Karmic Connections

2022, September, Issue 12

When I was still in that amazing light of Dharmakaya, appearing in the energetic dimension of Sambhogakaya, I could see very clearly why beings wander in this dualistic condition, this cyclic existence. We fabricate ourselves, finding others who we can connect with in the same way. This creates turbulence, an energetic interaction related to identity and ego, as well as great suffering. It has nothing to do with reality. It’s a fabrication of mind.

Initially, I didn’t want to be here, because it is very painful to be among deluded beings, within this cyclic existence. People experience emotions, and all emotions are pain. People want to share this pain of emotion. They want you to feel the way that they feel, have the same thoughts and beliefs. If you do not reflect the same emotion as someone else, they are likely to think that you are a very bad person. It doesn’t matter what the context is, people want others to agree with them, rather precisely, at every level of their existence.

To disagree even slightly is to potentially gain an enemy. To not engage in emotions or delusion is to make the insane irritated with you, or cry, or shriek in terror. Emotions have nothing to do with reality. They are a reflection of our delusions, an indication that we don’t really understand. They dominate our existence, and trap us within true suffering.

Now, I have said that this experience of light when we die is much like intense love and compassion. When I have said that, and it is an important point to clarify, it is not an emotion. It is direct experience of our radiant condition. It is not a superficial love, where we might think we might lose the person we love someday or when we have a pet that we are very fond of speaking with and petting. This is a love that is completely indestructible, rather intense, manifesting everywhere and always, beyond time and space, throughout both delusion and awareness.

Only while directly experiencing our ineffable condition in light can we really understand how very complete and overwhelming this is. If we are able to spend our days and nights in awareness of this condition, we might have some idea. To really understand, however, we must become fully integrated with the Dharmakaya for an eternity, as was my experience. For me to be here is to swim in pain, knowing that it is not real, but with the commitment to remain for a while, until my tasks are completed. It’s sort of like being a little bit transparent, simply because I’m not too concerned about my existence. It is pain, gladly experienced, in order to bring benefit to beings.

This is a bit hard to explain, except when I say that returning from death involved a somewhat difficult reconstruction. Everyone I know is just a distant memory to me. They aren’t really aware of that, for the most part. My life, my identity, all the things people perceive as me, are just barely attached to karmic strands, various karmic connections which have apparently ended. I’m just a rough sketch of what I had been prior to my death. This is upsetting to some people. They want me fully engaged in cyclic existence—and that will never happen again.

So, when you think about every person that you have ever met, either someone you may pass in the street or a close relative, know that they are connected to you through your actions; and, your actions are nothing other than karma. When you die, or even in this life, we only connect to consciousness transmigrating. It’s not really the same person for more than one moment—they never really existed. This karmic connection will hurtle you back into a life as you are reborn, where you will search for someone you once knew, never finding that person again; yet, you will encounter old karmic connections. Karmic connections are very powerful. This is a primary reason people reject awakening. They think that awakening will destroy this connection with people—and that is quite true. It is also quite delusional to think that way.

If we awaken, karma has no power over us. If we awaken, we become aware of all beings. We realize that nothing is lost. Awakening means that we are no longer engaged in an eternal cycle of tremendous suffering. If we really care about others, then we increase our potentiality in an infinite way, simply by awakening. If it’s important to meet someone again in a future life, we will. If it’s not beneficial, it's very unlikely. If we have awakened, we bring benefit to all, even if beings cannot perceive what we are doing.

Please contemplate our real condition, as well as how we have been trapped by our own delusions for all eternity. This madness does not, nor shall it ever, bring benefit. It only amplifies the madness that is already here. Being fully engaged in this world is to become one of the inmates of a most terrible insane asylum.

Please do what you can to bring benefit to all beings, to go beyond, to awaken.

Blessings,

Bob