Tag: tantra

Meditation–Two Chains

This is a meditation of the analytical type, having a visualized structure. It is designed to rid yourself of the limiting burdens of guilt and retribution (payback or justice). A spiritual friend once explained to me why we can never be free to reach our full potential on earth and why we are doomed to forever reincarnate into suffering.

When we live on earth, we inevitably hurt others, intentionally and accidentally. We feel guilty for harm we caused, so we spend much of our time trying to atone, and we reincarnate to repair harm we caused to others in our lives. In our life on earth, we are also inevitably harmed by others, and we seek retribution for undeserved harm from others in this life, past lives, and lives to come. Inevitably we acquire nemeses, beings that retaliate for our unintended harm to them. We feel guilty for harming them and try to make amends, only to find they seek revenge, striking back, usually hurting us intentionally worse than we harmed them accidentally. We then seek justice against them, causing them intentional righteous harm for which they feel wronged and wish to retaliate.

This cycle of guilt for harm caused and retribution for harm received can continue even beyond the grave, all parties seeking atonement and revenge for eternity, never reaching heaven or heavenly states of mind. I was horrified by my friend’s view of eternal conflict, but had to admit that it is possible to become trapped this way in this life and in future lives. Even killing a nemesis only makes the trap deeper. I knew that breaking this cycle must be possible, so I developed this Two-Chains analytical meditation.

Imagine that you are an angel. In this life you wish to be free to help others and reach your full potential. In your next life you wish to be free to reach heaven. You wish to spread your wings and fly. But you see that you are chained to earth with two heavy chains and you cannot fly. You cannot lift off. You know that flying creatures cannot carry heavy burdens, they must be light. So you examine your chains and see that each link on the left is heavy guilt for wrongs done to others, and each link on the right is the wish for retribution for heavy wrongs done to you. Visualize this until the image is clear and stable. Feel the weight of the chains.

When you strike off a link on the right to retaliate for wrongs suffered, you notice that a new link appears on the left, heavy guilt for harm caused by retaliating. Whenever you remove a link of guilt from the left by trying to undo harm caused, a link appears on the right because the harmed person strikes back, adding a new link needing retribution to the right chain. You notice that the two chains are connected. Removing a link from one side merely shifts the link to the other chain, and the burden remains the same.

So you look at how the chains are attached, and you see that you are holding them in your hands. If you were to drop the chain in your right hand by letting go all wishes for righteous justice, forgiving all for harm done to you, you would still be grasping in your left hand all the heavy links of guilt for harm you caused others, and you still could not fly. If you instead forgive yourself for all harm you caused and let go the burden of atonement but still grasp in your right hand the need for retribution for harm done to you, you are still burdened and cannot fly.

The solution of course is to release both chains. Shout to yourself, “I will no longer play this game!” Simultaneously forgive yourself for harming others and forgive others for harming you. Visualize opening both hands and letting the chains fall, then spreading your wings and flying free of the burdens of life. An unchained angel. Thus freed, what can you do now?

Tuning–Tribes & Stories

Most of us believe in an objective reality that is universal for everyone, and we think our personal view of the world is that universal objective reality. Most of us live in a culture or extended family that holds the same views of the world and reinforces our idea that we perceive the correct view of reality. We will call this group our Tribe.

What should rid us of this idea that our view of reality is universal is when a member of our Tribe goes rogue and disagrees with us about the-way-things-are. Then we exile the rogue member from our Tribe and sever communication with them. This keeps our Tribe pure, allowing us to continue to imagine that our view of reality is correct. That’s what we do, demonize anyone who fails to see the world as we do and eject them from our family or cultural group. These people are labeled: wrong, deluded, insane, criminal, traitors, terrorists, enemies, evil, or various other names used by our Tribe to discredit wrong-thinking outsiders.

What we fail to realize when we reject the views of others is how small our Tribally-defined world is compared to the views of the rest of the world. Our Tribe of like-thinkers may be a dozen or so out of a world population of some 8 billion. Our assumption that all right-thinkers agree with our views may not be justified.

The truth is we all live in separate worlds determined by the Stories that we tell ourselves. Stories are the tales we tell ourselves and other members of our Tribe about the world we live in, who we are, and how we came to be who we are (or think we are). Shared Stories are those held by all members of our Tribe that hold the Tribe together. Personal Stories are those that hold a personality together, giving that person a consistent way of interacting with other Tribal members and the world. Stories define us and the world we live in.

Ethnic shared Stories may describe how the world and people came into existence, how the people overcame adversity and evil, often with the help of divine power, and how virtue or divine power gives them the right to their land. Personal Stories may describe how that person achieved success through effort or deserved success because of virtues. Personal Stories for those their Tribes label as failures may include how they were raised poorly, how people harmed them, and how good fortune eluded them. All these Stories are deemed essential to the people who believe them, because they support their worldview.

If we attack or discredit people’s Stories, they will push back, often violently. Often the Stories of people or Tribes conflict with the Stories of other people or Tribes, causing the conflicting people and Tribes to try to harm one another. Anger, pain, killing, war, and other forms of chaos result. To avoid chaos, we have to know and understand the Stories of others in order to build shared Stories that promote harmony among people and Tribes. We may have to change parts of our Story that result in conflict, or at least accept that their Story is their Story and coexist.

Ideally we should try to combine our Stories into a harmonious shared Story. The only way our personal Story will not be detrimental to other people and the earth is if our Tribe expands to include the entire world and all the creatures dwelling there. Our worldview must encompass the world. I think we must become global in our thinking. What do you think?

Miracles

On the spiritual path we encounter miracles, if we understand what they are and are not afraid to see them. I have seen every miracle described in the New Testament, including turning water into wine (in a chemistry class). Doctors see the sick cured and the dead revived daily. In Michigan, we walked on water every winter. So let’s be clear about what a Miracle is. This concept was explored in depth in the book Western Tantra, the White Path of Ethics.

Many people think Miracles are impossible events, but quantum mechanics shows us that nothing is impossible, though some events are extremely improbable. So impossibility is not a criterion. Only natural and possible events can occur. Webster’s dictionary defines a miracle as an extremely unusual event. For use on the spiritual Path, Western Tantra defines a Miracle as a natural occurrence that is either so rare or so improbable in its timing and beneficial in its outcome that it suggests the presence of Divine intervention. When you consider the number of stars and habitable planets in the universe and the odds that one particular sperm and egg would join to make your body, it is a Miracle that you are here on earth at this time and place reading these words.

I was a skeptical atheist as a young scientist in my teens and early twenties. But I was also open-minded and willing to test my ideas with evidence from my own life experience and the experience of others. Early on, I learned that logic and reasoning unsupported by evidence can lead to wrong conclusions. This was brought home by my Reed College freshman year humanities teacher, Marvin Levich. In a memorable lecture using a long series of logical steps, each step of which was irrefutably true, Professor Levich proved logically that black is white.

There is nothing logical about a belief in benevolent Divine beings or an afterlife. Logically, we are only very smart animals, biological machines powered by chemistry, and when the biochemical processes animating us stop, we decay and should cease to exist as humans. Our consciousness should stop. Unfortunately for this theory, evidence contradicts this idea. I’m not alone in remembering past places and events that do not belong to the life I am living. We now know that DNA can transmit memory, but the people, places, and events that people remember do not belong to their genetic lineage. Some of them can provide credible evidence. The only way to retain the belief that when we are dead we no longer exist is by ignoring evidence to the contrary. This cherry-picking of evidence to support one’s views is known as “investigator bias” or “prejudice.”

Once one has accepted the possibility that the essence of our being, consciousness, may continue without a physical body, it then opens the possibility that other conscious entities may exist independent of physical bodies. That in turn opens the possibility that conscious entities superior to ours may exist (Judging by how stupid we humans can be, the existence of superior intelligence is almost a certainty!). Once we admit the possibility of superior intelligence independent of physical form, we can ask the questions, “Does at least one superior consciousness know that we are here, and does that consciousness care about us? Is there a sentience in the universe that tries to help us?” That is where Miracles become important.

It is hard to differentiate between intended events and random events. I had to learn statistical analysis in both my Masters in Psychology and Masters in Safety programs, both for research and risk assessment. I have a good sense of probability and how to calculate statistical significance. I was cured of a disease that was resistant to all medical treatment by means of an improbable series of events. The events immediately followed my first true prayer, were the ordinary actions of people, but were unusual in their timing, frequency, duration, and results. It felt like a Miracle.

I started paying attention to the ways that beneficial events happen in the world. This lead to my observation that there appears to be a superior intelligence in the universe that manifests through timely natural events, and often through the unselfish actions of sentient beings (people and animals) to produce beneficial results in a manner that cannot be explained by chance. I call them Miracles, and I have seen many. Have you seen Miracles in your life?

Formlessness

There are three realms of existence, domains that affect the world. Let’s walk through them. Look around and tap things. That’s the Material world, the Physical Form realm. Form means having characteristics that can be described. Look in a mirror–that is your Physical Form Body. Hold up some fingers. Most people around you would agree on how many fingers you are holding up. Obvious, right? Almost everyone can perceive the Material realm.

Now close your eyes and imagine your face and body. Notice that your mental image of yourself has shapes and other characteristics. That is also Form, Mental Form. Imagine a letter. That visualized symbol has a characteristic Form that you can see in the “mind’s eye” and can be described. Imagine hearing a word. That is an auditory Mental Form. Imagine walking. That is a visualized action, a series of Mental Forms. This is the second realm of existence, the Mental Form realm, or Spirit Realm, the non-physical things you can see, feel, and hear with your inner perceptions.

This Mental Form realm also exists, because much of what you can visualize, with effort you can make Real, you can manifest your vision in the Physical Form world. Even if you can’t bring an idea into Physical reality, there are engineers, artists, animators, or scientists who can. Almost everything humans have created first existed as ideas or plans in someone’s mind.

But where do these ideas come from? Many, like the benzene ring, spring into people’s minds in a vision, fully formed. Artists, like my mother, describe this source of ideas as a well that never runs dry. There is a source of potential that contains everything that could exist, awaiting our mental and physical effort to visualize it and bring it into existence. Potential has not yet taken Form, it is Formless.

Many things that exist in the world have no Form: space, time, love, hate, fear, joy, beauty, consciousness. Every one of these “things” influence the world, therefore exist, even though they are invisible and have no shape, color, size, or other describable characteristics. They have no Form. Yet we experience them. We know they exist. This is the Formless realm of existence.

All three realms of being have power in the world, thus they all exist. People have experienced inhabitants of each realm. We all perceive the creatures of the Material world. Some people experience ghosts, angels, and other spirits as Mental Forms, the Spirit world. Fewer people experience invisible forces and beings without form, the Divine dimension. Atheist scientists who perceive the beauty of the invisible laws of nature, relationships among forces, and mathematics are touching Divinity, the Formless reality underlying all-that-is.

People have differing capacity to perceive and master the three realms, depending on their Spiritual maturity. Everyone has at least some access to physical perception, what we call the Material world. Those of us who are limited to the five senses, or fear what lies beyond them, or have limited imagination, often deny that the other realms exist. They dismiss the Spirit realm as mere fantasy, and say they only believe what they can see and touch. It is possible to be a master of the Material world and have no perception of worlds beyond. Such people can become leaders and “stars,” wealthy and admired by many. But without access to creativity, they must rely on helpers or subordinates who perceive possibilities beyond the mundane. Some masters of the Material world may be Spiritual cripples. This is sad.

Leaving the mundane world of the five senses behind, many people are able to visualize things that other people cannot perceive. In the arts and sports, we say these people are “creative,” they can manifest what they imagine into forms that others can perceive, clay into sculpture, emotion into music, words into story, movement into performance. In the sciences, we call those who have access to the Spirit realm of Mental Form “gifted.” They can perceive relationships among matter, energy, time, space, and forces to create technology that generations ago would have been called “magic.” In the religions, there are people with access to the Spirit realm of thought and deep perception who can see and hear beings and realms without Physical Form. We call them teachers, gurus, psychics, meditators, shamans, and prophets. We say they have the third eye or sixth sense. These are our masters of the Spiritual world. Many of these people, especially those with large egos, regard being a master of the Spirit world as the ultimate attainment. But this is merely a step along the Path to ultimate experience.

Delving deeper than the visualized characteristics of religious images, of gods and demons, beyond even the limits of human imagination, lies the realm of ecstatic religious experience. The realm that can only be experienced, because it is beyond the power of words to describe. The Tao. The one. The unitive experience. Emptiness. The Ultimate. The Divine. The Formless.

This Formless realm can be accessed by anyone, but few make the effort to perceive the reality that is the foundation of our experience. It can be found with stillness meditation into the Heart of Reality. It can be reached through devotional prayer. It can be given as the gift of solace from adversity. It can be the karmic effect from selfless service. It can be found after years of diligent practice, or the blinding flash of insight in an instant. There are as many different ways as there are people, and many ways yet to be discovered. We call masters of the Formless Divine realm Mystics, and they are hidden everywhere. How would you find one, or better yet become one?

Love

Love is one of the three principle aspects of all Tantric spiritual paths and the principle practice for Western Tantra’s Path of Ethics, but what do we mean by the word Love? People use the word love for many things, including sex (let’s make love), craving (I love lasagna), affection (you don’t show me love), attachment (love binds us), devotion (I love my job), and even zero in tennis. We need to first be clear on the meaning. When Western Tantra uses the word Love capitalized, it means unconditional, universal love for all beings and creation. Love for all with no if-then conditions whatsoever, like: “I will love you if you will love me in return.” Universal, unconditional Love is a state of being, not a transaction.

Why should we want universal, unconditional Love? The answer lies with the goal of Western Tantra to become one with the universe. Western Tantra posits a sentient universe that cares for all of us, the sinners and the just, the rich and the poor, the fit and the disabled, the wise and the foolish, the beautiful and the disfigured, young and old, everyone and everything without exception. In other words, the universe loves all of us unconditionally. If we want to become one with that Loving universe, we too must Love in that way to be compatible.

If you doubt that the universe is Loving, the book Western Tantra shows us how to discover if the universe is conscious and cares about us. To find our Heart center and synchronize our mind with that Loving universe, we use various meditations and tune our minds to this loving totality (see Meditation and Tuning posts). When we let go or surrender to this reality, the boundary or border separating us from Totality dissolves, and we are reborn into this new Loving reality. Real people have had this experience. If you suspend prejudice and ask around, you can find them.

What is the boundary or border that separates us from a Loving Totality? Our Egos create these separations from the rest of the Universe. Babies may be born without Egos, we are not really sure. Psychologists observe that babies initially do not seem to differentiate between themselves and the world they are born into. They may see themselves as one with their mother’s breast for example. But the world brings pain as well as satisfaction and they begin to separate themselves from pain. I want to be part of this, but I don’t want to be part of that. We incorporate what we want and distance ourselves from what we dislike. Boundaries between self and other form. People teach us the difference between us and them. People tell us who we are and who they are, and personality forms. Western Tantra labels the set of behaviors and attitudes that we use to interact with our environment the Ego. People hurt our Ego in many ways. In Buddhism, the Ego is the source of all suffering, the Second Noble Truth. To protect our Ego, we separate it from hurt with a boundary between ourselves and others, a sort of armored shell.

This Ego armor is very useful for protecting us from an often hurtful world and some nasty people who inhabit it. But it is a liability when encountering a loving outer reality. Imagine trying to embrace a lover in a knight’s suit of heavy armor. Or trying to swim in it. Our body was born to be in this world, and if we put it in a bubble, our body does not experience the world as it was designed or evolved (depending on your point of view). Likewise, our Soul was born to be part of the universe and experience it, not be separated from it. So the challenge for us is to know when to don our armor to protect us from harm and when to let it fall to encounter Love. When you Love and find Love, let the Ego armor fall, let it go, surrender to Love and embrace Totality. Can you do this?

Death and Dying

We all know we are going to die, or more accurately, our physical bodies will die. Intellectually we know this, but most of us try not to think about it. Many people eat healthy and exercise to try to put that event into the distant future, and not worry about it. But it will come, and we do not know the time or manner of our death. The COVID-19 pandemic brought us to the reality that death could come much sooner than we expected.

We would like our death to be easy, and many hope for either a pleasant afterlife, reincarnation, or oblivion. But in the West, we do almost nothing to prepare for death, other than maybe complete a will and follow the dictates of our religion. Eastern Tantras teach us that our consciousness is immortal, that we are reborn, that there are infinite possibilities of how we are reborn as well as infinite realms and types of beings, and that our rebirth is largely up to us: the karma we create during our life, and our skill at mind control during and after death. And not all the possibilities are good ones, so it is a good idea to train for death.

In the West, most people think what happens in death is out of our control. In Tantra, including Western Tantra, we realize we are in control (or could be in control) of the entire process of dying and rebirth to a new life. If we want the process to be bearable and our next life to be beneficial, we had better learn in advance what to do while we are dying, and learn mind control so that we can choose our next life wisely. We could lose heaven or a beneficial rebirth if we are ignorant or panic.

Ultimately, we learn that the best outcome is to become one with the universe, what several spiritual traditions call union with the creator or the source, often called union with God. Try not to get hung up on exact terminology. We don’t know exactly what happens, because the ultimate experience is beyond description, according to those who have experienced it and returned to tell us about it. Enlightened masters and teachers tell us to have no expectations and just go with it, let go, surrender.

Ethical thoughts, words, and deeds are how we create the positive karma to have beneficial choices for our next life: heavens, paradises, pure lands, or fortunate reincarnations. Meditation is how we develop the mind control to navigate the death process, discern our best choice of rebirth while avoiding distractions, and actualize our choice, especially full Enlightenment as defined by Tantra.

Eastern Tantra will teach you this process if you can understand the lessons and have the time to learn them. Western Tantra will do this for Westerners if you do not. Western Tantra is a skill, not a religion, and can be combined with your current religion or adopted philosophy without conflict. The book Western Tantra describes ethics, Karma, and the dying process in ways that most Westerners can understand without the translations, confusing terminology, and cultural trappings that can impede the learning. What are you waiting for? Do you want to live forever?

Meditation–Breathing

Breathing meditation belongs to the stillness class of meditation. We will describe two methods of breathing meditation, simple and nine-step. The simple breathing meditation starts with finding a quiet location and a comfortable posture or place to sit with the spine fairly straight (normal curvature, not slouched). It is a good idea to set your intention by dedicating your meditation practice to the benefit of others as described in the “Meditation—Preparation” post. Then concentrate on inhaling through the nose, pause holding your breath for a few seconds, purse your lips and blow slowly through your mouth as if you are cooling soup. Breathe slowly like this while concentrating on the feel of the air entering the nose and exiting the lips. Try not to think of anything. If you find yourself thinking, switch the outgoing breath to the “shish” (Shhhh) sound you make when telling someone to be quiet, and concentrate more forcefully on the feel of air entering and exiting. You could set a timer and try to increase the duration of your breathing meditation by one minute per session until you reach the longest session that your schedule permits.

A more complex form of breathing meditation is called nine-step breathing meditation or more commonly nine-round breathing. This method requires a visualization of the inner Spirit Body (see Glossary of Terms) as described in Western Tantra, chapter 9, Tantric Sex, Spirit Body, 107-108, reprinted here:

Spirit Body: According to the spiritual literature, the Spirit Body or “diamond” body, which inhabits the physical Body, has a hollow central channel from the top of the head to the floor of the pelvis. This central channel is flanked by two thinner channels, said to convey male and female Energy to an Energy center at the navel, where male and female Energy combine to power the Spirit Body. It is sort of like matter and antimatter combining at the dilithium crystal to power a starship, although nothing we are describing is made of ordinary matter or energy. Spirit Energy is distributed within the Spirit Body through the central channel to Energy centers called chakras located on the central channel at the crown of the head, the neck, near the heart, near the navel, and near the genitals. Radiating from the chakras are secondary Energy channels called nadi, which branch out smaller and smaller to reach all parts of the physical Body, like capillaries that nourish the physical Body. The heart chakra is thought to be the principal location of our Divine center, the seat of consciousness. My spiritual tradition works mainly with five chakras. Other spiritual systems locate more chakras, some outside the Body. I do not know if this Spirit Body is an actual manifestation of something real or just a convenient way to visualize the Spirit Body in order to control it, the way the human brain projects representations of the physical Body onto the cortex of the brain.

Don’t worry that this structure of the Spirit Body is not anatomically correct in the physical medical sense, it’s a visualized Spirit Body, not a physical body. It will function as the focus of a visualized practice. First find a quiet location and comfortable posture as with any breathing meditation. Set your intention to benefit yourself and others. With the visualized anatomy of the Spirit Body clearly in mind, here is how nine-step breathing meditation is done:

Steps 1-3) First close your left nostril with your left index finger, inhale slowly and evenly, and visualize air entering your right nostril, travelling down the right channel to where it meets the left channel at the central channel about 5cm (2”) below the navel. Then block the right nostril with the right index finger, exhale slowly, and visualize the air travelling up the left channel, blowing any impurities in the side channels out the left nostril. Repeat this two more times to complete the first three steps.

Steps 4-6) Now close your right nostril with your right index finger, inhale slowly and evenly, and visualize air entering your left nostril, travelling down the left channel to where it meets the right channel at the central channel about 5cm (2”) below the navel. Then block the left nostril with the left index finger, exhale slowly, and visualize the air travelling up the right channel, blowing any impurities in the side channels out the right nostril. Repeat this two more times to complete the middle three steps.

Steps 7-9) For the final set of three steps, leave both nostrils open, inhale slowly and evenly, and visualize air entering both nostrils, travelling down both side channels to where they both meet the central channel about 5cm (2”) below the navel. Pause for a few seconds. Then exhale slowly, and visualize the air travelling up the central channel, blowing any impurities in the central channel out an opening at the top of your head, called the “crown aperture.” Yeah, I know the air is really exiting your nose, but this is a visualization, and this is how it has been done for thousands of years. Just accept it. Repeat this two more times to complete the final three steps of the nine-step breathing meditation (or nine-round breathing as it is called on most websites). Then finish with expressing gratitude to the universe for the conditions that allow you to do this meditation.

The way this nine-step meditation works is by giving the discursive “monkey mind” something to do to interrupt the endless flow of disturbing thoughts, allowing Body and Soul (see Glossary of Terms) to rest and heal. The visualizations of the inner Spirit Body plumbing and the thought required to visualize air flow passing through the channels will keep the brain busy. The visualizations are intricate enough that the brain is fully occupied with this task and must set aside any distracting fears. Without the bodily “fight or flight” hormone and muscle responses to fearful thoughts, the Body is able to relax, and the brain neurotransmitters depleted by endless circular thinking can replenish. Our conscious mind can then move its focus of attention from the Head to the Heart center, giving us a chance to find the source of healing energy.

Nine-step breathing can be used by itself to improve mental and physical health and improve concentration, the principle function of the various stillness meditations. It is also used as a preliminary practice to enhance concentration and relax body and mind in preparation for other meditation practices. If you try either of these breathing meditations, simple or nine-step, let us know your experiences and any tips to make them better.

Meditation–General

There are two main types of meditation. The first and easiest is analytical or reflective meditation which uses logical thought exercises to comprehend reality in order to effect changes to beliefs, attitudes, and emotions. The second and more difficult type of meditation is called stillness, stabilizing, or calming meditation. Its function is to gradually eliminate discursive thought, quiet the mind, and focus the attention. This is also known as mind control.

Western monastics call the first type meditation and the second type contemplation, and they call themselves “contemplatives.” Western popular culture confuses the word “contemplation” with thinking, discursive thought, the voices in our head. Western popular culture also uses the word “meditation” to refer to both of the two main types of meditation, and calls anyone who does these practices “meditators.”

To avoid confusion, Western Tantra will use the popular term “meditation” to refer to both types. But we will use “analytical/analysis or reflection” to refer to the meditations which use the voices in our head. We will use the words “stillness, stabilizing, calming, or mind control” to refer to the meditations which silence the voices in our head.

An example of analytical meditation is reflecting on the inevitability of death and the uncertainty of when it will occur in order to overcome laziness. An example of stillness meditation is concentrating on one’s breathing to stop discursive thought and calm the mind. We will post more meditations under this Meditation category. We invite you to also post meditation techniques that work for you, and tell us what they do.

Karma

As explained in my book, Western Tantra, another “blind spot” for Westerners is how karma works. We understand the concept and recognize its appearance when it affects others over a short time span. But we generally don’t recognize it as a universal law, nor do we understand it well enough to avoid its consequences in our lives. The Western equivalent is the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Expressed this way, it sounds like a guide for ethical behavior, what we should do or avoid doing, and the result is under our conscious control.

In the Eastern religions, karma is a law. What we do for good or ill will come back to us as a natural consequence, whether we want it or not. It’s the law of cause and effect. If we create the cause, we will eventually experience the effect, either in this life or in a future life. Harm or benefit we experience in our life are effects we created by our prior conduct toward others. If we are currently innocent of causing harm or are undeserving of benefits, then the causes for these effects occurred in a prior lifetime. If we do not understand karma and reincarnation, then what happens to us appears unjust.

In its simplest form, what goes around comes around. What we sow we will harvest. It happens in a cycle, and the connection between a cause and its effect may not be obvious, because of the time it takes for karma to come full circle. My personal observation is that the intensity of an intention to harm or benefit seems to determine how quickly the result comes back to us. So the hateful terrorist who kills is often immediately killed by police. But the person who heedlessly belittles others may not be abandoned by others until their old age.

Less simply, karma is as complex as life. I remember several of my past lives, and I can tell you that I absolutely deserved all of the bad things that have happened to me, even though I’m something of a “boy scout” in this this life. In fact, I deserved worse that what I received. What seemed to mitigate the negative karma was regretting the harm, trying to atone, and doing unintentional harm when trying to help others. So often our intent to help goes terribly wrong. My experience says that regret, atonement, and redemption can mitigate the consequences. Sincere confession and purification practices can erase negative karma. Mercy and forgiveness are possible.

Also, I’m sure random events happen. One or two people in an aircraft crash may have been negligent mechanics, but the rest may have been undeserving of that consequence. Here the manner of death may be relevant. When I was in the Air Force, a friend came to me distraught because an entire inspection team was in an aircraft crash, and he knew all of them. He was especially upset that the only one who survived the crash was an asshole. “So he survived okay?” I asked. “No,” my friend answered, “Everyone else was killed instantly, but he was burned over 80% of his body and died in agony three days later.” I thought to myself, “Karma’s a bitch!” When someone dies, we really don’t know what they experienced from their own side. Death is not necessarily a punishment. With reincarnation in mind, undeserved harm is probably compensated in the next life. Personally, if I’m met by angels or buddhas and taken to God when I die, I’ll be okay with that.

Intention is king with karma. Just as intention to harm comes back to bite us, I know that intention to help brings us benefits, or at least mitigates negative consequences. This is supported by personal experience and Buddhist dharma teachings.

Certain actions have mixed consequences, helping some while hurting others. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one,” as Spock once said. Harming one person to help many may generate positive karma in balance. Police are faced with this daily. But watch out for the kind of thinking where the action hero kills dozens of “bad guys” to rescue his daughter. In real life, even people we see as enemies have loved ones who depend on them.

Thinking and speech also affect karma. We all know that hateful speech and writing can cause harm, even kill. Kind words can help in many ways. But Westerners generally believe they can think anything they want. The Eastern view is that even thoughts can generate karma. So try not to wish people dead or rejoice when bad things happen to those you dislike. I’ve noticed that when I wish for benefits for others, benefits come to me, so the reverse is probably true also. Be mindful of your thoughts.

So I’ve said that we harvest what we sow, for good or ill, and it’s a law of the universe regardless of belief. Karma can span our past and future lives. Intent to help or harm is key. I said that regret and atonement can erase negative karma. I’ve noticed that thoughts and words generate consequences, just as actions do. What are your thoughts and experiences of karma?

Messages to Your Next Life

Like its Eastern counterpart, Western Tantric belief is that we reincarnate. Rebirth can take many forms, but the most beneficial rebirth for learning to be fully human is to return as a human during a time when spiritual writings and training are available. Hopefully we can return here to resume the progress we have made here on earth. It would be nice if we could leave our future selves some of the wisdom we learned from our struggles during our lives here.

The intent of this website is to fund it long enough that future generations can read what we put here. The intent of this blog topic is to place here what we would like our future selves to know, so that if our future rebirths find this website, we don’t have to start entirely from nothing, relearning what we once knew. So this is where we tell future humans and hopefully our future reincarnations the best of what we learned here in this life.

As the author of the Western Tantra series of books, my hopes are that enough of my books will sell that I can find a copy in my next life, and that my future self will study them. That is what I want to tell my future life. I’ll post the best responses from you here also. What wisdom do you want to pass on to your future reincarnation?