Category Archives: karma

Tales Of The Book Part Fifteen

SOMETHING THERE IS

Something there is that loves balance and righteous redress. That tips the scales to measure out justice and knows no judgments other than the ones we declare for ourselves. Something there is that equates giving with the gifts we receive, and arrows sent into the darkness with barbs that come back and wound us without warning.

Something there is that deals out measure for measure as though they were cards placed thoughtfully in a solemn pack of Tarot. For each Fate dealt to another there is one that comes back to the dealer. For each smile offered to a stranger there is another that comes back as an unexpected offering.

Something there is that won’t allow me to denigrate another without denigrating myself. Or to devalue my efforts when I have given my all to the enterprise. Something there is that knows when laying down bricks of kindness and devotion to others I am building a home for my spirit that casts shadows on palaces and mansions.

Something there is that knows true wealth accumulates in the heart and is the only capital I can give away yet never exhaust. Were I to gather all the riches of Rockefellers and Kings and Oil Barons and hold them locked with a miser’s love in the deepest vault, I would be the most impoverished of spirits walking the planet.

Something there is that won’t allow me to take away the rights of others without losing the ones I hold most dear. With each wall I erect to keep out those I fear, I carve out deeper levels to the prison within which I am held captive. How far from the sun I fall when I build a world to exclude those on whom the sun shines freely.

Something there is that lifts up and honors the gifts of life and love. That breaks through the darkness of a wounded spirit like tendrils of grass breaking through the deepest asphalt. Something there is that will ever rise above fear and the pitiful acts of frightened people and self-serving governments.

Something there is that knows the measure of a man or a woman and the gifts which, by their offering, they have chosen to receive. Something there is that tips the scales to measure out justice and knows no judgments other than the ones we declare for ourselves.

Something there is that lets us build a world for ourselves as we would build a world for others.

Something there is that is writing this now.

Something there is that is reading this now, as well.

From “How To Train A Rock” by Paul Steven Stone, ©2009 Paul Steven Stone

The Universe According To Paul Peterson


In the following excerpt from “Or So It Seems”, a novel that recognizes life as a damn funny spiritual adventure, Paul Peterson expounds on the mechanics of Karma as seen through the eyes of the Seekers For Truth and, most especially, their leader and guru, The Bapucharya.

IT’S ONLY A MOVIE

For some reason that seems to only make sense to Hindu holy men the universe was constructed with Automatic Universal Misunderstanding (AUM) as a core element in its composition. We are purposely led to believe that the physical world we see around us is the real world, the entire world, the only world in which we live and die. And if some entity called God exists He is probably hiding on another planet or at least in the clouds, only coming down for special occasions like the six days He spent creating the world.

We have been led to believe by our parents, teachers and scoutmasters, who have all been fooled before us, that what we see is what we can expect. Except perhaps for a late-inning visit to heaven for those fortunate enough to donate a lot of money to their churches.

But that is not how the universe works according to The Seekers For Truth. In their universe we are all witnesses to a gigantic shared illusion constructed out of vibrations and fancy dreams—and please do not ask me whose dreams.

In this universe, according to Seeker doctrine, we have each agreed to live in this illusory world and pretend it is real. Then to make the whole thing even more incredible we have agreed to forget that we ever agreed to play this game in the first place!

For The Seekers it is like we are all staring at the same movie screen believing it to be life in its entirety. As if we decided to disremember everything else in the world except for what we see up on the screen.

So having forgotten we are merely watching a movie we live out our lives paying off the obligations and debts we owe from previous lives which, by the rules of the game, we have also forgotten. At the same time other individuals are paying off debts and obligations to us from lives they do not remember either. While all of this is happening nobody seems to be consciously aware of any of it!

No wonder everyone looks at you as if you were crazy when you offer even the thinnest glimpse of the cosmos as seen through the eyes of The Seekers For Truth.

“Tell me that again? I have lived many lifetimes and you have lived many lifetimes but neither of us remembers any of them? And during some of those lifetimes I have done things to you that make you do things to me and neither of us remembers that either? And the main thing we are supposed to do while playing this game of pretend is to discover that we are playing the game?”

It is virtually impossible to comprehend the mechanics of the universe as seen through the eyes and spiritual teachings of The Seekers For Truth.

If you do not agree, then explain to me how an individual can have the freedom to respond to events whose outcomes are determined in advance? That is like being able to win a tennis match whose final score is already fixed against you.

“You must have faith,” The Bapucharya has said over and over. “There would be no reason to keep traveling up your Path of Seeking Truth if you already possessed the truth you are seeking. You are on the Path Of Seeking Truth specifically because this grand prize of all grand prizes has not yet been given to you.

“Stick your nose out, children, take a big whiff—ohmigoodness! Can you smell it? Of course you can. It is the scent of fresh cut grass, is it not! You do not need to see with your eyes or hold with your hands the fallen blades of grass to know they are all around you. Just the same you do not need to have this oh-so-elusive thing we call the truth in your hungry little grasp to know that it, too, is real.”