Life, Death and Karmic Debt

[Guest guest]

(new member - a brief Intro and questions!)

 

Hello friends...I live in India, I am a Hindu and I have questions.

 

I’ve been grappling with, and trying to understand these concepts for

a while now. Stephen Batchelor, Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda, Deepak

Chopra, Brian Weiss, Gary Zukov, and Osho †" I’ve read them all.

Including the other new age books on mind over matter, mind body

medicine, and individual paths of choice. But I am still riddled with

doubt and I am still seeking...

 

And then yesterday night I felt it again. As I sat in my balcony

looking at the clouds I felt the tug so strongly I knew if I held out

my arms, the clouds would swoop down, wrap me in their warm embrace,

and take me into the twinkling stars beyond. I stood on the ledge for

what seemed forever, the warm summer breeze caressing my face, my head

in orbit. The moth came and sat beside me-unafraid, looking deep into

my eyes, smiling. I smiled back. We had become one.

 

Images and sensations were floating through my being-some familiar

some new. Faces, people, events that had happened in my life†" and some

I had never seen before-perhaps that were yet to come. I was just

born, I was today, I was a few years or many years from now and I was

old. I was the moon, I was the star, I was the moth, and I was the tree.

I was everything & everything was me.

 

It was bliss.

 

I have felt this way a few times before but the difference was, this

time, I was not afraid. Earlier, paralyzed by the unfamiliarity of it,

I saw it as death, now I see it as life in all its luminous brilliance.

 

I surrendered to it and felt myself flying higher and higher, till I

was shaken out of my trance by my daughter Godavari, coughing.. She

was running a fever-too much swimming and too much ice-cream in the

summer heat. I led her into her room and patted her to sleep singing a

hymn I learnt in school (yes I am convent educated.)

 

“Love it was that made us,

and it was love that saved us,

Love was god’s plan, when he made man, gods divine nature is love…â€

She fell fast asleep in a few minutes

 

In the morning I woke up to find my daughter bright and chirpy-fever

gone, and a sms from an old photographer friend of mine-out of the

blue. Haven’t been in touch with him for ages, urging me to go meet

some Brighu astrologers who have just come down from Kerela. They I am

told, tell you not only about your present situation, but also delve

deeper to unravel your past life and the karmas that bind you.

At first I am hesitant. I stopped consulting astrologers ages ago †"

too swayed by western science and education and the belief that we are

a product of our conscious individual choices and where our life goes

is up to us.

 

Quite the opposite of the concepts of God and destiny that I grew up

on in my parents and grandparents home, where the solution to all was

to conduct a pooja or a religious ceremony.

 

But I fix up an appointment anyway.

Because I am curious. Because I believe in co-incidence less and less.

It once again seems to me that nothing in our lives is as random as it

seems or that it is up to us to make what we must of the events,

happenings or occurrences in our life. I am trying to find the bigger

picture †" and draw the chart of the pattern of cosmic chaos.

 

I read books by the masters, I read the papers everyday and am more

and more puzzled by the news and information and less convinced of the

theories that I am being fed.

 

There are too many questions still unanswered…so I want to ask

If death is a metaphor for evolving consciousness (as I am starting to

understand it) how many deaths must we die before we are free to live

again?

 

How much of our lives is individual choice?

 

Is our birth a matter of choice?

 

Do we therefore choose our parents before we step into our present life?

 

Is that why I was born where I was & you were where you were?

 

Is every relationship that we invite subsequently into our lives a

matter of choice? Or is it a karmic debt or obligation to fulfill?

 

If our brains and hearts and bodies work in accordance to the

scientific principles that we are familiar with and that have been

mapped out for us how do we explain chaos? Why are we so unfamiliar

and unpredictable to each other and even to ourselves?

 

Is our intrinsic nature or personality a karmic debt? For e.g. -

offspring of the same parents have such contrasting natures which

therefore determines their life path?

 

How many karmic debts must we pay before we start to rewrite a brand

new karma? Is it really up to us?

 

Is good luck and bad luck nothing but good and bad karma points we

have accumulated over many lifetimes?

 

Phew! Maybe the Brighu astrologers I am going to meet can shed some

light on all this. May be not. I sincerely look forward for your views.

 

-suki