Karma and Prayer

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