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Strains of "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road" filled my head yesterday morning when I learned of former Beatle, George Harrison's, death. Yes, I know, it's an Elton John song, but somehow it seemed to fit. He lost a battle with cancer and was 58 years old. As horrible as it may sound, I think he ended in a better way than John Lennon. Harrison had time to live some and knew he would likely not survive. I guess the point is, it's probably better to know the end is coming than to have life end abruptly.
Due to a few circumstances, I have shied away from most people the last few days. While I have listened and answered, I have avoided opening conversations. In exchanging e-mails with a friend, I realized that it's wrong of me to stay away from people that I enjoy being around or reading about because someone else is being immature and laying all the blame for something on me. Because of a remark I found posted in a friend's journal, I wanted to run and not look back because I'm just tired of dealing with it. It was not the friend that posted it, it was a comment in response to something. It's wrong to put other people in the middle of my problems, problems that I thought were over. To those two people that ended up stuck in the middle, I apologize. There are no words to express how stupid or how badly I feel over it.
I realized that if nothing else, I'm not a coward and won't run nor will I allow myself to be intimidated. Truth is, whether that person believes what happened to me or not doesn't matter, it did, it's done and over. Life moved on and so did I, it just took time.
When bad things happen to me, I often wonder what I did to bring them upon myself. Such is often the way of Karma, to exact revenge for wrong doing, but also to heal. It is those that invoke Karma to strike at another and that do not question if Karma has perhaps come to take its pound of flesh from them that do not understand the way of it in that respect and need to reexamine their own life before invoking such action. Invoking the intervention of Karma in itself could be considered a negative action according to some of the information I recently read.
Someone once told me that anything is possible in the mind, which is true. However, according to the practitioners of Hinduism writing at AOL's Beliefnet site there are consequences for things done in the mind. It sheds a whole new light on a some things that I had been questioning.
Q. Do you have to pay the price for sins committed by the mind but not committed in reality?
A. Sins committed in the mind generally lead to sins of the flesh. Therefore, we are advised to control our minds. While contemplating sinful thoughts, you cannot be happy. Thus you do suffer for this kind of contemplation. As for any future ramifications of inappropriate contemplation, Krsna instructs us that our mental preoccupation determines our next birth. So-called 'idle' thoughts are not independent of karma; they are active in the psychic dimensions and lead to karmic reactions. Strive to control your mind. This is central to yoga practice.
An article dealing with the Buddist approach to karma appears here. It was most enlightening. Another appears here: Karma and Reincarnation
Due to a few circumstances, I have shied away from most people the last few days. While I have listened and answered, I have avoided opening conversations. In exchanging e-mails with a friend, I realized that it's wrong of me to stay away from people that I enjoy being around or reading about because someone else is being immature and laying all the blame for something on me. Because of a remark I found posted in a friend's journal, I wanted to run and not look back because I'm just tired of dealing with it. It was not the friend that posted it, it was a comment in response to something. It's wrong to put other people in the middle of my problems, problems that I thought were over. To those two people that ended up stuck in the middle, I apologize. There are no words to express how stupid or how badly I feel over it.
I realized that if nothing else, I'm not a coward and won't run nor will I allow myself to be intimidated. Truth is, whether that person believes what happened to me or not doesn't matter, it did, it's done and over. Life moved on and so did I, it just took time.
When bad things happen to me, I often wonder what I did to bring them upon myself. Such is often the way of Karma, to exact revenge for wrong doing, but also to heal. It is those that invoke Karma to strike at another and that do not question if Karma has perhaps come to take its pound of flesh from them that do not understand the way of it in that respect and need to reexamine their own life before invoking such action. Invoking the intervention of Karma in itself could be considered a negative action according to some of the information I recently read.
Someone once told me that anything is possible in the mind, which is true. However, according to the practitioners of Hinduism writing at AOL's Beliefnet site there are consequences for things done in the mind. It sheds a whole new light on a some things that I had been questioning.
Q. Do you have to pay the price for sins committed by the mind but not committed in reality?
A. Sins committed in the mind generally lead to sins of the flesh. Therefore, we are advised to control our minds. While contemplating sinful thoughts, you cannot be happy. Thus you do suffer for this kind of contemplation. As for any future ramifications of inappropriate contemplation, Krsna instructs us that our mental preoccupation determines our next birth. So-called 'idle' thoughts are not independent of karma; they are active in the psychic dimensions and lead to karmic reactions. Strive to control your mind. This is central to yoga practice.
An article dealing with the Buddist approach to karma appears here. It was most enlightening. Another appears here: Karma and Reincarnation
