Category: The Book Of Fire Letters

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There is a very old allegory recounted in yogic lore, for the purposes of instructing young disciples about the simple, but inscrutable, implacable mathematics of karmic law: a man known as a great, realized saint was to visit a family, whom he had never met, for a meal. At the appointed hour, the family members are looking out, eagerly awaiting the arrival of this illustrious being. They were confused when a figure approached – somewhat tattered – and with only one arm. The people are looking around, embarrassed, and not certain how to react, as they are sure this disabled man can’t possibly be the Divine soul who will grace them with his presence at dinner. The man of the house gets up the nerve to ask the identity of this one-armed person and, to his shock, hears the name of the renowned saint in reply. The people are all looking at each other in disbelief, wondering if the visitor is an imposter trying to deceive them – because how could a soul who had received the full grace of God, and been bestowed enlightenment (meaning, among other things, perfect control of the realms of mind and emotion) possible be impaired, injured, or anything less than robust and perfect in every aspect?

What the saint replied to the queries of the family describes exactly the intersection between the push-button, predictable precision of the doctrine of mind expounded by self-help book, such as The Secret, … and the true depth of karmic reality.
The yogi laughs, when asked about his disability, and says simply: “ I lost my arm due to my prarabdha karma…. in a past life, I had done a crime to a certain man, and incurred this karmic penalty. But don’t be confused! Even a soul who has, in his present lifetime acquired the merit to attain liberation might still have a debt from the past that will have to be paid. One has to accept, and be surrendered and grateful for the chance to give back what’s due.’ {Prarabdha karma, in simple terms, is specifically from previous life, and may bear no visible connection to present action or merit.}

So here’s what I want to say about the mastery of the mental plane that is the basis of The Secret, and teachings like it that are abounding now: it is an aspect of ancient knowledge and practice that is one of the cornerstones of all yogic literature, but…and here’s the critical, and dangerous point…it is an extrapolation of occult law that has been extracted from an infinite sum of a whole that cannot, by any attempt of man, be reduced to any one of its parts. This cornerstone teaching of The Secret, adopted in toto as Bible by many millions of souls, only goes to prove the axiom that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. In the next blog I will be exploring some of the dark roads one can be led down, and deep places in which one can be trapped, by hooking one’s star to an incomplete, though thoroughly convincing doctine. The whole existence of the story told in The Bardo is but one small example of the thorough trumping the whole, mysterious Reality does to The Secret.

Junipur over and out, and until next time, don’t believe everything you read…!

An Excerpt from Answers by Mother Meera:

Question: What is the relationship of karma and prayer? What is the use of prayer if all that happens is according to our karma?

Mother Meera: If we only accept our karma and act according to that, there will be no end to it – our karma will continue for many, many lives. However, if we pray and offer the fruits of our actions to the Divine, then our karma can be stopped, lessened, or transformed…some karmas can be removed, but others are very big, and cannot be removed.

…so, continuing on with thoughts about karma, here’s the thing – I can go on. and on, because it’s a natural, timely interest and concern for me. But what I realized, even before sitting down to write Mother of Light: The Book of Fire, vol. 1, The Bardo (ten years ago) was that there was only going to be a handful of people with the same depth of seeking. I wrote it in 2001 – and look at the seachanges in the culture, in every dimension imaginable since then. If there were 30 or 40 like-minded parties then, there are 2 or 3 left now (an exaggeration, of course, but you get my point.)

You, reading now, probably have zero curiosity in the laws of karmic debt, things that are going to affect some aspect of yourself in a so- called “future life”… or anything much beyond keeping the roof over your head, and your kids fed.

I so get this..I’m hardly oblivious. For those of you who read The Bardo, you will see that the great majority of my life has been spent in grinding, unremitting poverty, with pretty much no way out. I understand about money, and dire, preoccupying circumstances.

But/and, to remain in denial about the laws of consequence, and responsibility, is to live on credit, and spin it out as long as you can before you get caught in the cross hairs. This is a credit-card world now – and the pattern of transaction in the physical world of dollars is only a symptom of a deeply-entrenched psychological – and more critical – spiritual state of dis-ease. Our inner weaknesses are proliferating, our maturity on all levels is actually devolving – and we are intent on defying the universal facts of existence: you can’t spend anything, be it energy or money, that you haven’t first created by your own effort – and if you find a way to fake true resources for a while, you will find that the balloon payment can be oblivion…not just for you, but for those close to you, and ultimately, society at large. We have been given enough rope to hang ourselves with, and – guess what, folks – we’re all hanging, now.

The dissolving, catastrophic state of affairs in the world goes precisely to the subject of karma: it is a real-time example of the arrogance, infantilism – on a global scale- implied in believing there is no law other than what we want at any given moment. – and the result, from the wider universe of cause. And now, Catch-22 in place, we are so bent down with the crushing tolls just beginning to come in, we feel we can’t possibly have the strength, or endurance, to raise our eyes to study anything so seemingly abstract, so formless, so…non-physical, therefore not remotely relevant, as the karmic laws that are bringing us our due.

But here, as they say, is the rub: the physical plane, down to dollars and cents, is a manifestation of formless, purely spiritual energy…The tolls of neglecting this greater Reality, the killing burdens, will never diminish…they will only accrue interest, unless/until we turn to confront…tired, exhausted, or not…

more next time, including some thoughts on what happens when The Secret meets prarabdha karma…..yikes

Junipur, over and out

“The Divine Mother appeared in a vision and said, ‘When you save someone’s life, you take their karma.’”

This is how The Bardo, the first volume of Mother of Light: The Book of Fire opens.

It was an etheric darshan with Mother Meera, an Incarnation of the Divine Mother, that took place in 1996-7 or so; it provided critical insight into the pivotal dynamic, the axis around which the matters of my present incarnation had been revolving – without my knowledge – and would continue to turn, for a yet-undisclosed period of time. It’s a good way for me to open a conversation about the all-important topic of karma

Nothing has greater truth than that “necessity is the mother of invention”, a saying that expresses more about the secret purposes of human life than we know – and the grave need with which I was compelled to study the laws of karma has yielded perhaps a wider body of knowledge than others are forced to acquire. Of course, choice was important; I came into this life with ingrained desire to learn about the inner energies of the universe, so I remained engaged and highly focussed, instead of being driven out of the body as the flames rose higher, and scorched deeper. But these unusual circumstances notwithstanding, still we are speaking of comprehension basically limited to the human arena – when it comes to the mystic truths of the highest realities, only the Avatars, incarnations of the Divine, have whole knowledge. This must always be remembered, a caveat that covers anything I may be discussing anywhere in print, book or blog. It is our responsibility to learn all we can in our sojourns, while keeping in mind that what insight or wisdom we gain, in this or any other aspect of existence, is relative, and subject to truth on octaves yet “higher”. As Mother Meera reminds us, “There is no end to realization. You must always remember that you are traveling forward, and be attached to nothing. There is no end to the journey…”

Though it has taken humanity an excessive span of time (this time around) to open to the vaster universe – and our relationship to it – we are finally at the place where the concept of “wholism” – the inseparable links between every species, to each other, and then to the ecosystem for example – has re-emerged to penetrate the collective appreciation of the nature of reality. Some of us have even evolved from the awareness of patterns evident in the physical world – one species acting upon another, as I was saying – to intuit the larger context of the band of invisible force flowing in and around these elements (be they in the animal kingdom, or geographical, such as bodies of water) and beyond.

This energetic inner unity of all things is, of course, no secret to the spiritual adepts; it is known to be a living truth, and the highest essence of existence. To know this cosmic energy directly, and be united with it, is the focus of their lives. The laws of physics in the natural kingdom are but a material manifestation of the one force that is the omnipresent cause of the universe, in eternal relationship to other expressions of its own being.

“There is only one love and one energy.” Mother Meera

The earth plane can be viewed as an experiment in the experience of duality – the ONE consciousness falls asleep and proceeds to dream, in a sense, that all is separate and divided, each one endowed with sovereign being, and individual qualities unique to itself, intent, will, desire….This being can act, and in turn, be acted upon by other separate beings; every action taken will have its effect in this mutual hallucination. In the physical, visible world, the study of the intricate interrelationships between cause and effect, now divided from each other in the illusion, might be biology, or perhaps physics. But there is a plane of deeper energy, invisible to the human eye, where the immutable law of cause-bound-to-effect also rules – it is in this reality that the investigation can proceed into the realm of human experience and interaction; one aspect of this study is called, in the Eastern philosophy, karma. What you reap, you must sow…but it is due to the occult fact that this is so because you are what you sow, you are who you love, who you hate…though the hidden identity may be seen to be separated by the veils of time and space.

Here are a couple of mind-twisters to chew on before next time, Oct. 1:

• Do you believe you only live once, or do you believe in reincarnation?
• If you knew you could have something in the present that had negative consequences in a distant future, would you try to attain it?

That’s all for now. Junipur over and out?