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How Do You Redeem Your Soul?
Finding the life answer to how you redeem your soul is a challenge. A redeemed soul sees itself as new and unblemished. To reach this state of innocence would be impossible according to the law of karma, for the cycle of sowing and reaping never ends. (Unlike sin, karma grips us even in the case of accidents and inadvertent mistakes – regardless of circumstances, an action is an action and has consequences.)
The problem is further complicated by the fact that each person performs millions of actions in a lifetime, and these overlap on all levels. Emotions and intentions are both tied in. The parsing of good from bad becomes extremely complicated, and the doctrine of karma makes the calculation harder rather than easier, because the mind can always find some tiny detail that was overlooked previously.
A redemptive God is the only being in the cosmos exempt from karma (or sin). Or to be more accurate, God transcends karma because he alone isn’t in the cosmos.
Clearly no one can repeal the law of cause and effect. In the East, using the terminology of karma, they say that evil acts pursue a soul across time and space until the debt is paid. Even death cannot abolish a karmic debt; this only happens by becoming a victim of the same evil you committed or by working off bad imprints through good ones.
At the level of second attention, however, this cycle is irrelevant. One doesn’t need to repeal the law of karma at all. Despite all the activity on the surface of life, a speck of awareness inside is not touched. The instant they wake up in the morning, a saint and a sinner are in the same place. They both feel themselves to be alive and aware.
This place stands outside reward and punishment. It knows no duality. When you have accomplished the task of finding this place, holding on to it, and living there, duality is gone. You are free from all bondage of good or bad actions.
Adapted from How To Know God, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2000).
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11 comments
add your comment »Karma isn't all bad. Most belief systems that include it, have a way to avoid it. Most often like in the Book of the Dead, simple awareness of ourselves and our place in the One is all it takes to jump out of the lifetime cycle.
I can't say I like the idea of people paying in this lifetime for prior acts. After all, we clearly hacve some people who get enraged when under pressure.
Since the personality doesn't change all that much, we'd end up with a whole world full of maniacs like Hitler.
Of course there are days when I wonder if this hasn't already happened. :)
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Anna, I hear what you are saying. I used to say that too, "I didn't ASK to be born!" while I put my mother thru hell as a teen. Then I started reading everything I could get my hands on about reincarnation. I slowly developed a view that comes from the hodgepodge of books I've read. Jess Stearn, Ruth Montgomery, Ramtha, Deepak, Edgar Cayce, to name a few.
I've come to the conclusion that the soul of the man who became known as Jesus had lived lives before that one, according to Edgar Cayce. I guess it depends on the choices of that soul as to how quickly they advance.
But I'm not into speed, obviously. I have to learn everything the hard way, and that's okay too. I don't believe like Ramtha says, that which you touch on. That every little misdeed would make it so that one could never ever catch up and pay off all the Karma. According to Ramtha, one misdeed would cause thousands of lifetimes to pay off. This is too depressing to me.
If you want to get a good idea of how it works. Read "The Search for Bridey Murphy" It was a breakthrough book that came out in the sixtees about a housewife who, under hypnosis started talking about a life as Bridey. They were able to go back to Ireland and verify that she really existed.
In that book, a man and her kept chasing eachother lifetime to life time. She'd kill him, he'd kill her and on and on it went.
I think it has to do with our free will and ability to refine ourselves over time. Our lessons become a part of who we b
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Good stuff, Deepak. This reminds me of a story my father tells of a ninja assassin who was sent to commit a murder. He crept into the strangers room but before he could perform the act, the victim awoke and started a conversation with him. He sheathed his sword and left.
The moral is, you can commit any act you want as long as you are free of guilt for the act. Now, I take my dad's stories with a grain of salt, but it does ring a bit true, that we are our own judge and jury and if we THINK it's wrong, we will punish ourselves for it. (I may have gotten the story wrong a bit, but you get the drift.)
I actually hope this isn't true, because if the assassin had commit murder, I'd like to think that he wouldn't get away with it due to the law of karma. This law keeps me from climbing a bell tower with a rifle and creating even more bad karma for me!
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There are several serious philosophical problems with the belief in karma. Does this endless pursuing of individual souls down the millennia ever cease? Does any one soul EVER manage to work off all off his/her previous bad karma and reach a state of zero? If so, what happens to that particular soul then? Is it allowed to "rest" and escape the eternal curse of birth, life, death and rebirth? Presumably, every new lifespan adds to the bad karma, as it simply is not possible not to have bad thoughts, accidentally hurt or upset another person, or always refrain from being e.g., impatient, irritable, abrupt, unloving, uncaring. We live in a very hard, materialistic, greedy, violent world, and do need to protect ourselves and look after our own interests; we cannot always put other people first, and constantly worry about the impact we are having on everyone else. If we do, we just get used and abused and walked all over by less scrupulous people. Here in the West, simply by living here, in this kind of society, we are harming not just other less fortunate people, AND animals, but also the planet itself! With the best will in the world, we do need to live, work, house and feed ourselves, yet everything we do causes harm in some way. I do not choose it to be thus; I am trapped in a society and a world not of my making. Does my soul deserve punishment for this? I did not choose to be born here, and now, and to a particular couple. How does the law of karma deal with these issues?
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I'm with you too, Uma and Nightcat! Move forward and live life to it's fullest with love and gratitude!
I once was asked about how I would want my funeral to be, and I said A PARTY! with no hesitation. To follow I said, No need to be sad because I am physically gone, be happy I finally know what is on the other side!
I am a believer in karma, but as I said earlier, (and I think is what Deepak is trying to say) if you live your life with love and gratitude, trying as it may be, you will have menial karmic reprocussions. So menial, you wouldn't even consider them karma, just a little draw-back on life that's easily overcome. LOVE AND GRATITUDE, WHAT LOVELY WORDS!
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I'm with you Uma. Once we feel that we are in God and He is in us, all the rest is trivial. Just Being together, United with the Source, that's what's important.
Kind of makes you want to hit the fast forward button sometimes and jump straight into the bliss. :)
Lovely article and comments as always.
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Deeper And Deeper Into The Silence; The Great Silence. Brighter
And Brighter The Peace; The Peace At The Centre. The Centre Is Peace, The One Centre. The One Is Centre; The One Is All;
All Is One; All Is Centre.
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The concept of God separate from creation is something I can't get my mind wrapped around.In quantum universe where all is emergent from divine source, extruding through dimensions where only vibratory rate governs form and consciousness unified, only illusionary separate, in the great dance of becoming and growing towards awareness of the ONE, there is nothing to be redeemed. Nothing is lost. We are the flowers of our souls in this world growing through choice and responsibility towards this awareness enjoying this dance of life.We act against the truth of our hearts that know unity and will never harm another heart and we are devoured by the Apep of bitter remorse to learn to make happier choices along other lines. Creation, the "Big Bang ", is simultaneous and on-going and this reality of NOW, the only time truly. When we say "truly" we mean in terms of the reality of physics that proves that sequence is an illusion; the reality being of perhaps infinite divergent probabilities, paths breaking off from the now awareness in all directions felt as time and space. The bitter remorse and sorrow of wrong-doing creates an alternate reality where a different path is taken. The remorseless response to punishment for wrong-doing creates an alternate reality where one tries different ways to get away with it .Wrong doing is stealing another's choices.Killing, En-glamouring, and Enslavement, are how choices are stolen. Peace and Joy be upon all of you.
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I am glad to hear about the possibility of working off bad imprints with good ones. I was haunted for years by the acts of infidelities I enacted while in a long-term relationship, and although I have had "some bad karma" since then I had been worried, as I wasn't sure if I had worked off my karmic debt, which is very important to me, as I am now in the most loving and spiritually matched relationship of my life. I wouldn't want anything to ruin it. I am very self-aware now and watch and try to correct even minor negative thoughts and actions. I feel that I learned the hard way about creating bad karma, I always advise people to leave a lover with head held high - you know to have the courage to end a relationship that isn't working anymore rather than cheating in a cowardly manner.
I think I will be able to advise my daughter when she is older and in a way those bad things I did and the ensuing bad karma I received make me appreciate the sacred beauty and preciousness of a committed and true relationship now, so that shows that good things can come out of bad if we are prepared to self-examine and change. Thanks Deepak, for all your wise wise words x
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As a spirtitual, sincerely ethical individual I form my opinions about religion independently of tradition, authority, or established belief, and I am not concerned at all about soul or karma, heaven or hell. I respect and enjoy the spiritual essays by Deepak and other prominent thinkers and now, after having given up all hope, I spiritually feel a lot better.
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