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I read a lot of bullshit and that doesn’t exclude the religious text “Autobiography of a Yogi.” The author writes about miracles like his guru returning from the dead in physical form to impart psychic information about the afterlife, and that’s probably the main unbelievable thing that happens. More bullshit: apparently one of the gurus decides it’s his duty to exact karmic payments on a rodent, who he believes almost died in a fire. So instead of letting the little rodent live it’s life without pain, he kicks it into the fire to be burned yet survive. His justification was that he was doing the karmically correct thing by punishing the rodent which was going to pay its debt by dying, as if its in his power to do something like that. That set off alarm bells about people in positions of power doing the same thing; like punishing people for their karmic debts. Such bullshit. But for the most part, the book was a mostly secular account of a very distinguished yogi. The story had many eye opening features of the beliefs of the yogi masters in india, who, unlike buddhists, worship god, and unlike Christians, seem to lead a mostly intelligent life. My two examples are just the extremes of the books bullshit that I happen to remember. And in fact, I only read about 3/4ths of the book.

One of the things I also remember was the concept of Karma, it being a physical thing that all living bodies accrue during life and the afterlife. The gurus would render a special service to certain diciples—he would take on the karma of the person and restore it to good karma. What was interesting about this is the gurus would actually physically suffer when they were doing this, through hives and welps on their skin. Now, this may sound like bullshit to you, but I think it’s very interesting. Do modern day people take on the Karma of other people in this way?

But people have different opinions about Karma. While the yogis belive it to be an actual substance that clings to you throughout your multiple lives and misguides you, leading to suffering, most people seem to believe that Karma is simply the natural law that when you do bad things, bad things happen to you. Like, if you wreck your car, it’s because you stole the car in the first place and that’s just a natural consequence of what you did. This view is very different from the guru’s view who do believe karma is natural, but specify it as being a real substance; but the modern view is relevant also about what I’m talking about—modern day people healing the karma of modern individuals in society—because people’s actions in life can be the cause of good or bad Karma. FOR EXAMPLE:

Take me for instance. R____ and D_____ are very judgemental, and they know it, in fact I’ve gotten D______ to admit on several instances that she’s judgemental. It’s a long story, but I guess it’s just their culture. For whatever that’s worth. But anyway. I am affected by this in a major way, because not only do I have to listen to her talk about other people, but she directly judges me for doing shit that I really am not going to change, like drinking beer. So in a way, she’s my Karma and I’m suffering because of it. Now here’s what I’m curious about. I’ve accepted her judgemental ways, or I’m working to, and I’m trying to forgive her for it. Once I get to a level of complete acceptance, and I’m not affected anymore by her judgemental habits, am I healing her Karma? By forgiving her, am I performing that same feat that the guru’s did, which led to physical suffering, the act of resolving somebody’s Karma? And if I am, what are some other examples of that happening? Does the judge do it in a courtroom? Does a doctor do it for his patients? And in what ways do they suffer?

I don’t know, food for thought.