Berries

Consider the fruits and berries as you move along. After all, all berries are fruits – but all fruits are not berries. Encyclopaedia Britannica [EB] says a fruit is, strictly, "the fleshy or dry ripened ovary of a plant, enclosing the seed or seeds."berries.

A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit . . . . In scientific terminology, a berry is a fruit produced from the ovary of a single flower in which the outer layer of the ovary wall develops into an edible fleshy portion (pericarp). The definition includes many fruits that are not commonly known as berries, such as grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, bananas, and chili peppers. (WP, "Berry", passim)

Persimmons, watermelons, and pumpkins are berries, they too, as are blackcurrants. They vary in size, and seeds from them may take time to sprout. Even if we do not cultivate our plot of land, our actions produce big and small berries and fruits after some time - that is the age-old teaching.

To get it better, "Man should make himself much good karma," says Buddha. What is called good karma means "good fruits and berries," that is, consequences of acts - of thoughts, words, and doings, for example. Vices drag us down or into great distress or suffering, and bad company likewise - while good company and good deeds may get other fruits and berries.

Various berries (fruits) of former actions by ourselves and our present lives intertwined with those of others, makes for a mixed bag of karma seeds in so many cases - a sack on on our back with so much in it. It helps to get skilled, especally in meditating deeply. That is a complementary and often superior teachings to doing good while we can, so as to improve our lot in the future - for example five-six lives from now. Here in this life we may also learn to profit from maximising good things and bulwarking against bad things and happenings. It is often feasible through forethought, being upright, and through developed skills to avoid bad turns and happenings. It is all in the art of living.

We should be able to improve our thinking as we go on. Some take up the practice of taking notes by way of developing learning skills, including Tibetan lojong (mind-training). Lojong can be equated with substantial positive thinking. Results naturally depend on how cleverly you do it and how valuable your thoughts tend to be. You find some hints on learning here: [Learning resources].

Good acts and bad acts

Good things to do, say and think are sketched by Buddha in the Gentle Buddhist Way. Further, in yoga there are norms to adhere to. They are for maintaining a balance in life, and if possible improve it. Moral is very important for progress spiritually, assesses Rudolf Steiner also.

Here is a part of common karma thinking for you: Lots of good and decent works (good karma) make people rise upwards along the trek of incarnations (many lives) and plenty of bad karma make them go down, down. As doing good may lift us up inwardly, doing bad may give rise to a nagging conscience for a while, before fit degenerations ensue. Some of them give rise to diseases.

Karma

The Sanskrit word karma 'action' or 'deed' is etymologically related to "create". The concept of karma stands for something like 'consequences', or 'giving-back', or "retribution". One reckons with good, bad, and "neutral" karma, according to a figurative "As you reap, you may sow," but there may be many slips between cup and lips." It suggests that all you sow, may not grow up. In some cases very low or degenerate people rob you of your crops -

Yet, along general lines we like to hold that there is a Someone-Someones who dispense berries (giving-back) to persons in accordance with their need for redressing balances, and atonements should serve deep, inward balancing. Some diseases are understood as backsides of that.

Karma is said to work along with the laws of reincarnation, so that if you do lots of good here on earth in this life, you may go to some hell for a time, to be reborn later somewhere, somewhen, when the time is rather fit and conditions are not too bad for a bite. Conversely, if you do lots of bad works in this life, you may still go to a heaven plane when you die; that is what Buddha teaches, but this is far from the whole of his karma teaching. He sees a long chain of lives at work and play, and it is the sum of all lives that determine the drifts in the long run and where to go – upward og downward upon dying, and how one's next rebirth will be. And doing good in this one life can save you from diseases and results of bad karma to come, and bring on a better rebirth. It is partly individual, but the overall scenario is ruled by the laws Buddha ekes out in his karma teachings. Doing good, speaking well, and thinking good thoughts are all promoted, and should not be given up. [Wikipedia, sv. "Karma" and "Karma in Hinduism," etc.]

Vedanta speaks of three sides to karma, or 'berries of doings'' if you like. They are:

1. Sanchita karma, one's accumulated karma, all of it.
2. Prarabda karma means fruits of our previous actions, in this or former lives, or both. Berries from "the whole Sanchita bush" of accumulated karma have "ripened" and dropped seeds into a life. The question is how the berries are treated, hampered, or barred from sprouting in some way or other. Some berries are good, others are bad, and it is not given to all to know what they are leading to, all of them.
3. Kriyamana karma is the karma that human beings are creating in the present, the berries of which will be experienced in the future. That karma means newly produced berries brought on by our latest and current activities on one or more levels.

One should also take into account the karma that is produced through what you sell your work to and uphold and promote thereby, rather likely sharing in the blame and sin that is building up. Is it a psychopathological firm? Then seek and find something better to do for the sake of your grandchildren, or your future self, if you get reborn as a quite normal human due to better karma-building in earlier lives.

Also, one takes into account how karma - good or bad or in between - can be formed on several levels, for example gross deeds and things you set in motion, words, and thoughts (mental levels). This suggests that to harbour unjustified ill will toward someone may backfire some time. As for justified ill will, go for not harbouring it, for your own good. But repressing it is not good enough. Go deeper than the clumsy hater and idolator, for example.

The Corporation

The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary film that throws its searchlight on the modern-day corporation, evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychiatrist might evaluate an ordinary person. A corporation is assessed like a "personality" in the film by diagnostic criteria used to diagnose mental disorders. You find them here: [More]

In the documentary, Robert Hare, a University of British Columbia psychology professor and a consultant to the FBI, compares the profile of the contemporary profitable business corporation to that of a clinically-diagnosed psychopath. The documentary concentrates mostly upon North American corporations, especially those of the United States. These criteria go into the assessments: callous disregard for the feelings of other people, the incapacity to maintain human relationships, reckless disregard for the safety of others, deceitfulness (continual lying to deceive for profit), the incapacity to experience guilt, and the failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law. The film was nominated for numerous awards.

An extended edition is about the pathological self-interest of the modern corporation; the scope of commerce and how marketers seek to get their brands into our homes; how corporations cut deals with any style of government – from Nazi Germany to despotic states today as long as sales go up or are upheld.

The interesting question to those who "sell their labour power" to get employement, money and status for a home, partner, children, cottage, yacht, and pampering, may be what they reap in the future.

[Wikipedia, s.v. "The Corporation"]

The Subtle Self According to Upanishadic Teachings

The old sages, satisfied in their desires, proceed to where there is that highest place of the True One.

(Brahman) shines forth grand, divine . . . it is far beyond what is far and yet near here, it is hidden in the cave (of the heart) among those who see it even here.

He is not apprehended by . . . penance or good works. When a man's nature has become purified by the serene light of knowledge, then he sees him, meditating on him as without parts.

That subtle Self is to be known by thought (ketas) . . . when thought is purified, then the Self arises.

Whatever state a man whose nature is purified imagines, and whatever desires he desires (for himself or for others), that state he conquers and those desires he obtains. [Mundaka Upanishad, 3rd mundaka, book 1, v. 6-10, passim]

God-uses, or "play the Game"

What do we mean by God? There are many statements, and they reflect various degrees of and kinds of understanding at least. Adi (the first) Sankara spoke of such as atma-bodha, self-knowledge, in his book Crest-Jewel of Wisdom. Yogananda came to bring that "Self-realisation", atma-jnana, to the West, he tells. We are told in Yoganananda's autobiography that the one who sent him to the West, says he strives for God-pleasing humility [Autobiography of a Yogi, chap 34]. If you want to be humble, don't strive for it. Instead, be yourself in a plain and candid way if you can, and much may fall into place – or go asunder. Real humility has nothing to do with stratagems, and social humility is just a form of cultured, sallow tact with calculations – perhaps a forerunner of manoeuvres.

To be natural and frank, not ill-behaved, looms higher than anything imposed and stiffly studied, as imposed humility. Such smart humility may soon become a show, a facade, a pretence, may become faking. Mark that faking makes the hypocrite in time too, it seems appropriate to add.

Let us take one more look into claims from or about Babaji, the mystic master. If he were dissolved, as a resurrected Sri Yukteswar tells Yogananda that the liberated are, how could he try to develop humility? And why? [Cf. Autobiography of a Yogi, chap 34]

It is far from wise and sagacious to believe every odd thing you are told by those who seek to benefit from a public.

Figure

I think proficient use of the novel table-format on-site can lead to fair and easy knowhow up to a point for many who train themselves from it.

Imagination, insight, learning – all that is had by figures evolved from the deep inner side. Prowess is had next, by such as "tick tack toe" serialisation – that is when you use the gist of a table-essay stepwise.

It is a good sign of a gentleman not to be swayed from the better course.

What is called "figure" in ancient Greek, corresponds nicely with the Sanskrit concept "maya" in some of its dominant aspects. We understand through fair maya, that is, through good mental figuring.

Inconsistency can form part of tyranny

What is right with Jesus? One day it is keeping the Law, another it is abandoning a key part of it. A third day it is vicarious sacrifice, another it is mercy. Slavery was not abandoned by him. Christianity kept at it till into the 1800s. Truly, the gospel accounts of him offer many clues that he was a psychopath. Try not to let prejudice block fit, although tentative investigations.

YHWH

It is recorded that YHWH said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, "YHWH . . . has sent me to you." This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. [Exodus 3;14-15]

Even so, Jesus on the Cross shouted "Eli". Some Bible scholars hold the Hebrew religion to be a subset of the Canaanite one. For centuries Yahweh was thought to have his extensively worshipped, big-breasted Queen of Heaven too. It is part of a historical Jewish heritage, as archaelogical excavations have laid bare: [More]