Quote:
Originally Posted by Antiventurecapital  It's news to me that LoA requires a belief in reincarnation and karma.
Or is this your personal spin on it? |
A common misunderstanding is that karma is about past lives. No. That's only part of it. Karma simply is the universal principle that your intentions (and your intentional deeds) attract corresponding consequences into your life.
All your intentions will attract some kind of corresponding consequence.
You don't have to wait till your next life, to experience those consequences. You could jolly well experience tomorrow, the karmic consequences of an intention expressed today, or an intentional deed performed today. The consequences of your intentions and acts are occurring all the time.
At the point of death, whatever karmic consequences of your past acts and intentions that haven't manifested yet, will simply be carried over to your next life.
The Dalai Lama has further explained that there are different levels of karmic consequences. A strong intention swiftly followed by a purposeful, deliberate act, attracts strong karmic consequences. A weak intention that is not followed up by any actual deed, attracts weaker karmic consequences. An accidental deed, done with no intention, attracts no karmic consequences. To understand the above, you may wish to consider the following scenarios:
1. You hate cats. You express the intention to kill a cat. Indeed you do deliberately kill a cat by catching it and stabbing it with a knife.
2. You dislike cats. One day, you intentionally kick a cat. But you would never go so far as to deliberately kill one.
3. You do not hate cats at all. One day you accidentally kick into one.
The karmic consequences will vary. In Scenario 3, you attract no karmic consequences for hurting the cat, for it was unintentional.
Now, how does LOA (or the versions that the Steve Pavlinas of the world like to talk about) come in? Well, basically they're manipulating karma. We already know that all our intentions have karmic consequences. What are intentions? Intentions are thoughts.
Therefore we will deliberately & carefully choose our thoughts, and plant them into the universe, to attract the kind of consequences, events and circumstances that we want. In fact, we seek to plant our thoughts with maximum karmic efficiency. That's why we use all the LOA/IM techniques:
thinking with strong emotion;
visualisation;
positive affirmation (repeating the same thought again and again)
getting into a deep mental state, before planting our thoughts
removing conflicting beliefs (thoughts)
Etc etc.