Karma cannot be from past lives.

reply to post by MamaJ

I happen to think we do not come in the spirit of an animal but as a human. Human experience is the evidence as there are many who can recount a past life and they never speak as if they were anything other than human.

Actually buddha recalled being many different creatures including animals and Gods...

www.sacred-texts.com...

reply to post by Akragon


Those experiences were brought to his mind and he let his heart open to them. If he thought he were them himself he must have been poisoned by the snake.

Death cannot be remembered. One cannot be resurrected by himself.

reply to post by Akragon


I understand what Buddha thought.... I just don't hold that belief.. not today anyway. lol

Originally posted by Angle
Death cannot be remembered. One cannot be resurrected by himself.

What if everything was recorded? Memory recall is a remembering...

reply to post by MamaJ

Its my opinion that karma is a term for reaping what you sow and I really think we are able to carry it over into another life. I happen to think we do not come in the spirit of an animal but as a human. Human experience is the evidence as there are many who can recount a past life and they never speak as if they were anything other than human

I tend to agree with you however I think the cells that make up our bodies are lives unto themselves and spent many lives in animal bodies before they graduated to providing human bodies. But the essence of what make us human was never an animal so to speak in my opinion.

However we could access those cell memories I think this is perhaps why some of the Indian tribes identified with their so called animal bodies I also think this was because when we first incarnated as humans we were very close to the animals in how we related to the world around us. I also believe we have somewhere around a thousand life times and most of humanity is somewhere between the two thirds and half way point and a few are a little farther ahead. So one would have to go back a long ways to access some of those very early lives but there is probably no need at this point in our progression Most people access more recent lives.

I like the thought karma being reaping what you sow. But what I experienced was an unrighteous systematic punishing they wanted me to believe it being karma. WHAT THE HECK. I know.

If you think of karma as we chose to see it, it ofcourse remains in every life.

Thank you.

My personal belief is that karma is a form of energy. With every deliberate act of intention, we send out energy. And because everything is a circle, that energy inevitably comes back to us. How much you deliberately do bad things with bad intent and bad emotion determines how much negative energy you receive in return. The area you are in can also affect this, but how you respond to that also affects what you will receive. Think of it as standing in a river. The water flows around you, and you can either make it easier to swim or harder to swim by moving various ways throughout the current.

Does karma follow us between lives? I cannot honestly say. I'm thinking it's like a bank account, but I wouldn't place money on it, no pun intended.

reply to post by Angle


I have always thought that Karma represented the belief that whatever type of energy you put out into the universe you will get returned unto you. From my life experiences this has held true although it does seem that negative Karma can comeback threefold to whatever was put out there. I view my life as a journey to find contentment...not happiness...but to be content with all that I am and all that I experience on a day to day basis. It would seem that if someone was extremely "out of balance" with Karma at the time that they died that there might need to be a period of time where they could find balance again prior to continuing thier journey. I think that newborns are innocents and are without sin or any negative energy....they need love and lots of positive energy around them to grow into healthy loving individuals. That might explain why raising them can sometimes feel so draining...yet at the same time be so rewarding.

reply to post by Angle

Those experiences were brought to his mind and he let his heart open to them. If he thought he were them himself he must have been poisoned by the snake.

And what of your prophets? Were they also poisoned? Or were they trustworthy because they agreed with the doctrine you yourself subscribe to?

Your rebuttal is a weak one.

Originally posted by Angle
Does one always have to be punished for mistakes?

Thx for sharing your current view.

edit on 16-12-2012 by Angle because: (no reason given)

No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

Karma is not punishment. Karma is learning.

Think of it this way. God wants you to be in Heaven, along with all other souls that should be there. Heaven is eternal. If you live to be 60 years old, you might have had to spent a third of your life just learning how to live the remaining two thirds. Now try to imagine what it would be like to live somewhere where you could be a trillion years old, or older. There is no way you can learn everything you need to know for eternity in one lifetime.

Karma is no more punishment than a failing geometry. It just represents a lesson that you will have to learn eventually. Sometimes the lessons are painfull, sometimes confusing, but once you get it right you don't have to repeat the lesson. You just move on to more difficult things. But don't worry, you have plenty of time to get it all right.

Originally posted by hawkiye
The reason we do not remember is we would be racked with guilt at all the terrible things we did when we were newer in our progression and more animalistic. And the terrible guilt would stifle our progression. I see karma more as a learning thing. if we did something terrible in a previous life what better way to learn never to do it again then to suffer that which we perpetrated on others?

It's all one life it's all part of our progression until we learn to live without creating negative karma and then we are fit to move on to higher kingdoms where we can be trusted with higher knowledge. Its kind of like adults not letting kids into the shop to use all the tools they have no concept of and how dangerous they are until they grow up and mature and can understand how to use them safely.

You can access past lives if you really want to but you might not like what you see.

Here is an interesting article that sort of sums it up for me that some might be interested in reading:

www.freeread.com...

Imagine the time, far back in history, when you became a human being for the first time. It may have been thousands of years ago, millions or perhaps billions depending on your age as a soul, as it is called. It may have been on this earth, or another earth in a galaxy far away.

When you first became a human it was because your soul passed a major initiation. This caused your "individualization" as a human ego. This individualization was a big step for you. It was as big of a step for you at that time as overcoming death will be for you in this age for there are no soul initiations (as there are individual initiations) between individualization and overcoming death, or entering the Kingdom of God. At individualization we entered the kingdom of the humans which was as overwhelming for us at that time as will be the entering of the Kingdom of God for us now.

When you individualized you left the animal consciousness behind and assumed a new consciousness, the human, which is to say the individual. You did not know what it was like to be a single and separate individual until this happened.

The lower animal consciousness is an identifying consciousness that does not relate to the feeling of separateness. Those in the God Kingdom are not separate, but they understand and relate to this feeling because they have passed through it as humans. The feeling of separateness must be experienced and finally directed toward a cooperative union which is a much higher stage of non-separateness than that experienced by the animals.

The animal does not realize that it can be a separate and distinct being for it relies heavily on instinctual feeling identifying heavily with nature and other lives. Man, on the other hand, sees himself as separate and therefore loses this identification with nature and often acts in opposition to it. This is why man has acquired the dubious title of "the enemy of nature." Nevertheless, the end of this lesson will be good, for man will comprehend the majesty of nature as he enters the Kingdom of God and will, from that kingdom, enhance and assist nature and make up for all the wrongs he did as a separate human... Go to the links to read more

Here are the chapters in order:
1. www.freeread.com...
2. www.freeread.com...
3. www.freeread.com...
4. www.freeread.com...
5. www.freeread.com...
6. www.freeread.com...
7. www.freeread.com...
8. www.freeread.com...
10. www.freeread.com...
11. www.freeread.com...

edit on 16-12-2012 by hawkiye because: (no reason given)

edit on 16-12-2012 by hawkiye because: (no reason given)

I somehow forgot chapter 9: www.freeread.com...

Edit: Actually I just numbered them wrong there is only 10 chapters...

We repay our karma through our own lives.
Life is atonement for "past sins"
All will be clear in our passing.
No need to fret over sins of past lives,your already living Karma.
I can break it down more...but what's the point?
You should know by now.

Karma built during this life; is supposed to direct the consciousness at death for conditions of birth in the next life. Example from human to animal, gods, titans, hells, and heavens all of these realms are considered impermanent not eternal. Karma can be thought of as a ladder, one can move up or down. Moving up or avoiding moving down isn't the goal...escaping the whole wheel of life is. The Buddhist wheel of life; explains it very well, the path of escape is of course the 8 fold path.

Some karmic personality and memory; from the previous life can carry over into the new life...this is usually forgotten over time. Think of death as closing your eyes and your new life is the dream; either you can awake in life before death, or try to awake from the dream illusion in the new life(samsara). Human birth is considered a rare karmic gift, in Buddha's words; attainment of human birth; is rarer than a board with a knot hole floating on a pond; and a turtle living at the bottom of the pond...once every thousand years; the turtle swims from the bottom for another breath...the chance of the turtles head surfacing through the knothole; is how rare being born human is...I suppose that was his life is too short and rebirth too uncertain to urge practice.

What makes human birth so special? Duality and contradiction and the truth of impermanence (4 noble truths) are easier to see, when born as a human...All karma can be resolved it is not fixed, it's interactions are too complex to follow, karma is not an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. That's the general Buddhist view of karma, death and rebirth.

reply to post by Angle


Do you own a computer? Yes. do you have a hard drive? Yes. Do you put Cd's in your hard drive? Yes. Think of it this way. Karma is the scratches you get in your cd of life. You have a record of everything you do attached to your soul. If you get a virus in your computer you need a program to remove it. If you get a scratch on your cd you need a way to repair it. Both involve karma. Karma is the function that keeps you balanced. There is good and bad karma, lessons need to be learned; that is karma. Reincarnation is simply the furthering of your karmic cycle.

.

It's all just experience .. it really doesn't mater .. So why not make it a good one ..

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide

Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride

Till I get to the bottom and I see you again.

yeah ...yeah ...yeah

.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


that would be the methaphysical definition of it, no? We seem to live 3 worlds at once?

Originally posted by VictorVonDoom

Originally posted by Angle
Does one always have to be punished for mistakes?

Thx for sharing your current view.

edit on 16-12-2012 by Angle because: (no reason given)

No, no, no, no, no, no, no!

Karma is not punishment. Karma is learning.

Think of it this way. God wants you to be in Heaven, along with all other souls that should be there. Heaven is eternal. If you live to be 60 years old, you might have had to spent a third of your life just learning how to live the remaining two thirds. Now try to imagine what it would be like to live somewhere where you could be a trillion years old, or older. There is no way you can learn everything you need to know for eternity in one lifetime.

Karma is no more punishment than a failing geometry. It just represents a lesson that you will have to learn eventually. Sometimes the lessons are painfull, sometimes confusing, but once you get it right you don't have to repeat the lesson. You just move on to more difficult things. But don't worry, you have plenty of time to get it all right.

Thx for sharing. Seems down to earth, or down to the floor as I would described it. The result of karma is wisdom then?

Hey, thx all, that was all very nice.

reply to post by R0CR13


Sounds like your path is that of a bhodisattva...