Expanding Your Altar

[Guest guest]

Hi Chris,

Yes, the topic of karma & how it manifests in our lives is immensely

complex. We create karma through our thoughts & emotions, as well as

our "outer" physical actions. Our thoughts & emotions most definitely

mold our "realities".

 

The time of death can be played with. I immediately think of a

Bhagavan Nityananda story where he intervened and delayed the death

of a devotee for years.

 

I can also think of a Santeria story where a powerful Babalawo had

the power to bargain with Death and could delay the death of a person

indefinitely.

 

There's also the story of the Himalayan Babaji (Sri Lahiri

Mahashaya's guru -- in Paramahansa Yogananda's lineage) who has

mastered a Kalpa Yoga technique that has kept him not only alive, but

eternally young for centuries. (Of course, this technique is not

meant for most saints -- and certainly not for ordinary people.)

 

These stories are not confined to any one tradition.

 

Astraea

 

, chris kirner

<chriskirner1956> wrote:

> Yes, karma is a very interesting and complex topic. I wish I

understood it better (like most everything else). I agree that part

of karma is the way we mold reality, attracting and repelling, seeing

and not seeing, but I also see an "external" force at work.

>

> There seems to be a natural order, a law, if you will, regarding

karma that is not lightly set aside. The time of death is said to be

fixed for each of us at birth, and while it may be set aside through

willful action (it seems a price must be paid). Swami Rama describes

in Living With the Himalayan Masters how the time of his death as a

young man was set aside by his master, though at the price of a near-

mortal accident and injury. Another incident is described by Pandit

Tuganait in At The Eleventh Hour where a close student of Swami

Rama's was about to suffer a mortal accident (unknown to her). The

sage Nirvanji incarnated in a bird's egg. Swamiji himself cared for

the egg and the baby bird that soon emerged, for some days. One day

the woman dropped a heavy frying pan on her foot at the same moment

she heard Swamiji call for her. At the very moment the frying pan had

fallen on her foot, the little bird had run headlong onto a radiator

and broken its neck.

>

> Swamiji also said that much of the karma that befalls us is group

karma, something I had not heard of before, but which makes a lot of

sense considering the extent to which we really are connected to one

another. Fatal accidents, muggings, riots, etc. may fall into this

category.

>

> It seems that while the sages can set aside the laws of providence,

they do not, at least not without a sacrifice. It boggles my mind to

contemplate the possibility of the full realization of these things--

they are very profound.

>

> Chris