Karmic Debt
Gentlemen,
I thought I would stay out of this one, but it is getting very interesting.
On the topic of mosquitoes, if you sit in the smoke of your campfire they will leave you alone. Of course you have to inhale the smoke, but that is better than being eaten alive. I have heard that if you eat garlic they will stay away from you too. I do not mean the old vampire remedy of hanging garlic around your neck. I received this information from a relatively credible source. I cannot remember where though and I have never actually tried it because eating garlic will keep just about everyone else away from you too. It might be worth a try if you are out in the bush. Years ago I read a book about an American Indian Medicine Man named Rolling Thunder. The author of the book was eaten by mosquitoes, Rolling Thunder was not. Rolling Thunder implied it had to do with your state of mind. The theory is that certain states of mind release different hormones in the body that are sensed by the animal. That is how dogs can smell tumors and fear in people. These conditions cause certain chemicals to emit from your body. The same condition is probably what keeps dangerous animals from injuring monks. I have a friend who, when he was about 3-4 years of age, picked up as diamondback rattlesnake and brought it in the house to show his mom. His mom, showing extreme self-control, calmly said, “Yes dear, very nice. Now take it outside pleaseâ€. The innocence of children frequently protects them from dangerous animals.
Think of Karma as cause and effect. Every action has consequences that ripple out from it like a stone dropped into a pond. These effects occur on two levels, the physical plane and the spiritual plane. The effects of actions on the physical plane are relatively obvious. The effects of actions on the spiritual plane are not so obvious. It is not the action that affects the spiritual plane it is the attitude with which the action was performed and the emotional attachment to the action or its results. It is not what you do, but why you do it. The same action is acceptable or unacceptable depending on the reasons it is performed and Karmic debt is acquired relative to the emotional attachment the individual has. The following example is one of my favorites.
A samurai’s benefactor was killer by another samurai. The samurai pursued the villain and cornered him. As he was about to be killed, the villain spit in the samurai’s face. The samurai sheathed his sword and walked away. He could no longer kill the villain with a clear conscience. Before he was spit upon the samurai’s actions were motivated by honor and justice. The samurai code of honor and the laws of the society were the guides for his actions. After being spit upon he became personally insulted and angry. His actions would have been motivated by personal vengeance because of the insult. Therefore, his actions would not have been just, they would have been personal.
Actions in and of themselves are neither right or wrong it is reason that we perform the actions that determine whether they are correct or not.
On the spiritual plane, attitudes that you have when you die will be the attitudes you had when you lived. Those attitudes will accompany you wherever you go after death and will affect your experiences. Just as if you have certain attitudes right now and moved to another city, those attitudes would follow you and affect your experiences in the new city. This is what Karma is, the consequences of attitudes and emotional attachments that follow you after death, because they are with you at the time of death.
While the refusal to take another life needlessly, is a noble behavior. It is not necessarily a higher spiritual level. This situation is comprehensively addressed in the Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna is the main character. He is the greatest warrior of the Pandava clan whose kingdom has been usurped through the dishonest machinations of their cousins the Kaurava clan. Before the final battle of the war between the clans Arjuna rides out to the battlefield with his charioteer Krishna, who is God incarnate. Arjuna laments the injustice of being put in a position of having to kill his friends and relatives for the ownership of a kingdom. He is contemplating allowing himself to be killed rather than perpetrate an unjust act. Krishna teaches Arjuna many things, what pertains specifically to our topic is this, since everything is ultimately spirit, and the spirit is indestructible and eternal, no one is actually killed. It is not the act of killing that is wrong it is that act of killing for egocentric reasons and with emotional attachment to the results of killing that is wrong. The damage of unjust killing is to the performer of the unjust killing not the person killed. We are mere actors on the stage of life. Just as the actors survive the play people survive their life. As actors it is our responsibility to perform our roles dispassionately. That is without emotional attachment to the actions or the results of the actions we perform. It is the emotional attachment to actions and their results that causes Karma.
By extension, eating meat is neither higher nor lower on the spiritual plane. The emotional attachment to the need for either yourself or others to eat or abstain from eating meat will cause the Karmic debt, not the eating of meat in and of itself.
I am not saying that it is foolish to eat be a vegetarian. If that is your path and it works for you great!! The same goes for eating meat. I am merely saying that eating meat is not a lesser spiritual state than vegetarianism and a meateater does not acquire Karmic debt because of his actions.
Sincerely,
Scott
Just giving you a hard time buddy, great post!