On Karma and Running Away from Yourself.

[ladislav]

I often would get involved in discussions with my cynical and sarcastic father as well as smirking colleagues about my dating problems in the US. Basically, my gripe was that I could not get a date here in this country whereas back in the old country I could. My father would always remind me that I could not go back for political reasons and the native born Americans could not relate to the whole thing and just kept telling me to develop more confidence and then ask people to introduce me to someone, etc.

I was not only lonely but very frustrated sexually and I dreamt of passionate nights with the woman I loved or many women I loved, and things like that.
What if I go to another country? Many army guys would tell me there were great places to find love overseas. The grim answer my father would give when I suggested such things would always be:� you are running away from yourself�, and “you are trying to warm yourself at someone else’s fireplace�. Some religious people would tell me that I could not run away from my karma. Basically, all of them would try and dissuade me from leaving and going to another country to improve my luck.

I left 20 years ago and here is what I have learned:

Wherever you go, there you are, karmically that is. What do I mean by that? Well, some say that karma is an account that you carry inside your life. In that account you have debits and credits. You can only use so many credits. If you spend your credits on one thing, you will run out of credits to be spent on other things. It is like money. How does it work in real life? Ok, for example, you go to a country and there you finally find a girl of your dreams. Everything is going fantastic. Suddenly, horrible things happen in work and in business. What happened to me was that the company I worked for suddenly went bust, they did not pay me my salary, did not process me for the visa and I had to live on my credit cards. I ran up a huge bill. When I went back home, my life became a disaster just trying to pay back the debts. Then, while I was still supporting the girl and paying back the debts and renting her a place, some guy went into her room, raped her and then, to avoid punishment, married her. Anyway, it was one nasty thing after another. Really cruel stuff. As if some strange forces were at work to make my life miserable and push me back to “where I belonged�. Again I ended up lonely, poor and in an even worse condition than before. And it messed me up emotionally so bad that I could not hold down a job and was fired for bad performance. Ouch! That hurt!

But no karma is unredeemable. When going through hellish things like that, you are also “spending� karma, but you are using debits, not credits. It means basically that you are paying back your karmic debts. If you get back on your own two feet again and try to pull off a similar overseas stunt next time, you will find that this particular time things will be easier. You will still encounter resistance but not quite as bad and much easier to deal with. If again you do not succeed, your third time will be even easier. This is why many people urge you to never give up.

Eventually I was able to date and have great fun and came very close to finding the love of my life but this time it was me who was making the choice whether to accept it or not.

Anyway, what is my point? Well, it is that no matter where you go, you will have to deal with your destiny and your karmic “account�. Does that mean you should not become an expat? Not at all! Go and do what you have to do! Just do not be surprised if all kinds of vicious, nasty events starts coming out of your life and do not be scared by them. If you have a religion or some spiritual practice, do not stop following it and develop yourself further on the path to self improvement and enlightenment. This way, your multinational adventures will eventually give you the desired results.

[Winston]

This is a great and deep analysis of life and karma. I've experienced the same thing. It does seem like when you gain something, you lose something else, like nothing is free and everything is a tradeoff, unless you have great karma like Tom Cruise where you can have it all in every category.

Did you ever try burning off your bad karma by doing good things, donating to charity, helping beggars, volunteering to help others, etc.? Does that help?

PS - I separated your post into paragraphs, since you forgot to, to make it more readable.

[MrPeabody]

That reminds me of many years ago when my roommate tried to get me into Nichiren Buddhism where you chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Every time you chant that, it is suppose to create positive karma. So, apparently you can pump up your positive karma supply by spending hours chanting. I wonder how Hugh Hefner generates so much positive karma. Maybe he was a saint in a previous lifetime. He is surrounded every night by blond angels in pink nighties. I am still wondering whether he will die or ascend into heaven.

I lost my job, wife, and both my parent died in the span of about a year and a half, but it really didn't make life any easier, I just moved on to other situations with more problems to solve. The only pattern I see is that life gets more difficult as you get older.

[globetrotter]

Karma does not follow linear time.

You get events now that are 'negative' for things that you 'earned' in the future.

[MrPeabody]

Karma does not follow linear time.

You get events now that are 'negative' for things that you 'earned' in the future.

Karma is confusing and screws up your Protestant work ethic. I think I'll stick with Islam.

[ijohn]

You shouldn't associate any unhappy experiences with going somewhere. Unhappy experiences can happen anywhere. What you experienced was the guilt and fear that naturally comes with leaving your conditioning. This is the nature of conditioning. If you have unhappy experiences doing what you are conditioned to do you don't notice them so much; you don't seek to explain or understand them. If you have stepped out of your conditioning you notice them more. And this is not karma.

Karma translates from the sanskrit to 'energy of action'. Every person is born with this energy of action. As in the child is born into a particular time and place. This time and place is a function of all the actions that have occurred since time immemorial, of all the energy of action lived out since time immemorial. The child will not remain as it is. It will grow and change and that energy of action built into it, itself a function of all of the energy of actions since time immemorial, will make it live out a certain life that is their life.

So Karma yields the understanding that at any given time 'everything is exactly how it has to be'. As in if the world is a certain way at any given time then that is what it has to be, it can't be anything else at that time can it? If you see a book on the table, that's where it has to be as if it is on the table it can't be somewhere else.

You see the book and do something with it. Your actions here with regards to the book come from the energy of action in you and are a function of your current mood, your education, your parents lives etc etc etc all of which are a function of all the energy of action in the world since time immemorial. The energy of the action with regards to the book was built in you. How much of it constituted your choice?

So you live out your energy of action in you until it is gone and then you die.

But it is wise not to think too much about these things it will only confuse your already confused lives further. In fact it is best not to think about this at all. The next time the urge comes up to do so hit yourself on the head with a stick. The urge will go away for a while. When it comes back you can use the stick again.

Best to stick to the protestant style. So you're off to explore the world young (or not so young) man! You've got goals. You've got a schedule. Great! Brush up on the cultural understanding skills. Brush up on the dance skills maybe. Then bag that wench! And bone her like you are boning for the first and last time. Then sit back on an easy chair, watch the sunset, light up a cigar and swill a few rounds of good, hard cognac. Relax and think aah you boned and it was good.

[Winston]

Karma does not follow linear time.

You get events now that are 'negative' for things that you 'earned' in the future.

Wow that's possible, since time may be an illusion. But how do you know this? Based on what? I thought you were very anti-spiritual? How can you say this?

[ladislav]

All of the above views as well as mine are partial understandings. I do not think that we will ever understand how karma works fully. Having said all that I have been able to observe patterns in my life and in lives of others and how certain things just seem to reoccur and follow me and how resistance to my efforts grows if I try to leave my karmic plane and move up.
I have also noticed how some people get away with murder repeatedly and make horrible mistakes and yet, nothing bad happens to them, while others make tiny mistakes and all hell breaks loose.
There are patterns and they do not seem random. There are undercurrents that we cannot see.

[woodwater]

All of the above views as well as mine are partial understandings. I do not think that we will ever understand how karma works fully. Having said all that I have been able to observe patterns in my life and in lives of others and how certain things just seem to reoccur and follow me and how resistance to my efforts grows if I try to leave my karmic plane and move up.
I have also noticed how some people get away with murder repeatedly and make horrible mistakes and yet, nothing bad happens to them, while others make tiny mistakes and all hell breaks loose.
There are patterns and they do not seem random. There are undercurrents that we cannot see.

ksarma is just the eastern heaven and hell, another way of controlling people

[Winston]

This black New Age guy explains how to get rid of bad karma.

[Ghost]

.

[woodwater]

now I know why astrologers say Saturn brings good things late.Its the planet of Karma I got it in the house of travel

[woodwater]

I often would get involved in discussions with my cynical and sarcastic father as well as smirking colleagues about my dating problems in the US. Basically, my gripe was that I could not get a date here in this country whereas back in the old country I could. My father would always remind me that I could not go back for political reasons and the native born Americans could not relate to the whole thing and just kept telling me to develop more confidence and then ask people to introduce me to someone, etc.

I was not only lonely but very frustrated sexually and I dreamt of passionate nights with the woman I loved or many women I loved, and things like that.
What if I go to another country? Many army guys would tell me there were great places to find love overseas. The grim answer my father would give when I suggested such things would always be:� you are running away from yourself�, and “you are trying to warm yourself at someone else’s fireplace�. Some religious people would tell me that I could not run away from my karma. Basically, all of them would try and dissuade me from leaving and going to another country to improve my luck.

I left 20 years ago and here is what I have learned:

Wherever you go, there you are, karmically that is. What do I mean by that? Well, some say that karma is an account that you carry inside your life. In that account you have debits and credits. You can only use so many credits. If you spend your credits on one thing, you will run out of credits to be spent on other things. It is like money. How does it work in real life? Ok, for example, you go to a country and there you finally find a girl of your dreams. Everything is going fantastic. Suddenly, horrible things happen in work and in business. What happened to me was that the company I worked for suddenly went bust, they did not pay me my salary, did not process me for the visa and I had to live on my credit cards. I ran up a huge bill. When I went back home, my life became a disaster just trying to pay back the debts. Then, while I was still supporting the girl and paying back the debts and renting her a place, some guy went into her room, raped her and then, to avoid punishment, married her. Anyway, it was one nasty thing after another. Really cruel stuff. As if some strange forces were at work to make my life miserable and push me back to “where I belonged�. Again I ended up lonely, poor and in an even worse condition than before. And it messed me up emotionally so bad that I could not hold down a job and was fired for bad performance. Ouch! That hurt!

But no karma is unredeemable. When going through hellish things like that, you are also “spending� karma, but you are using debits, not credits. It means basically that you are paying back your karmic debts. If you get back on your own two feet again and try to pull off a similar overseas stunt next time, you will find that this particular time things will be easier. You will still encounter resistance but not quite as bad and much easier to deal with. If again you do not succeed, your third time will be even easier. This is why many people urge you to never give up.

Eventually I was able to date and have great fun and came very close to finding the love of my life but this time it was me who was making the choice whether to accept it or not.

Anyway, what is my point? Well, it is that no matter where you go, you will have to deal with your destiny and your karmic “account�. Does that mean you should not become an expat? Not at all! Go and do what you have to do! Just do not be surprised if all kinds of vicious, nasty events starts coming out of your life and do not be scared by them. If you have a religion or some spiritual practice, do not stop following it and develop yourself further on the path to self improvement and enlightenment. This way, your multinational adventures will eventually give you the desired results.

Ladislav its all about yin yang. When you finally have career success some family or healyth problem arises, when a relationship ends something else good begins.Read Dr Demartinis "the Breakthrough experience"

[jamesbond]

We have all experienced things which might lead us to believe that we are being punished for something we did in a past life. Maybe Winston did something in his past life that is causing him difficulties with women today!

[Winston]

Ladislav brings up a deep subject here. Yes it does seem that you carry your karma with you wherever you go, whether it's good or bad karma. I've noticed this as well. So even if you go abroad, your karma tends to go with you. Even if you are in a better environment overseas, the karmic patterns still seem to manifest. But I wonder if karma can really improve or get better. Even if your karma improves, is the improvement permanent, or only temporary? Does bad karma ever really go away? For some people, it seems to recur in patterns throughout their life. What do you think Ladislav?

Yeah there are religions like Nichiren Buddhism that teach you that chanting their lotus sutra "Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo" will improve your karma and get you what you desire. And many attest that it works, including Ladislav. But are the results permanent?

There is another way, and that is in doing good works for others. Like being kind, virtuous, helping others, volunteering for charity work, etc. Have any of you found that that work? If so, doesn't that take a long time though?

Speaking of getting rid of bad karma, have any of you heard of the Chinese book called "Liao Fan's Four Lessons"? It was written several hundred years ago in China, and is a guide with lessons on how to get rid of bad karma in your life to change your destiny. There is a Chinese movie about it that is a dramatization of its lessons. There is a version of this movie dubbed in English if any of you want to see it. I watched it and found it to be inspiring, encouraging and wise. Here is the link to it on YouTube if anyone wants to see it.

Liao Fan's Four Lessons - Changing Destiny (Movie)



Here is the audio book of it read in English.

Liao Fan's Four Lessons - Audio Book