Nothing is Absolute?

Warning! If you are burdened with darkness and looking for a way out PLEASE talk to someone! You are worthy of all the love and respect life has to give you and the good times will come back.

      Suicide is in the darker grey area of topics for discussion. Many religions consider it an abuse of free will and an insult to life and as a result suicides are considered to be outside the 'blessed places', if you will. Like everything, suicide is a decision that sows karma - in this case, of the negative version - that may very well likely send one down a few notches in the next life. No matter where you look, suicide for any reason is a bad decision. For a long time I considered this to be 100% truth, absolutely. Then I met Sydney Carton and my steel wall took a hit.
     Sydney Carton was a burned-out lawyer in Charles Dickens' England and France in the seminal 'A tale of two cities'. One of his few redeeming qualities, by his own evaluation, was that he was friends with Charles Darnay, whom he respected immensely. When Darnay fell afoul of the French Revolution and was ordered to spend time with Madame Guillotine, Carton saw his chance to save his friend's life and future and give himself a chance at karmic brownie points. With his final words, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." Sydney Carton goes to his destiny with a clear conscience and a contented heart.
     But this is a fictional character, one might insist. What else have I? It wasn't until recently that I started reading up on seppuku - the act wherein the samurai disembowels himself in a final act of sacrifice to honour his lord. This year I read Andrew Rankin's incredible book 'Seppuku: a history of samurai suicide'. The act of seppuku is ancient and far more elaborate than I expected. A very detailed account of a most gruesome way to die. When the samurai commits himself to dying he does it with all his mind, heart, and skill. There can be no doubts or second-guessing.
     Pretty similar to Mr. Carton's decision, isn't it? Of course I can't stop at just one book on even this very dark topic. Of late I've been reading about the kamikaze - Japan's desperate 'divine wind' that was to eradicate the U.S. aircraft carriers during WWII. I recommend Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney's 'Kamikaze diaries' and Maxwell Taylor Kennedy's 'Danger's hour' if you would like to read up on it a bit. The latter inspired me to write this post. Not the same situation as the samurais were in. Unlike them, the kamikaze were young men ordered to destroy themselves and their planes as a way to take some of the U.S. soldiers with them. Based on the recovered diaries from some of these pilots not all of them went to their deaths with a completely clear conscience. Nevertheless, they carried out their missions and the emperor was obeyed. All for nothing.
     These books I recently read slammed against my steel wall of absolutes even harder. Suicide is still a bad decision but if one goes to it with a completely clear mind and conscience, are the consequences lessened? Like most things involving the afterlife, we cannot really know. And what of soldiers who die in battle? They know they may have to make the ultimate sacrifice - just like the samurai and the kamikaze did years ago. It's a matter of perspective, I guess. Meanwhile, my journey of exploration will most likely continue. This is an unfinished and completely unpolished conversation.

    I hope to have some more Sims stuff for you but not for a bit. If I don't post anything else until the new year, have a wonderful Xmas.

Oh God! Oh Karma!

Merry Christmas! I've had a couple of experiences that drove me to thought and action recently. I take full responsibility for my thoughts and actions, and let the karmic chips fall where they may. First, at a Xmas get-together with the extended family yesterday, one of my cousins asked me what adds up to a loaded question in my book. He asked me which god I thought was the best. Evidently he's been studying a little religion (and psychology, I later found out), and wanted to ask my opinion. I'm at a point in my own spiritual path where all I can say is God is the best. God in all His names and identities, so to speak. God has more avatars than World of Warcraft, and they all equal the same thing, so any question about whether Allah is better than Vishnu or Krishna is better than Yahweh meet with the same answer. Be it from within or without, believe in something! Call it Yahweh, Allah, Gitchie Manito, Buddha, or Krishna if you need to ID it, but just go forth and believe in something!
I doubt I got through to my cousin. However, a Xmas get-together is not really the best place to have a lengthy sit-down and talk about gods and belief systems. Perhaps one day, when all schedules are in alignment and my cousin really does want to know my thoughts on this topic, we'll sit and talk about it, but I don't see that day coming up any time soon. Now for the second topic I wanted to write about.... I finished reading 'Way of karma' by Judy Hall and I felt unsettled. I've bashed other writers for books they've written, and I was ready (at first) to bash her out of the ballpark. However, 'Way of karma' does supply several useful facts and attempts to introduce the concept of karma to the West. Her intentions are good, I'll give her that.
For the most part, it's the way she packaged her message. Her sources scream WEST much louder than EAST, and this bothers me for some reason. Then the red flags waved wildly in front of my semi-Buddhist eyes. It was when she started laying natural disasters at karma's doorstep that I started tuning her out. I also found myself at odds with her suggestion that things happen to teach the soul. I have come to understand that the soul knows everything already, but that Ignorance has blinded the soul and has hidden everything. It's not a question of learning, but of remembering. She also goes out of her way to insist that the soul needs to gather as much good karma as possible for future positive rebirths. This flies in the face of what I understand, which says that good and bad karma must cancel each other out. Good and bad karma are the same, really. It's just the skewed perception getting in the way.
Okay, this post is long enough, and I have Xmas chocolate still to get through. BYE!

Fumbling toward insight

Shamelessly lifting part of Sarah McLachlan's album title here.... Anyway, some of my neater insights come from musing in my diary, but I was astounded by the source of this latest rambling. I was reading Keay's "The honourable company" and marvelling at the irony that manifests itself when I compare the concept of honour and match it with the deeds done by the East India Company. Nothing honourable about bribery, massacres, and plain and simple greed, so what makes this company so honourable? Was there ever a period in history that could forgive such barbarisms? No amount of temporal distance can justify what was done in those years. If there's anyone who can rationalize what men like Josiah Child and Clive of India did in the name of greed and wealth, I welcome all comers with an open ear. Don't give me 'manifest destiny' and don't give me capitalistic rhetoric.
Some people in the world today condemn multinationals for a variety of sins. The East India Company could be considered the first multinational, and the sins are more or less the same, only bloodier. I'm speaking from my own viewpoint - I am no expert on the economy or on multinationals, by the way - it just looks like they do more harm than good. Anyway, back to the East India Company and temporal distance. Anyone who's read this blog knows I take stock in karma, and reading "The honourable company" got me thinking about the sheer negative karmic debt these 'entrepeneurs' must've accumulated in this one lifetime alone. I tried to look at all this conquest in the most positive light and could find no justification for it. What could they have possibly brought forward to justify their actions? Surely, most of them met with a worse life next time.
Lately, my thoughts have been on karma and its myriad actions and the outcomes we go through when there's imbalance. I felt at one point like cursing karma for being so complicated and intricate. Wouldn't it be nice to know the karmic output of every last little action (thought/word/deed) we do? It would make the path to Nirvana a little easier. However, I quickly realized that most people (I hope fewer than most, but I'm too pessimistic to think otherwise) would rack up positive karma in the hopes of being reborn in paradise. That, according to what I have learned, is NOT the reason for it all. Nirvana would get completely ignored by such people. For Nirvana, the scales have to be completely balanced and the perceptions completely changed. Therefore, knowing the karmic output of every action is probably a big mistake.
Interesting where insight comes from, isn't it? BYE.