Prologue

I wrote this article in an attempt to answer my own questions about how best to think and act in a world that offers few examples. The Ten Commandments stand as a wonderful set of moral laws that are self-evident and easy to abide with. But I felt there was more going on at a universal level that embraced everyone equally regardless of religion. What follows are the answers that work for me.

I. KARMA and REINCARNATION

Of all the literature, from ancient to modern, devoted to understanding the true nature of the human entity, the chasm between the various points of view remains unbridgeable. For many who would rather not ask, it is simply a matter of denying anything that is not already obvious. They remain safe and sure waiting for science to chip away at the unknown, seeking answers explaining the physics governing the natural world.

From the realm of quarks to the mystery of quasars the human equation remains the least understood of all. Is mind merely the center of sense experience? Is mind just simply a function of the internal process of the brain, guiding an organism through its brief life, and then perishing with it? The field of psychology has been relegated to studying behavior, confirming that the brain is acting with the organism, and subjugating the mind to it.

World religions step away from the data gleaned from nature, and claim it is all because of a creator whose work remains inscrutable. Yet the fact that churches, mosques, and synagogues stand in every community throughout the world is proof enough that an unknown and unproven spiritual agency is accepted and believed. Given the diversity of faith within the various religious sects, it seems obvious that reconciliation is still a long way off.

Where then is a seeker after truth to go for the answers?

The record shows that psychic phenomena is a mysterious, unknown occurrence that defies explanation, and manifests in strange and unaccountable ways. Often called ESP or extra-sensory-perception, such accounts involve telekinesis, clairvoyance, astral projection, and include religious episodes such as transcendental or mystical experiences. Such experiences are well known and highly sought in the East; they have names such as Satori, Moksha, and Nirvana. The mind always seems to be at the center of this activity, yet of a greater power than could only exist within the fixed neural wiring of the brain.

Whether a gift, a talent, or just a psychic ability, one figure that stands out, in what is often called occult science, is Edgar Cayce. The `Sleeping Prophet', as he is called, was a medical diagnostician, a prophet, and a devoted student of bible lore. He left over 14,000 documented records of clairvoyant statements he had given for more than six thousand people over a period of forty-three years. Through self-induced trance-sleep he cured people he had never seen, and answered metaphysical questions that he, at first, could hardly believe in the waking state.

Cayce, Plotinus, and the Theosophists, have long taught the immortality of the soul as opposed to the transience of the body. Known as the principle of transmigration, or reincarnation, its sister doctrine is called Karma, and is known as the law of cause and effect. It seems logical that the soul should require more than one life-experience in the earth-plane to evolve and develop its spiritual "life"; especially if the soul is thought of as having some sense of immortality. Edgar was surprised to hear upon waking that he had answered questions about these states of existence between physical lives. There was no mention of this idea in the bible, and he worried that something had gone wrong with his strange psychic gift. But he continued on with his readings that now included the "Life Reading." It has been of great benefit to many people, especially those souls living in distressed conditions.

The Cayce readings maintain that each person is responsible for the circumstances in which he finds himself. He is not the innocent victim of his environment, he is simply meeting self. When you appear again in a new body, you do not start from scratch; you pick up exactly where you left off. "When a soul enters a new body, a door is opened, leading to an opportunity for building the soul's destiny. Everything which has been previously built, both good and bad, is contained in that opportunity. There is always a way of redemption, but there is no way to dodge responsibilities which the soul has itself undertaken." This is an important aspect of the concept of "meeting self." He continually emphasizes that "thoughts are things"; that "thought is ever the builder." The scriptures allude to the same idea in the phrase: "So as ye think it in your heart, so have ye done it." In Cayce's words: "From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh; and thoughts are deeds, and each builds to himself that which is to be glorification or edification or resentment built in self." We return again to face the results we have brought about. We are free to choose, and we have made choices in our former lives that we are responsible for; and as we make daily choices so do we set the conditions for future choices, the consequences of which are inescapable.

Plotinus, as shown elsewhere, places greater emphasis on the need for a soul to renounce the material world since matter is the principle of evil, but Cayce stresses the self-less activity of a soul in terms of the highest ideals within the material world. "That which makes for soul development, which is the purpose for the entrance of a soul into material experience, is ever through the will for the entity to be in accord with that which is its ideal. If the ideal is chosen for material blessings, material benefits, self-indulgence, fame and fortune, then little may be the soul development; for in these manners there is the deceitfulness of fame and fortune." The ideals that offer the greatest advance in soul development are in terms of self-less activity, but there is always an alternative to working off accumulated debts by unselfish dedication to the welfare of others less fortunate than ourselves. "Then, as there has been and is the passage of a soul through time and space, through this and that experience, it has been and is for the purpose of giving more and more in his relationships one with another; in mercy, love, patience, long-suffering, brotherly love, for these be the fruits of the spirit, and they that would be one with Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth."

One lifetime of genuine sacrifice to the welfare of others might well equalize five or six sterile life experiences where progress stood still. Cayce always and emphatically stresses the power of free will over pre-ordained destiny, and that no soul is ever so encumbered with old debts that it must resign itself to drearily pay and pay. And the soul can advance by methods that are not immediately apparent to our conscious reason. The blind man healed by Christ, for example, was not blind because he had sinned, but because his soul was gaining stature from the experience of blindness. It is important to remember that the most twisted and mangled bodies, we often see in wheel chairs, may harbor beautiful souls for this very reason.

Cayce makes a distinction between the personality and individuality. He explains that the personality is that temporal, passing aspect of the physical body, while the individuality is immortal and eternal. The personality is a high-lighted portion of the individuality, and is shaped by three or four incarnations, that area of earthly experience on which the individuality wants to work. Each incarnation reflects the emotions and talents of the person. Thus a personality is only an aspect of an individuality. A soul might assume any of several personalities, each of which would express a portion of itself. When a life is finished the personality vanishes. Its pattern is absorbed into the individuality. Its record is retained, but it becomes a part of the individuality, which is at all times the sum total of what it has been; all that it has felt, experienced, and thought down through the ages. "Personality is that ye wish others to think and see. Individuality is that your soul prays, your soul hopes for, desires. They need not necessarily be one; but their purpose must be one, even as the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are one. So must body, mind, and soul be one in purpose and in aim." The problem of many souls is that their personality and individuality are not in harmony. The implication is that the emotions lead a soul in the direction that is not in accord with its ideals, so there is little progress. "The individuality and personality do not reflect the same shadow in the mirror of life."

Between Earth lives the soul dwells in planetary dimensions as a state of consciousness that become the mental urges of the individuality carried over into Earth lives. On the other hand, previous earth lives and experiences create the emotional urges becoming the personality of the soul-entity.

Edgar Cayce spent over twenty years giving physical readings as a medical diagnostic tool without any mention of astrology or philosophy. But in 1923 some non-routine questions were posed to the sleeping Cayce which opened the door to a radically different kind of reading--the life reading. It is through the life reading that astrological thought emerged in all its significance. But Cayce emphasized over and over that the strongest power was man himself. As he stated: "The strongest force used in the destiny of man is the sun first, then the closer planets to the earth, or those that are coming to ascension at the time of the birth of the individual, but let it be understood here, no action of any planet, or the phases of the sun, the moon or any of the heavenly bodies surpass the rule of man's willpower."

Mankind's relationship to the solar system is a very personal one. We are caught up in its purpose, and is our purpose for being here. We interact with the heavenly spheres; we influence them as they influence us. The earth is a meeting ground where souls work on what they have learned in other lives, combined with lessons from other dimensions of consciousness in the planetary spheres. Each planet contains a portion of these lessons to be learned, a vibratory center of consciousness in which souls dwell and ascend to greater awareness. Cayce explains planetary vibrations by drawing a parallel with the vibrations one collects, absorbs, and builds by dwelling and working in a special environment, such as a college. As he says: "Attending this or that university would make for a parlance peculiar unto itself. Even though individuals may study the same line of thought, one attending Harvard, another Yale, or the University of Utah, they each would carry with them the vibrations created by their very activity in those environs." In other words, the entire student body gives rise to a collective consciousness or vibration that might be called the`Spirit' of the institution. In the same way, we are affected by planetary vibrations because we have attuned ourselves to them while dwelling in those environs. As Cayce says: "Then there are the sojourns in other realms of the solar system which represent certain attributes. Not that ye maintain a physical earth-body in Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Uranus or Saturn; but there is an awareness or a consciousness in those realms when absent from the body, and the response to the position those planets occupy in this solar system."

The readings indicate that every soul must pass through all of the planetary spheres of consciousness if spiritual progress is to be realized. "Each planetary influence vibrates at a different rate of vibration. An entity entering that influence enters that vibration; it is not necessary that he change, but it is the grace of God that he may! It is part of the universal consciousness, the universal law; for, without passing through each and every stage of development, there is not the correct vibration to become One with the Creator, hence the entity passes along those stages that some have seen as planes, some have seen as steps, some have seen as cycles, and some have experienced as places."

Souls then cycle through the planetary spheres, and according to the readings, each of us is influenced the most by the planet from which we took our last flight into our present incarnation, and influenced the least, if at all, by the planet or planets from which we have been absent the longest. Most people have from four to six planets influencing their lives, but as few as one planet and as many as eight planets have been cited in the readings.

Astrology accepts the idea that the solar system is a spiritual system inhering in the environment of the physical system, just as the human entity is a spiritual being inherent in a physical body. The macrocosm of the sun-planet system is a composit image of the microcosm of the human soul, yet is derived from the former. If this were not the case, then it would make little sense to claim that human beings are `influenced' by the solar, lunar, and planetary spheres.

II. FREE CHOICE AND SOUL DEVELOPMENT

As has been shown, the soul struggles through long eons of evolving life, striving to return to its original source of love, light, and ultimate perfection. It is a long winding path of toil and trouble, of light and darkness. Tests and trials temper and forge the soul into the image of its true nature. Soul takes life unto itself, for life would not be without the indwelling power that drives it to higher levels of Being. Paradoxically, life is fashioned after the constraints of the physical world; thus, soul development is governed by physical processes, yet is still independent of them. Soul growth prior to mankind's evolving Self awareness, we can assume, was rather routine and steady. The human moral condition has now brought soul to the threshold of cosmic destiny, yet falters and falls with adoration for itself, and the things of the physical world.

Using guidelines set forth by sages, mystics, and esoteric teachers, I will attempt to explore the ramifications of free choice on soul development for those interested in the doctrine of Reincarnation and Karma. Granted that human beings possess free-will, we will leave the various ethical theories to the philosophers, and simply state that the human soul strives to return to the pure love, Goodness, and perfection of its Source, whether we call that source God, the Absolute, the ONE, the Father, or any number of other terms.

It seems that souls have little choice about what they must "face" regarding their past actions. Whatever horrendous act perpetrated in a previous life, a soul must ultimately face the outcome of that act. Although the Law of Grace, in hand with Karma, allows the soul, if not up to the task in one life experience, an opportunity for postponement until such time they can "meet Self." It seems like a good idea that there is no conscious knowledge of such things, otherwise the temptation to terminate the gift of life might prove too strong for a weaker soul, and thereby interfere with its own destiny. Whatever the case may be about balancing previous karma, it does not involve anything we have any conscious control over. The important factor at any given moment, in a person's life, must be to avoid acquiring any unnecessary, unwanted, and unproductive karma. This is the one thing we do have control over, therefore it becomes of extreme importance to be in accord with the highest principles and ideals the soul can attain to, and avoid acting contrary to these ideals.

According to Plotinus and Cayce, our actions and behavior set future conditions that are unalterable, since it is virtually impossible to take something back once set in motion. To murder someone in a rage is a final act that all the remorse in the world cannot undo. The national state may assume the role of balancing the murderer's karma, in his same life, by executing him. This would have the effect of canceling the act of murder, but I think that in a future life the murderer's soul still needs to deal with all the feelings, and false justifications leading to the act. Still further, as mentioned, it is not just our actions that hang our karma in the balance, but the very ideas, emotions, and intents leading to the act that determines how the scales will swing. As the Cayce readings say: "Thoughts are things, and as they run so are the impressions made on time and space." What we think, or the content of our thoughts, is always shifting the scales, and determining to what extent we grow as spiritual beings.

But what is a poor shoe-maker to do about his spiritual growth for instance? As the Cayce readings indicate: Treat everyone with respect and kindness. Make a good pair of shoes and sell them for a fair price. Try to find a place in your heart to offer shoes to someone who has none. "For these be the fruits of the Spirit." And what of you and me? Do we harbor resentment or grudges? Do we envy others for what they have and we not? Do you have enemies? Would you wish bad luck or ruin on someone else? If you can answer yes to any of these questions, then it may be time to take another look at your own spiritual estate.

The affairs of life constantly challenge and present situations and conditions that we have to respond to; that is, we have to choose a course of action determined in large part by our values and ideals. One accepted tenet of karma is that each soul is unique and at its own level of development. Whether the soul is approaching the level of a saint or imprisoned for vicious crimes, it is obvious that each has its own work to do. Shrouded within the darkness of the criminal's soul, his nobler nature must be recognized for what it is, and shining forth from it, the soul must reach upward for its own goodness, and out of the muck and mire it finds itself. The soul will again be on its way, hopefully recognizing its true nature and the need to atone for past deeds done.

What of us good folk, that live the best we can and strive to be better people? It seems the closer we come to that purity of being we've struggled to reach, the steeper the path becomes. Suddenly the smallest things become immensely important, the subtlest thoughts reaching vast proportions. Even when we recognize the next higher plateau, a benevolent act here is countered by an ill thought there. We all have a good side and a dark side. It is difficult enough to keep the two sides in balance, and even then, we often don't seem to be going anyplace.

I believe Plato was right when he said it is best to act with reason rather than the emotions. Thinking a thing through and acting appropriately is much wiser than allowing our emotions to drive us to actions that we may regret. Unfortunately, life is not something we can always hold on to with calm cool control. We are constantly buffeted about by events out of hand, and forced to make decisions that impact forever the course of our destiny. Karma stresses that an action sets off a chain of events that careens down a time-path having its effect here and there, and then eventually returning to settle at our own doorstep. Controlling our destiny, in large part, becomes a matter of controlling our thoughts. Soul growth requires cleaning up the thought patterns leading to action. A good soul striving to be better takes heed of what is forming in thought. Cast out the darkness; purge the mind of what is less than ideal Plotinus would say. The nobler soul recognizes its true course, and the need to do what is best for its future state.

For most of us, it is not possible to escape to the forest or desert, and let go the fetters of living with the constant demands of life. Then what is one to do? Recognizing a spiritual plan as set forth in the Law of Karma will establish a guide for soul development, and give meaning to Universal purpose-- the birthright of all. Conscious awareness of one's inner spiritual nature should light the way to the work necessary for its future good. When one accepts the idea that the soul will be back in a future state determined by what we do now, then our thoughts and deeds take on tremendous importance.

Many doubters will ask: "What if there is no such thing as a soul, or no state of being after the grave?" I say: Would the world still not be a better place to live with a moral code that worked for everyone? With nothing to lose and everything to gain, the doctrine of Reincarnation and Karma gives an explanation of soul that stands alone without religious authority or sanction. Is it easier to believe that lost souls burn in hell for eternity, or that good souls exist in a state of constant unending bliss? It is neither a solution nor an offer of hope--more likely a dead end. Physical and spiritual evolution revolve together about a common center manifesting as living beings. Life is the ultimate and final expression of creative realization in the universe. How we live and what we think does make a difference. It is not too late, nor is it ever too late to set foot on the path leading to the glory that is the right of every soul.

Copyright © 1993 By JohnK Hammelton