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The concept is often misunderstood, or thought to be complex,
but it really isn't. Christians seem to think it means "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," but it is not
that narrow a concept. It is reflected in science as: "every action has a reaction." That's it. Every action taken causes
an ever widening series of reactions and new actions. It is never ending. This is the activity that powers everything that
is, and has been, or ever will be.
How does it relate to reincarnation? By living a number of lives,
we have the ability to witness the chain of events our actions bring about. We also have the ability to learn the other side
of our actions.
There is no set rule of how we will reincarnate. But there is
a certainty that whatever actions we bring about will affect our other lives, as well as the lives of everyone around us.
We do not know what our actions will bring. So it is best to measure and balance our actions as well as we can. If we seek
balance, we can pass that balance on...
In Western religions, people have been most concerned with the
concepts of justice and mercy. Reincarnation, and karmic law, also offer the best solution for dealing with these concepts.
A Catholic nun I met years ago told me that she believed in reincarnation,
in spite of church teachings, because she could not conceive of a better way for God to give us justice and mercy at the same
time - and I agree. I have seen through my past life memories that if something is not understood in a past lifetime, then
there is a strong possibility that we will have experiences that will allow us to gain understanding in our other lifetimes.
Since humans have a tendency to denounce, damage, or even destroy what they cannot understand, we may find ourselves
learning about our hates, in our future lives, by becoming the things we hate most.
I keep this in mind whenever I find someone hates me. I picture
them as a version of myself in the future. And if I find I am hating someone, I consider the same possibility for me. I know
I am living the life of someone who once hated obesity; I have learned the value of the person within the "fat suit,"
this time around.
Whenever someone is treating me wrong, I imagine them in a future
lifetime, having to wear the fat suit, or some other thing about me that they don't understand - and I feel my hurt and anger
slip away. The more I practice this visualisation, another thing is occuring: my fat suit is leaving me, because the former
self has learned, and has been forgiven of the debt of misunderstanding.
This is Karma in its most useful form, as applied to our day to day living.
Kris: Eternal Law
You will find links to Kris' excellent website throughout
the links section of the Compendium. I would like to quote from his introduction to the concept of Karma, on the overall Hindu
concept of Eternal Law, which he breaks down into three parts. The direct link is below:
Eternal Law is first and
foremost a statement of faith. Even after asserting existence of something called Eternal Law, it is not really easy to say
what it is. It is a law that creates and upholds the universe we live in - universe that I modeled here as a coin. And a peculiar
coin it is. Unlike ordinary coins, we can rarely see it fully. Most of us live and die on one face of the coin (the physical
plane) without even becoming aware that there is more to this coin. A few who begin to look beneath the surface usually don't
dig in far enough and thus still see only a bit more than the "surface only" dwellers of the universe. As the universe is
hard to see in its entirety, so is the Eternal Law hard to fathom in its entirety. Much like the universe it upholds, this
law also has three facets. It manifests in three different forms. Indeed this three-fold manifestation of the Eternal Law
is what gives rise to three views of the world we saw earlier.
Kris
Read more about Eternal Law and Karma
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