On Karma: The Law of Cause and Effect

Karma, or the law of cause and effect, in common terms is what occurs (or will occur later) as the result of our actions now. We cut off a driver on the road, and our passenger may point out, "That's bad karma." Or, we ease up on the gas and let another driver struggling to make a lane change go in front of us. Our passenger may say, "That's good karma." On a more subtle level, however, karma has little or nothing to to do with our actions, and everything to do with the thoughts and emotional states that give rise to our actions.

In "As a Man Thinketh," a small but essential guide to spiritual awakening, James Allen writes:

"The soul attracts that which it harbours, that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires - and circumstances are the means by which the soul receives its own."

"Every thought seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own fruitage of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit; bad thoughts bad fruit."

"The outer world of circumstance shapes itself to the inner world of thought, and both pleasant and unpleasant external conditions are factors which make for the ultimate good of the individual. As the reaper of his own harvest, man learns both by suffering and bliss."

And at the most subtle level, that of our very essence, it is karma that obscures or reveals the nature of our divine being. Says Allen:

"The 'divinity that shapes our end' is in ourselves; it is our very self. Only himself manacles man: thought and action are the gaolers of Fate - they imprison, being base; they are also the angels of Freedom - they liberate, being noble. His wishes and prayers are only gratified and answered when they harmonize with his thoughts and actions."

"In the light of this truth," Allen asks, "what then is the meaning of "fighting against circumstance?""

In the Tao Te Ching we read, in part:

"Understanding others is knowledge.
Understanding oneself is enlightenment:
Conquering others is power,
Conquering oneself is strength;
Contentment is wealth,
Forceful conduct is willfulness;
Not losing one's rightful place is to endure,
To die but not be forgotten is to endure."

Thus, at the most subtle level, we shape our own being, revealing or concealing what we are. The cloth that we either draw off or throw over our essence is the karma of our thoughts and actions, and it is this that the world sees and judges us by.

Evolutionary Transformation: A Sufi Perspective

"We have forgotten that the world belongs to God. That is the most basic fundamental reality that exists - that the world belongs to God. Not only have we forgotten that the world belongs to God, we have forgotten that we have forgotten."

-- Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee --

In the attached video, Sufi teacher and author, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee ("Love Is a Fire: The Sufi's Mystical Journey Home") deftly answers a slew of the most fundamental questions that we all have, such as: What happens to a person when they die? Why is there suffering and poverty? Where can God be found? etc. His answers to these existential questions reveal an enlightening depth both to the Sufi tradition and teachings, as well as to the basic nature of humanity itself.

Asked to describe the circumstances under which the world as we know it will come to an end, Vaughan-Lee makes the prescient observation that "the world as we know it has already come to an end."

"As a mystic," he observes, "you see how things change first in the 'inner.' There is a law that everything that happens in life first constellates on the inner planes. If you do mystical practices, you will begin to see how things come into being.  And the world as we know it inwardly has already ended. It is already over. . . . Somebody once said, "It is like the last dance on the Titanic."" 

"There is," he notes, "a whole other level of evolution which I call evolution of 'Oneness' or 'global awareness.' . . . It is already setting the scenes for the next level of human evolution. . . .The Internet," he points out, "is a direct example of how 'Oneness' works, and how it is incredibly efficient and it is everywhere at the same time, and anybody (or anybody who has a computer) can have access to it. And it was just given to humanity, and it works. So the world as we know it has somewhere already ended."

"But it is our work," Vaughan-Lee cautions, "to bring this next evolution into being, because it needs human beings who can see beyond the debris of the civilization that is around us."

"If you look around with open eyes," he points out, "you see the debris of a dying or dead civilization. Why? Because there is no meaning. What is it that gives life to any culture? It is meaning. And without meaning - and 'meaning' does not mean to have a bigger car or bigger house, because human beings are made in the image of God, we are divine, we are spinning organisms of light and love - and it is the spiritual, always if you look back throughout all the cultures, it is the spiritual that always gives meaning to people. 

 "It is our work," Vaughan-Lee stresses, "to bring this next level of evolution into form."

Vaughan-Lee points out that the major transformational shift which we are going through is not the end of a thousand year cycle, but rather the end of a one hundred thousand year cycle - a cycle as old as the evolution of humanity as a species.  It is, he notes, a major evolutionary transformation that will play itself out not over thousands of years, but over the next twenty to thirty years - i.e, a transformation that will occur during our lifetimes, or the lifetimes of our children.

This, of course, begs the question: Are we aware that this transformation is already occurring around us? Do we know that the world as we have known it has already ended?

Tolle: The Universal Essence Beyond Form

"When you live in a world deadened by mental distractions you don't sense the aliveness of the universe anymore. Most people don't inhabit a living reality, but a conceptualized one."

-- Eckhart Tolle --
("A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose")

"God, or your essential nature," says Tolle, "is not some 'thing' . . . not content, not form. The best description through words is to say "not" . . .  what 'It' is 'not.' (T)hen you are left with what it is, which cannot be named but can be known, but cannot be known 'conceptually' because every concept is again a name and a form."

"It can," he points out "be known simply, easily in the silent space of stillness which is in everyone. Underneath the mental noise, no matter how heavy and turbulent the mental-emotional noise may be, no matter how heavy the egoic sense of self is, in everyone - as their essential nature - is the stillness of pure consciousness; your essential nature, the 'essence' - your 'essence' - not separate from the 'essence' of the universe."

Paul Brunton: Spirituality and the Necessities of Life

Paul Brunton (1898-1981)

For those not familiar with him, the late philosopher, mystic and prolific author, Paul Brunton left a vast record of his spiritual quest and spiritual realizations. Chief amongst these was the realization and teaching that for modern man, though the pressures of our hurried lives are always pressing, daily practice of meditation and prayer is necessary if we are to attain to the heart of our being - what Brunton (like Emerson) called the 'Overself.'

In the attached video taken from his book, Perspectives (the first of sixteen volumes of his notebooks on the spiritual quest), Brunton observes that, "We need to balance our extreme tendency to activism with something of quietism."

"The fast pace of modern living and the busy clamour of modern cities," Brunton notes, "presents us from meeting ourselves. The true place of peace," he suggests, "must be found within the self by external moderation and internal meditation."





"Everyone, wants to live," Brunton writes, "(but) few want to know how to live."

"If people permit work to take up so much of their time that they have none left for their devotional prayer or mystical meditation or metaphysical study," he continues, "they will be as culpable for this wastage of life as they will be if they permit transient pleasures to do so."

"Those who have no higher ideal than to chase after amusement and to seek after pleasure may look upon religious devotion as senseless, metaphysical studies as boring, (and) moral disciples as repulsive, he observes. "(However) those who have no such inner life of prayer and meditation, study and reflection, will necessarily pay, in emergency or crises, the high price of their hopeless extroversion."

Brunton recognizes that "(t)he needs of external life are entitled to be satisfied in their place." "But," he notes, "they are not entitled to dominate a man's whole attention."

"It is quite true," Brunton notes, "that man must eat, find shelter, wear clothes and amuse himself. And it is also true that if a fortunate fate has not relieved himself of the necessity, he must work, trade, scheme, or gamble to get the money for these things. But all this is insufficient grounds for him to pass through life with no other thoughts in his head than those of bodily needs and financial strivings. There is still room there for another kind of thought, for those concerning the mysterious elusive and subtle thing that is his divine soul."

"The years are passing," Brunton warns, "and (man) cannot afford such a wastage of time, cannot afford the luxury of being so extroverted at the cost of having lost touch with the inner life."

"It is bad enough to be a sick person," he notes, "but it is worse to be sick and believe you are well. Yet the complete extroverts are in this condition, because they regard complete extroversion as the proper state for normal healthy living!"

What Is Our Essence?

"As a man thinketh . . . so he is."

What is the "essence" of a "human being?" It is a question that has haunted philosophers, metaphysicians and psychologists for millenia.

Etymologically, or looking at where our words come from, we can see certain similarities between the two concepts. "Essence" and "being" have similar roots in Latin, Greek and Old French (discussed below); whereas "human" is related to ancient words for both "man" and "ground."

The word "human" is related to both the Latin 'homo', meaning 'same,' and to 'humus' meaning 'ground.' Is this a reference to so many creation myths that have G_d forming the first man from clay, and then bringing the clay model to life; or is it a recognition that all humans are a part of the same "Ground of Being" that has been used to denote the Absolute throughout the history of the "perennial philosophy"? I prefer the latter, but it is probably an admixture of both meanings, and other factors that are not clear at first blush.

The origins of "essence" is much clearer. "Essence" means at once 'substance,' 'existence' and 'being.' It means "that by which a thing is what it is;" and its Latin root is 'esse,' its Greek root 'ousia' - both of which mean "to be."

Hamlet's immemorial self-scrutiny led him him to observe: "To be, or not to be? That is the question." And, like all good questions, the answer is implicit in it: a triumphant "to be!". The "essence" of a "human being" is simply "being," his or her "essence" within the "Ground of Being." And the sages and seers of all ages have spoken to this truth.

Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche
(1920-1996)

The Buddhist master, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, remarked:

"Buddhas become awakened because of realizing their essence. Sentient beings become confused because of not realizing their essence. Thus there is one basis or ground, and two different paths."

[Tulku Urgyen Rinpoch,"As It Is," vol. 2, page 43.]

In the same vein, the great Sufi teacher and polymath, Idries Shah, observed:

Idries Shah (1924-1996)

'. . . (A)ll dervish teaching is based not on the concept of God, but on the concept of essence. . . "He who knows his essential self, knows God." Knowledge of the essential self is the first step, before which there is no real knowledge of religion.'

[Idries Shah, "The Sufis," page 309.]

 It is thus no mere cryptic abstraction that the words "Know thyself" were said to be carved over the doorway to the Temple of Delphi; for he who comes to know his higher "Self," beyond the lower "self" of the ego, comes to know much about his own "essence," the essence of G_d and how to "be" in the world.