhas to be ?"
    	
      "No, my lord."
    
      "At least you have penetrated the mind of this one Buddha
       completely ?"
    	
      "No, my lord."
    
      "Then whence do you make your bold statement ?"
    
    
      Jana
    

      Re .15,
    
->    If we keep within the context of the question: what is Karma and what
->    is free will?

      probably empty words ? anyway, why does it appear as though Karma
      and free-will are mutually exclusive.. or doesn't it appear so ?

      I suspect this might be because we associate free-will exclusively
      with ourselves. 'My' free-will no doubt. Entirely mine.

      On the other hand, Karma belongs to the environment. Its God's
      business, or more impersonally the 'Law'. 
    
      What's my free-will ? My ability to choose to act on my environment ?
      Would an Adaptive system that modifies its responses to stimuli have
      free will ? This doesn't seem comfortable, so certainly 'I' a conscious
      sentient being am an integral part of my free-will, or maybe the source
      of my free-will.

      On the other hand, what's my concept of Karma ? An arbitrary set of
      rules laid down by a Creator. (Fortunately it appeals to a victim's
      sense of justice - an eye for an eye.)  It also gives me reason not
      to do things I am inherently uncomfortable with, like hurting other
      sentient creatures. It literally puts the fear of God into me. 

      Just who or what is this God different from each separate creature ?
      (I know I'm not God, and also my friends are not God, and that squirrel
       that my big car ran over is not God, I have no doubt. Although I can't
       claim to know what God is, I know for sure that he isn't specific 
       things or creatures. Also I know what kind of virtues he ought to bear.
       It is impossible for him to make any 'mistakes'... I know what a mistake
       is, and I'm sure God can't do such a thing. 
       He must be something that only those holy saints know. 
       I can only hope to know him if I become like them. Only if I
       master the hide-and-seek that God so loves to play, that he hasn't 
       stopped since the beginning of creation.) Somehow I'm not comfortable
      with this God who has made his creatures' search for him something
      like solving the Rubik's cube. (I would never have learnt that skill
      if my friend hadn't given me the algorithm.)

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
->   The man who is really serious, with the urge to find out what truth is,
->   what love is, has no concept at all. He lives only in what is. 

     I sometimes wonder if anything can be more profound. How blessed it 
     might be, to have no concept at all. I wouldn't be worried any more
     about Karma, free-will, animals, cars, death, and God.

->   One is fundamentally interested in oneself.
    
     Quite true, if I weren't interested in myself, I would simply vanish
     by the process of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Then
     who would there be to be interested in other things ?

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
->  Good and bad Karmas are like iron and gold chains. Both bind man.

    And free-will is a diamond chain. I love its lustre. Its glamour
    and glitter is worth my freedom.

    		---------------------------------------------------

->    If responsibilty is thrown unto God, then God made you, God knew what you
->    would end up like. If you killed, then he made you a killer. You
->    fulfilled your purpose. 

      I guess you mean 'You fulfilled his purpose.'

->    Should that person be punished? 

      Why worry about that ? Even if you are punished, haven't you thrown
      the responsibility of bearing the punishment on the same God ?

      Jana

    

    No... 
    
    Karma is a higher law... it is the spiritual equivalent of the physical
    law of Cause and Effect... 
    
    Free Will is the ability to determine or choose a course of action.
    
    You can exercise your free will by riding a motorcycle too fast for the
    very first time... that was your choice... but your karma could bite
    you and teach you a valuable lesson about choices..... the hard way.
    
    Thats my humble opinion on the subject anyway.
    
    Mary

    
    >What is the sound of one hand clapping?
    
    Very Quiet.

    re: .19 (Wal)
    
        I can't comment on everything you have written, there isn't enough
    time for that...I tend to agree with lots, particularly about karma.
        But in regards to the last two paragraphs, I disagree.  What *is*
    only is because we believe it to be--from a core level.  The more
    we believe that something is real, the more difficult it is to
    escape its pitfalls.  The less attached to "realness" of the physical
    reality, the more likely we are to experience what some call "magick"
    in that reality.  Who said that experience precedes belief (besides
    the DEC Quality Teamwork training I had two weeks ago--during which
    I pointed out my disagreement  ;-)  ?)  Only because we don't 
    remember having an opinion or generating a belief do we run around
    believing that the experience was the precursor.  But, if the 
    concept of sub-conscious, un-conscious and higher conscious minds
    have any validity at all (and if you speak of karma then, ergo, it
    must follow somehow) then it must be apparent that those parts of the
    self are "doing something" to our reality.  Could it not be, then,
    that those parts of self hold beliefs which then manifest as 
    experience?  If so, then it becomes clearer that belief precedes
    experience.
        The impact of this statement is MASSIVE.  What this statement says
    is that if you don't like your experience, then you'd be wise to 
    change your beliefs to those which have a more positive result(s).
    Rather than being the victim of experience and forcing oneself to
    concede or alter views based on that, what it means is that *YOU*
    determine the reality, that the "victimization" is a result of 
    beliefs which are not helpful...that if there are thoughts 
    producing a positive reality, then those should be acknowledged
    and continued.  Anyway, in a nutshell, this says it.
    
    Frederick
    

    Re .17,

->  No... 
    
    ... no what ?

->  Thats my humble opinion on the subject anyway.

    Considering that its only an opinion, let's try to understand how
    this opinion takes shape. To be honest, when I was very young,
    I never had any opinions. When I tried to structure my perceptions,
    I started forming opinions. When validated by others or by
    further experiences I added an additional ingredient (which some
    told me was faith) and called my opinion knowledge. Now I'm vastly
    knowledgeable - nobody can even imagine how vast. Now, apart from 
    my physical, astral and causal bodies, I am also a body of knowledge.

    I presume this might be the case with others, but I could be grossly wrong,
    admittedly.
    No one can actually know another, only make estimations and judgements
    from a multitude of view points and form an opinion.

->  Karma is a higher law... it is the spiritual equivalent of the physical
->  law of Cause and Effect... 

    Uh oh.. I was told that all of us are one in spirit. Therefore I presumed
    there would not be any need for a 'higher law' for that lone spirit. 
    
->  You can exercise your free will by riding a motorcycle too fast for the
->  very first time... that was your choice... but your karma could bite
->  you and teach you a valuable lesson about choices..... the hard way.
    
    Sounds ok.. I always suspected that my body was me. Otherwise where
    could Karma find a place to 'bite' ? The unfortunate thing with this
    is that after the karmic bites take away chunks of me, there's not 
    much left to learn any lesson. Then the termites begin to take over
    where karma left.

    On the flip side, I find karma rewarding some nogoodniks with lottery
    millions, merely because they exercised their free will to buy lottery
    tickets. I could never figure out why karma 'decides' to teach some that
    'Speed thrills but kills' and reward yet others with a good life for the
    mere effort of spending a few dollars.

    ========================================================================
    
    Re .19,
    
->    {How am I doing, Jana?}
    
    How can I know Wal ? I live on an island thats gradually being eroded
    away. I only see the ocean all around me, and I have no idea about the
    fate of the creatures in that ocean.
    
    Jana

    What is the sound of one hand clapping?
    
    The audience at a Steve and Edie concert.
    
    Joel
    

    
->   What is the sound of one hand clapping?
    
     I was told by a knowledgeable Japanese that this question is a
     monumental blunder. Apparently the first monk who wrote this 
     was a combination of poor proficiency in English and a bad typist.
    
     The correctly phrased question, apparently is
    
     What is the sound of one hand flapping?
    
     Jana
    

    
->  Jana, What island are you on? 
    Hm.. now that you ask.. I never thought of naming it before. Most of
    it has been swallowed as I said before, now I don't think there's 
    much left to name it. It'll soon cease to be on the map.
    
->  I'm sorry for the animals. 
    
    Which animals ? :-) :-) Why are you sorry for them ?
    	
->  I hope you got to know a few. They have souls, too.
    
    Thats the most intriguing part. Many of them claim to have souls,
    but I'm quite sure I don't have one. I don't even know what they
    mean by a soul. 
    
    Jana

    Re .27,

->  In simple terms, this 
->  means that if the mind were not there to perceive the world, the world
->  would not exist at all.

    I think some would point this out to be solipsism. The problem with
    that theory is, does the world vanish for the other minds when one mind
    ceases to function ? Nobody would accept this as the case. 

    But the solipsist might argue that there's no such thing as 'the world'.
    There's only an aggregate of perceptions and memory that constitute 'a
    world' for 'a being'.

    Again, the problem with such an argument is explaining what exactly 
    consensus perception and communication between minds means. The solipsistic
    model is by its very nature incapable of addressing the issue of other
    minds.

    This problem of 'other minds' is well known to philosophers, and a very
    difficult one to deal with. What is it that makes one mind uniquely
    what it is ? If I were able to simulate the behavior of one mind exactly,
    would that mean that I have a copy of that mind ? This is a circular
    question because I now have to know what it is that makes the second mind
    identical to the first mind. Ascribing the uniqueness of a mind to a
    'soul' is simply begging the question. I don't think it clarifies the
    issue one bit.

    (I'm not arguing for or against solipsism, merely expressing what I
     perceive as difficulties with that as a model of the world. I've seen
     many mystic-philosophers subscribing to what I think is solipsism. )

->  belief closes you off from experimenting with existance and learning 
->  from it.

    Thats a part truth I guess, because many beliefs are a result of 
    experimentation and learning, rather than an obstacle to learning.

->  As to what is, is:

->  keep finding out what you are not.
->  then what are you?
->  what ever is left over.
->  what is, is.
->  that's reality.

    At the root of this is the assumption that reality is the core of
    oneself. All else is dismissed as 'unreal', for the simple reason
    that I do not identify myself with them. For example, 'I'm not the
    body' means I don't identify myself with the body, that I'm something
    apart from the body. But does that make the body 'unreal' ? By what
    definition of 'reality' ?

->  likewise what is karma?
->  what ever is left over is karma.

    I would tend to be more careful using such analogies..
    
->  And Jana, you are wrong. 

    Ok, I stand corrected. (BTW, where was I wrong ?)

->  We are all the only begotten sons of God; we are all Gods. 
    
    I don't deny anybody's godhood, I only know that I didn't come into
    the world with a tag indicating my status. I didn't know what a 'sin'
    meant until I was 7 years old. Even then, I didn't believe the person
    who explained it to me, and I remember having it validated by an older
    person. Even now, my concept of 'sin' hasn't changed radically from
    the first explanation. It has been polished and made more sophisticated,
    with the addition of souls, gods, and laws. My concept now is one that
    I'm quite comfortable with, having settled down to an established 
    pattern of behavior, and finding that the concept is not in major
    dissonance with my environment and behavior.

    However, I have no idea if this is also God's idea of 'sin', and whether
    he would ultimately be pleased with me or if all my efforts to please
    him are in vain. By the time I know it'll probably be too late.

    Now, I've also wondered why do all these metaphysical questions clamour
    for my attention. It turns out that this is because of a basic sense of
    discord, of a loss of spontaneity. I'm not sure if I'm half as wise as
    the trees in my yard, whose lives seem to flow effortlessly with the 
    rest of nature. All those concepts which are the material of the island
    I alluded to have not helped me remove this sense of discord. What was
    that concept-less state that krishnamurti was talking about ? Was he all
    wrong, and completely deluded ? Maybe I ought to start searching for 
    reality by deleting my concepts of reality... surely it existed before
    I formed any concepts about it ?

    Jana

    

    You asked the question... 'what is reality'.
    
    Well... what *is* reality?
    
    It seems to me that reality isn't a single entity but layers... which
    brings us to the other mind. :-)
    
    I mean... there are distinct layers of reality, aren't there?  There is
    reality that is totally independent of humanity and that managed to 
    manifest itself into existence anyway... there is the reality that the
    mouse and the spider play and create in .. and then there is human
    reality... human reality is really quite unique..  
    
    ... and if your mind goes away, Jana.. then the layer of reality that
    you personally have created also goes away... but not the effect... the
    effect lives on reverberating throughout reality and transcending
    time..

    
    
    	as the Grateful Dead would say, ...
    
    "this must be heaven, here's where the rainbow ends,
     you must be an angel, or close enough to pretend"
    
    
    thats a great description, wal... 

    
    Re .29,

->  You asked the question... 'what is reality'.
    
    Yes, I was trapped by my old habit. Maybe that question isn't as
    important as its made out to be (at least from a personal point
    of view, if not from a philosophical perspective.)

    I'm wary of forming conceptual opinions to questions such as the
    above for the simple reason that I find every word to be a shadow
    of some other word, every thought to be a shadow of some other
    contrary thought. I cannot imagine truth other than in contraposition
    to falsehood. The more I learn, the greater I discover my ignorance.
    The more open-minded I try to be, I'm aghast to find my mind to be a
    complex maze of dogmas, one among them being that no dogmatism is an
    absolute truth. I read this somewhere, that the families of the 
    unlearned consists of their wives and children, but the families of
    the learned are much more vast, having amongst them a large number of
    ideas. 


    Re .32,
    
->  but can you relate?
    
    when I can, I would have transcended good fortune and bad fortune.
    
    Jana

    
    Re.27 (wal)
    
    >neti, neti (you are not the body, etc.)
    
    Well...that all depends upon which state of consciousness you are
    in when you consider this, wouldn't you say?
    
    Cindy

    Re. .30,
    
->  [Bhagawad Gita, iii, 19]
    
->  [Bhagawad Gita, iv, 19-23]
    
    Wal, with due respect to you and the book, it might help anyone
    thats trying to figure out what it means, if you could also include
    the context for the quotes.

    For example, how can a lay reader understand "Free from the pair of
    opposites..", and "thoughts controlled by the SELF.." ? On first
    glimpse, "unaffected by pleasure and pain.." seems to be advocating
    stoicism as a way of life, but to know if there's anything more thats
    being conveyed, it might be useful to see the context.

    I will make an attempt to explain what that book is in a few lines. I
    will leave out the mythology as perhaps not relevant here. So also the
    historical details, firstly because I don't remember them, and secondly
    the historians don't seem to have an agreed firm opinion on the matter,
    and thirdly perhaps the historical details are the least important part
    of the book.

    First of all, the Bhagawad Gita is one of the three pieces of literature
    on an Indian philosophical system called Advaita, or non-dualism. The
    other two are the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras, and the three together
    are referred to as the Triple Canon. The book is in the form of a narrative
    of a conversation between two men on a battlefield. It is an impressive
    attempt to bring into practice what seems a somewhat obscure and difficult
    theory. (The Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras make no such attempt.) There
    have been numerous commentaries written on the verses in all three pieces
    of literature. This is because the verses themselves are terse and 
    difficult to understand.

    Because of this fact that it attempts to bridge the gap between the 
    theory of non-dualism and day-to-day life, it has been touted as an 
    indispensable guide for 'correct' living. There are a large number of holy
    men who expound the verses in the book as a service to the lay public.
    I personally differ with this commonly held view that it is a guide for
    social life (I'm a radical minority of possibly one). I hold this opinion
    based on the state of the society in India. Of course, that could be
    because the average man is incapable of living up to the philosophy. But
    then I would contend that the philosophy is not for the average man, and
    thus the book is not an effective guide for 'correct' social life. The
    proof of the pudding has to be in the eating.
 
    Where the book serves an admirable purpose, by my reckoning, is its 
    potential to direct somebody with weak spiritual leanings to greater
    understanding and effort. Thus, it is not very different from the other
    two works in its class that I mentioned before. 

    So, back to my point, Wal, when you make those quotations from that
    book, are you keeping it within the context of non-dualism ? If not, 
    then I would consider those quotations as somewhat out of place. The
    fact is that the philosophy of non-dualism is uncompromising, and does
    not admit of any understanding other than it's direct immediate knowledge.
    The lure of that philosophy is not the intellectual brilliance of its
    proponents, but the realization of its transcendental truth. I'm not 
    convinced it has anything to do with the doctrine of Karma and rebirth.

    Jana

    

    
    
    	Another good book: "The Theory of Eternal Life" by Rodney Collins
    
    
    
    Craig
    
    

    
    Re.40
    
    Wal,
    
    >-keep laughing
    
    Precisely.
    
    Cindy

    Re .32,
    
->  He was right and he was wrong. {a yes/no answer}
    
    Hmm.. maybe he was, anyway he isn't anymore.
    
    Someone said this - "We're too busy and imaginative, too 'spiritual',
    too adult and knowing to see what we are (and especially what we are
    not). It is not a matter of philosophical acumen or working oneself up 
    into a state. All it takes is an alert idiocy, to LOOK-WHO'S-HERE
    rather than THINK-WHO'S-HERE. It takes an innocent eye and an empty
    head to see the total emptiness of both. We are perfectly oblivious of
    what is perfectly obvious, the absurdly simple."

    Jana
                                               

         
    That's right.
    
    Cindy

    
    
->    in regards to that quote, "if the perceiving mind were not there to
->    perceive the world, the world would not exist":
    
      You're wise, Wal, and they say that the wise do not claim that the
      world is real or unreal. Neither do they see the world as apart from
      themselves.
    
      (I just finished entering my intro and farewell somewhere around 
       *.474 )
    
      Goodluck,
      Jana
          

HAMER::MONTALVO 
    
>    personally, i feel that God did not make man in his own image. man made
>    God in his own image. Because of what i see as humanity, i would have
>    to conclude that God is selfish, destructive, a liar, a thief, and
>    every other "sin" you can imagine.
    
    -wal
    
    We made each other in our collective image, I think wal.
    
    And yes we are all of those things and more... but for every sin you
    can imagine there is a saint and for every tear thats ever been shed 
    there is someone laughing somewhere.
    
    It all comes down to choices.... thats all it ever comes down to...
    thats the only difference between us... the only difference between the
    sinner and the saint... the lie and the laughter....  and it's all
    beautiful, and it's all terrible.... and I can't help but love it all.

    Don't leave, Jana.  We are what we are... what we choose to be... 
    it's always been hard to accept..
    
    We've always done it together though...

    -wal,
    
    What you are describing, I would call the Law of Grace...
    
    Ro
    

    I don't know about others but my karma is practically instant.... step
    out of line and wham.

    Re.53
    
    >my karma is practically instant
    
    Same here.
    
    Cindy