By Alex P. Vidal
“Though the mills of the God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small; though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.” —Friedrich Von Logan, Retribution
IN one of his speaking engagements that I attended at the St. Elizabeth Theater in Vancouver, British Columbia 12 years ago, Dr. Deepak Chopra, author of the Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, stressed that karma is used philosophically to indicate conditions in the present stemming from thoughts and actions in the past.
Much has been written about karma, a universal law considered as immutable, or a law of cause and effect referred to by Oriental faithful and both Luke and Matthew in the Bible.
Karma’s Sanskrit meaning encompasses both action and reaction — or consequences. Its Hindu meaning encompasses work, or the labor of the soul seeking to attain union with God.
In the book, Edgar Cayce’s Story of Karma, author Mary Ann Woodward arranged and selected the “sleeping prophet’s” revelation of man’s destiny.
During his lifetime, Cayce, the world-renowned prophet and psychic, gave a series of clairvoyant trance reading devoted to metaphysics and revolving around the central theme of reincarnation. The shock waves from his revelations still reverberate in scientific and religious circles.
Although Cayce was a practicing Christian, his trance readings frequently embraced concepts of Oriental religions, according to Woodward. From these discourses comes Edgar Cayce’s Story of Karma–his explanation of the powerful life forces generated by personal actions which can bless or plague us through many lifetimes.
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Woodward wrote that Cayce told many seekers, in their physical readings, that their physical defect or disease was a karmic condition. These readings emphasized the fact that our physical condition is directly dependent upon our mental and spiritual ideals, with their concomitant emotions, from one life to another.
“We do take it with us,” wrote Woodward. “Moreover, our daily stresses and strains, our emotional upsets, affect us physically.”
Many were reportedly told they would not be well, nor would their physical condition improve, until both their mental and spiritual attitudes changed.
“They would have to give up such negative things as fears, hates, and resentments and become more in attunement with Creative Forces,” she added.
To be sure the attitudes oft influence the physical conditions of the body. No one can hate his neighbor and not have stomach or liver trouble. One cannot be jealous and allow anger of same and not have upset digestion or heart disorder. (4021-1)
This dependency was explained thus: For their have arisen the acute conditions not only from physical reactions but mental conditions that have been as resentments, which have been built into mental forces of the body. These are indicated in the reacting with the physical effects upon organ centers…now finding reflexes in various portions of the body. (1523-9)
This body is meeting its own self. For it is meeting its own shortcomings, when judged from some moral standards. The body, then, must first in its mental and spiritual attitude make amends, not merely promises to others but to self and the sources of health and of life itself.
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These should be the beginnings and the body not merely being dependent upon the applications which must be, or may be, made by others; for there are within self the conditions here taken which now bring undesirable results in the ability of the body to function in the manner either physically or mentally as is most desirable. But there would be first a change in mental and spiritual attitude…(5283-1)
“Of course, physical applications help healing and do alleviate the condition, but true healing comes from the mental and spiritual self,” added Woodward.
And there must be taken into consideration all phases of this entity’s experience in the present if the conditions would be wholly understood. For mind is the builder, and if there will be kept a balance–the physical mind and the spiritual mind should cooperate, coordinate.
There are those forces which the entity, then (not merely the body but the entity–body, mind, soul, is meeting in itself, called–by itself oft–karmic reactions.
But karma–Well, these are the conditions as we find them in the body: The body, the mind, the soul are one within the physical forces; for the body is indeed the temple of the living God.
In each entity there is that portion which is a part of the Universal Force and is that which lives on. All must coordinate and cooperate. (1593-1)
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)
