No, it's not okay. It's not okay because Divine Love and Karma are mutually exclusive theories about Creation. If you believe in Divine Love, there's no room for Karma. Meanwhile, if you believe in Karma, there's no room for Divine Love.
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| October Maples (c) JAT 2014 |
Where will you see the differences? You'll see them in the thoughts, feelings, actions, and health issues of your very own brain. This is because the biological brain is designed to alter its wiring based on the major decisions you make. If you make a decision to grow the Karma tree in your life, your brain will gradually rewire itself to reflect this decision. In other words, the spiritual decisions you make will have a huge impact on how your brain works.
There are several factors that make the Karma tree seem very appealing, especially in the early stages of a spiritual journey:
1. The Karma tree is based on the theory that the entire universe is moral, and that moral choices can't be separated from other kinds of choices.
2. The moral laws of Karma are absolute. Absolute rights and absolute wrongs exist, both of which have logical, predictable consequences for each soul. Therefore, although human beings always have free will, there's really no chance or accident in the world because universal laws of cause & effect will eventually catch up with you (if not now, then in your next life).
3. Karma is a highly logical, law-based philosophical system that makes perfect sense to logical, law-based human minds. It demands that each person be 100% responsible for all his or her choices.
4. Karma teaches that Justice is absolute, totally fair, and inevitable.
5. Karma places great power in the hands of human beings. It's the power to fully comprehend cosmic laws and use those laws to create one's own future. The universe must bend to human will once we humans grasp its laws.
6. Karma teaches that the world we live in here (i.e. 3D Planet Earth) can't ever be perfected because its mix of good and evil is an intentional "training ground" for souls. This can never change because the planet's purpose is to be a "middle world" between the heavens above and the hells below. Social progress is therefore a delusion.
7. Karma starts with a cyclical understanding of Time.
These seven factors are the key philosophical roots that together create the theory of Karma. Although these roots sound very logical and fair to most human minds, the big problem is this: these factors, when blended together, create the perfect excuse to avoid the hard work of opening your heart to Divine Love.
Opening your heart to Divine Love takes courage, humbleness, and forgiveness. This is what Jesus' Kingdom teachings were all about -- opening your heart to Divine Love by finding and using your own courage, humbleness, and ability to forgive. Courage, humbleness, and forgiveness aren't based in the logical, 3D mind; they're based in the emotional centres of the brain and soul -- the inner place we call the Heart.
The Heart has its own set of rules, but it's not the same set of rules the Mind uses (nor even, for that matter, the same set of rules the body uses). The Heart sees many colours, tints, and tones where the Mind sees only black and white.
There's nothing in Jesus' understanding of God, Divine Love, or the soul that resembles the roots of the Karma tree. Jesus was trying to show people how to grow something very different from the Karma tree, something that's built on the needs of the heart AND the mind AND the body AND the soul -- not just the needs of the mind. (Not that you'd know it after 2,000 years of Church teachings based on Paul's thorny, ugly, spiky version of the spiritual tree . . .)
Divine Love isn't a set of transpersonal laws based on pure Mind. Divine Love is an emotional choice. It's a choice made by God the Mother and God the Father together. Because it's a choice -- because it's their choice -- you have absolutely no control over it. You can't force God to mete out justice the way you see fit. You can't force God to agree that your neighbour got what he deserved. You can't force God to say it's okay for you to stop working toward social progress. You can't force God to agree with the religious choices you make in your life. You can't force God to agree with your personal assessment of your own cleverness.
You're not nearly as smart as the theory of Karma tells you. And God isn't nearly as stupid.
* Please see "It's the Roots, Not the Fruits, That Matter" from January 29, 2014.
For Further Reflection:
It should be obvious that if you want to build a relationship with God, you need to sift and sort through the doctrines you hold, then set aside the beliefs that are blocking your relationship skills. There's no point planting seeds for the Tree of Life if you're going to salt the ground around it with toxic beliefs that constantly kill off the tender shoots of new relationship. A small number of religious and philosophical doctrines are so poisonous to your relationship with God that if you insist on hanging onto them, you'll find yourself struck, frustrated, never making progress. One of the most pernicious of these anti-relationship doctrines is the theory of Karma.
Since the late 1800's, Christianity has gradually been exposed to, and influenced by, various Eastern teachings that view Karma as the quintessential philosophical underpinning for morality, justice, personal enlightenment, and piety. Many Christians have been understandably eager to explore the goals and practices of these Eastern traditions in the hope of enriching their own experience of God's presence. It's somewhat difficult, however, to achieve this enrichment if you naively embrace the Materialist cause-and-effect laws of Karma. Karma is, after all, a set of doctrines which, at its very core, shows nothing but contempt for God.
It's no accident that Buddhism is technically a non-theistic religion. The whole point of the Buddha's original teachings was to demonstrate that an efficient system of algorithms could take human beings steadily closer to the Laws of Creation without any need whatsoever for a personal God. It's a brilliant system of logic, to be sure. But, as with any system that relies completely on algorithms, there's no room for the mystery of the Tree of Life. This may explain why many forms of Buddhism have evolved over the centuries to reintroduce the creativity, stories, family traditions, and art that were of necessity snuffed out by the Four Noble Truths.
In the core teachings of Buddhism, algorithms rule. In the teachings of Jesus, differential calculus is the key.
Algorithms have an unfortunate tendency to spawn cultural norms that are rigid, hierarchical, patriarchal, and dependent on Materialist cause-and-effect to explain why some people should be considered superior to others. Christianity, while demonstrating these same harsh aspects many times during its history (not to its credit), has repeatedly been subject to countervailing "eruptions" of horizontal inclusiveness and respect for women and children. These periodic "eruptions" of Divine Love have been made possible because Christianity has built-in doctrines that deal with flow rates; that is, doctrines that encourage change and learning and healing and experiences of redemption over time -- time that's understood as linear, not cyclical (which makes a huge difference as far as the biological brain is concerned).
Not every Christian has accepted that humbleness is a necessary aspect of relationship with God, but some have. Many Jews have seen the calculus of faith, as well. It's the willingness to be flexible in all our relationships (including our relationship with God) that lets us bend and grow with the wonders of the Tree of Life.
As I said above, if you're sure the Tree of Karma is right for you, than by all means stick with it. But don't expect it to bear the same fruit as the Tree of Life. And don't pretend the Tree of Karma is a viable path to feeling God's presence in your life when Karma's very purpose is to justify your personal quest to become a self-contained god yourself.
You can either have a path that leads you to Mother Father God or a path that leads you to self-sanctification/self-divination. But you can't have both.
Full disclosure: you have the right to choose whatever you like; but your angels have the right to have an opinion on your choices. So if you keep insisting you're a long lost spark of the Divine who's desperately trying to reclaim your rightful godhood (Gnosticism), or keep proclaiming you're trying to escape from suffering through self-transcendence/no-self (Buddhism), you can expect to get some feedback from your guardian angels about your arrogance and narcissism and lack of respect for God's wisdom.
They'll still love you and forgive you, though.
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