To See or Not to See: What is Purusha? Part II:The Abacus of Karmic Activity
Professor D. F. Menchan

I have been quite dumbfounded to discover some of the undercurrents, the small, lightly oscillating ripples of reality, and how they work. I did not wish to believe what I stumbled across, at first. But, after checking the shocking data against what I have found to be essentially fool-proof sources, I resolved, at least for me, that the information was rock solid.

Runners: On Your Marks!

I have been keenly observing humanity---even moreso than usual, for the last year. I am a prof, so a pretty big chunk of my study comes via the pretty steady and vibrant influx of new minds, into my classes, every few weeks. I get to observe, to some degree, the latest trends in thinking, socializing, living, philosophizing, eating, procreating(or, more often than not, recreating)and so forth. My job is perfect; observing humans is my pastime, and my job creates ever more means of partaking in my favorite activity. Aside from this, being a collaborating musician who performs with artists from varying genres enables me to hang with those who sometimes partake in varied and often divergent (and irreverent) ways and means of life. Other than this, I, too, observe from the varying vantage points which make me me: that of a middle-aged male Negro in America, that of a brother, a son, a fiancée, a nephew, a 'cellist, a reformed reactionary, a Christian, etc. I, then, understand more of the world by understanding ever more realms of myself. As one realm unfolds and blooms into conscious understanding for me, so, in sympathy, it seems, do the other realms.
I also have developed an abiding interest in carefully studying the idea of religion, and most pointedly, its most noted spokesmen: the clergy. It is the latter category that must be handled the most carefully, if one wishes to pen one's observations for posterity: religion and its representatives, studied by an undisciplined cynic, merely leads to droll, if not humorous, and totally useless, drivel. Study of the same demographic, by a religious fanatic, is not study, at all. It is blind and ignorant acceptance and partaking, which can also lead to a maniacal defense of the thing studied. So, it too, is useless, in the final analysis.
How then, to study a thing? For me, with the method so few seem to comprehend: detachment…
…but more on that later.
The discovery I made is one that receives a lot of ink, if you check the right sources, and gets some lip-service, if you go to the right coffee-houses. But understanding of it seems to be lacking, in the West, or at least I would say that the implications of what this idea carries are all but ignored. The idea of which I speak is that of the cause and effect system of karma, and how it plays itself out in the phenomenal world-----that which I like to call the Abacus of Karmic Activity.
Few people would admit that they have no idea what the implications of the phrase cause and effect system of karma are…
…most folk believe they have a handle on how the whole "what goes around comes around" philosophy works. But if that were true, why would so many of us act in such an oblivious manner with respect to karma's inevitable---and I mean utterly inevitable---relentless seek and repay nature? If we really, really understood how karma worked, we wouldn't still be screwing around, in such cavalier ways, with anything, or anyone. We would know, as we used to say as I was coming up, "what's really happening."
Let's jump right into the meat of this, shall we? I don't wish to dilly-dally…

Get Set!

The printing of the book, and the DVD The Secret has done, I feel, a great lot to brainwash people who are of the whole power of positive thinking ilk. I believe that a highly specialized and powerful type of meta-positive thinking works, and it is that which is called prayer, but the idea that believing something with great conviction can bring about just that thing wished for is utter balderdash, and is generally written about by those with so small a capacity for vision that they might only choose to pay attention to the cosmos' granting that particular wish, and ignore all the other "rubbish" which is just as observable as the thing "granted." So, in the end, that positive thinking spin is often little more than the wordplay of shallow salespeople who wish us to buy books on how to get what we want. Note: they want us to get their book. A closer examination of the subtleties of how this all works would reveal the machinations of the abacus idea, which I mentioned.

Go!

Those who read piano music are familiar with the concept of honing into more than one thing at a time, a specialized type of multi-tasking. Specifically, one is to realize music by reading at least two staves (lines of music) at one time (the bass and treble lines). There, literally, is a splitting in two of brain functions, such that part of the brain focuses only on the top staff; the other part of the brain, only on the bottom. And, just as a bird, with one eye, sees what is happening on this side, and with the other, what is happening on that, and then the brain superimposes these fields of sight so that the integrated, final visual field is a map of where the bird is headed(by "seeing" what is happening in front)---the human mind takes the data read from the treble clef, combines it with that of the data taken in from the bass, superimposes, or fuses, one with the other, and then counterpoint, and all its modern descendants, are heard/seen, via that which we call music.
The means by which the human brain realizes all this, at the piano and ends up with music has to do with attention. One part of the brain attends to the treble clef, while the other attends to the bass. And really, it doesn't go like that---let's get to the real subtlety here, because we will have to, eventually…
…the brain is hardwired in such a way that it isn't really one part of the brain attending to this while the other attends to that. Really, the brain itself is capable of doing many things at one time, without the tasks all having to be relegated to one or another center of the brain. The very same part of the brain reads all the music at once, treble and bass, and also makes it, at once, interdependent and independent music. We have to use words such as this part of the brain, and that part, and superimposing, and all, because we might not understand it, otherwise. But it simply is that the brain doesn't divide itself to do these musical functions; it simply does things, at once, which are divisible into smaller units or tasks.
Either way, this all has to do with attention. We all know those who are said to suffer from ADD or ADHD; those who cannot concentrate on any one thing, at one time, fully. Their attention cannot for long be localized; their laser is diffuse, not concentrated. It spreads out over a vast terrain, rather than honing in on just one spot and understanding everything there is to be understood---about that one, lone spot. To attend is to take care of one thing at a time---to do a specific thing, fully; to mete out a task, fully. To do this simultaneously is what happens in reading piano music. When this is accomplished, it is spoken of as the result of one's faculty of attention.
Awareness is close to that, but is not the same thing. And reality is made up of differences, to be seen, so that it(reality) is felt as unity; many parts of one unified whole. But one cannot master a game the myriad rules of which one is too bullheaded to learn. And here, a certain delight in subtleties---a willingness to acquire the discipline needed to learn the theory---the rules--- of the game---- is of paramount importance, so one can ever more appreciate the phenomena---the instances in which nature breaks her own rules…
…but, alas, back to awareness. If attention is putting all of one's energies into a certain one-pointedness; a sort of doing a task, fully, then awareness is the knowledge that there is a task, to be done, fully. The one is the knowledge of the task; the knowing that there is a task to be done. The other is the energy and faculty one uses for the enhancement of the actual doing; that which gives us the facility and agility to perform the task, at hand---to be done with all of one's focus. Quite close, my dear Watson, but not the same thing.
As mentioned before, this awareness, this faculty--this all-seeing "ability" was a mainstay (and still is) of much East Indian thought. It is often called Purusha. And, here, it is not an ability. It is. Dig this: it is is-ness. It is the I Am, to Moses, from the burning bush. It is the I Am, of Christ's, "Verily I say unto you: before Abraham was, I Am." Here, Jesus was pointing out the nature of the office He held, that of Christ(the home of the Purusha, arguably). He was noting how this seat of all knowledge is eternal, and thus, beyond time, space, and locale. It cannot be in the past, or present, of future. It, before Abraham was, Is.
No tense problem, just metaphysical truth.
It is seeing all.
It is omniscience.
It is bliss, and, at once, totally beyond bliss.
It simply is. Always was. Always will be. It has been called Isvara. It is also called super-consciousness, or the seat of the Divine Will. Some say its locus, in the human system, is the pineal gland, home of the mysterious and powerful "third eye"of intuition. I have probably made it seem a bit remote and fictitious, or at least hard to accept for many of us, but that is of no matter. It is, and is most clearly experienced by those who can accept the possibility its magnanimy.

Awareness and Karma

I mentioned that, as a college professor, I get to observe probably the most vulnerable and important demographic of a culture's lifeline: it's youth. Old people tend to die sooner than later, and it is ever the youth which hold the promise of the shaping of tomorrow. So, I look at the specific section of youth under my so-called watch(my classes) to sort of get a clue as to the direction in which at least part of society is headed, as they shape tomorrow. And by so doing, I can tell you that tomorrow may possibly be a quite precarious day. Quite precarious…
…it was Carl Jung who so deftly noted that when humanity forgets its primal, ritualistic nature, it is doomed to spiritual oblivion. While this, for me, is true, if most everyone is living in an oblivious state, the very term oblivious loses its meaning; everyone's oblivious to it.
Where ignorance is bliss, right?
While I would say that the more sensitive and "connected" members of the youth(and of society, in general) tend to intuit and perceive a metaphysical, if not intensely spiritual, component in the world(and I am only too happy and honored to have taught a few of these souls), it seems that the vast majority rather ignore, or overlook, amidst their frenetic lifestyles and milieu, the spiritual, in the world. Because of this predicament, which is rather widespread, it seems, there is a large portion of the youth, and of society, at large, which is not knowledgeable of the existential task, at hand(which, by my definition, least, is awareness). This segment of society goes through their day-to-day lives; they go to their jobs, they come home, eat, sleep, urinate, defecate, recreate (sometimes both pharmaceutically as well as biologically) and never stop to figure out why certain aspects of their lives are severely underdeveloped, or why they suffer from even the slightest of psychological challenges---or why even the very people in their lives who are the biggest pains to them are there, to begin with.
True enough, all humans experience some degree of joy, peace, and happiness, and so a certain amount of sadness and pain is surely as fair as life should be. But, upon closer analysis, it is to be found that there is almost a mathematical precision, order and predictability to the machinations of the Abacus of Karmic Activity; there is an almost maddeningly precise and inevitable current of equality which informs the Abacus, so that everything felt, done, and seen, is inextricably worked into the machinery of the Abacus. Essentially, we are all Neo, jacked into the Matrix, and there is no escape. The only saving grace is to understand, Neo; to be aware. This awareness is the gateway to liberation, not so much an escape but more a rising above, a merging into the seat of awareness, from which all, including the madly accurate Abacus, is observed: if one is not fooled by the illusion of the phenomenal world, and all its "seperate" parts, one is not owned, or powered by it. But it is painfully obvious to me that most people are completely ignorant of how this Abacus works; we are not aware, even, of its existence. And this is a shame, because, if I am correct in my understanding, there is not one single part of creation that the Abacus does not affect. Not one single part, no matter how small, how subatomic, or even genetic. So, it would behoove all of us to be aware of, and understand fully, the system and the operation of the Abacus of Karmic Activity.

Wisdom of the Maharishis

Dig it: in part one of this essay, I mentioned the book, Yoga Sutra(s), of Patanjali. In it, the author mentions that the rare but fully realized yogi doesn't pollute the karmic ocean;she puts out nothing that is negative; she does no wrong, either in deed, thought, or action. This yogi is fully "there." She has achieved God-realization. And I am well aware that, in 2008, we'd rather hear some other term than God, but I don't particularly care, about what we'd rather; I care more about what, for me, is.
Nietzsche wrote jokes, in his books, in Sanskrit, and did not translate them. Jung wrote passages, also, in Sanskrit, without translations. Why? Well, Nietzsche was a pompous ass, but Jung obviously, having great respect for erudition and accuracy, knew the specific and subtle nature of Hindi, and of Sanskrit, and realized that that which was intimated in that language was intimated best, therein, and would only be diluted and bastardized, if penned in any other language. Same here: as I see it, God is the term for that which I treat, and I patently refuse to call it something else simply for the comfort of myself or any reader.
But back to the yogi of whom I spoke, she has immersed herself, totally, in the will of God. This is what I am speaking of, and before I clarify that, let me be more basic in my point, via a well-known story, from the annals of one of the most fully realized yogis in history, Jesus, the Christ. When the adulteress was brought before Him, by a coterie of accusers, for stoning, after curiously kneeling and drawing with His finger, in the sand (to imply to the coterie that He did not know whence they came, nor why), Jesus stood and told them that He was okay with the stoning idea, and suggested to them all an efficient means of choosing how to begin the execution. So, He said, "He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone." Then He stooped, again, and returned to drawing in the sand, as if not knowing what would follow. When He stood again, all the accusers had left, after which Jesus asked the woman if she were alone. She said yes, that none of them would condemn her. Jesus replied, "Neither do I. Go and sin no more."
This overtold story is rich in it's implications. First, Jesus, alone, was worthy of stoning her, because He was just the sort of yogi Patanjali was referencing. And He said He would not condemn her. But what is of note is what He was really driving home. He was referencing the machinations of the Abacus of Karmic Activity. Of course we all know He was saying that 'we all have sinned,' as had the woman's accusers, 'and fallen short of the glory of God.' But He was also saying, at a deeper level, that more than just actions, such as adultery, can imply culpability. He was saying that even thoughts can muddy and murk up the karmic ocean, and that only one who has escaped this reality can 'cast stones' at the guilty. How can a guilty person punish the guilty? Certainly not with moral rectitude; a criminal has none. And all who murk up the karmic ocean are criminals, committing sin. And sin here should be understood as meaning falling short of the mark---not living up to one's true birthright potential---not realizing that one is essentially a reflection of, an emanation of, a part and parcel of, God. Period. Falling short of that knowledge, and acting from such a lack of knowledge, and therefore essentially going against one's true self, then, is sin.
But if thoughts can muddy up the karmic waves, how to escape?
Via religion, or yoga.
The term religion is a combination of re-and ligare, ligare meaning to link. Thus, religion seeks to link, again. Yoga comes from the word yug, which means to yoke, or link, to God -consciousness, as religion also seeks to do. Therefore, unless one escapes the mundane routines of life and reunites with Isvara, purusha, or all-seeing awareness---or God-consciousness, one cannot ever hope to escape the Abacus of Karmic Activity, what the Buddha called samsara. This, then, is the abacus effect of which I speak, in that samsara is the endless wheel of cause and effect, caused by our deeds, thoughts, and actions. Everything we think, or do, makes an imprint, an indelible impression, in the fabric of the Akashic field, or of creation, itself, sort of as the theory concerning activities of the living storing themselves in the walls of mansions, creating the ever popular "hauntings," of horror lore. The Karmic Abacus, however, is very real, and is not fiction. This is why the insipid pretense of The Secret does not work. It is not enough for an individual to simply wish for the good, so as to receive, only, the good. Only the fully realized yogi can do that, and the fully realized yogi has ceased to have his own desires, or will; he has yielded his will to that of the mind of the cosmos, or purusha/awareness. And it is precisely that point which quick fix books, such as The Secret, are silent on. The average individual has muddied up the karmic ocean, and when she wishes for only the good to come to her, she rather receives the sum total of all she has put into the "genie" of the world: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Only when one has only put out the good can one expect to receive, only, the good.
And it goes deeper. The street-level mother-wit of the saying "what goes around comes around" does not mean that one's actions or deeds merely affect one on the physical or emotional level, neither is it only relegated to the human realm. No. Muddying up the karmic storehouse affects the whole of creation. The birth rate of bison, for instance, the weather cycles and their attendant phenomena, the population of red ants (or black ants, for that matter) tidal cycles and currents, and so on, ad infinitum. So, quite literally, our own actions, and our own thoughts, cause the very weather changes we experience, the globe over, some of which are the brunt of our pitiful complaints. El Nino is due to us, all of us. Tidal waves are our fault, if we must us the world fault; the term result will be a better substitute. It is, after all, an abacus; push this metal ball, and it will, every time, and with inevitability, swing into and hit the adjacent metal ball. Period, baby. That's it. Therefore, if you see your mother killed by an errant Greyhound bus, due to a driver who has fallen asleep at the wheel, you cannot get mad at the driver, because the wreck may have been due to something foul you put into the the gears of the Karmic Abacus. And if, rather, your neighbor caused the fatal collision, you cannot seek to punish him, either, because he muddied up the karmic storehouse no less and no more, than you, yourself. Can you dig it?
So, Jesus, the ever misunderstood but fully realized yogi, was merely trying to assist us, with His over -quoted and perenially misunderstood parables. He knew that we, by ourselves, would probably never figure out "how deep the rabbit hole goes," had He not implied and explained its inescapability. And the rabbit hole's not an inescapability contingent upon your discovery that you're in the rabbit hole.
No, that is not how it works.
You were born already into it, and then, if blessed, you discover it. Then, upon the discovery, you will know---not believe---know-- that there is no escape. There never was, save purity and a full realization of who you are, and how you are to conduct yourself, as part of the Whole.
So, not only do we cause all events and cyclic happenings, all throughout creation, but we actually are constantly shaping, molding, and re-shaping, and re-molding, and thus ever modifying and becoming part of, the future of the fabric of the Akashic field---of creation, via our deeds, thoughts, and intent(s). The superconsciousness, then, eats, digests, records, and then breathes, and disseminates, and redistributes every thought and action fed into it. What goes around comes around, feel me? This is the Great Energy Storehouse, baby; the very thing we come from and merge back into, you know what I'm saying? It is the wheel of energy conservation. Whatever is done or thought never goes anywhere; it is merely recycled. And since everything and everyone must go into, and come out of, this Great Wheel, everything is, thus, affected, by everything else.
For every action, there is, after all, an equal and opposite reaction, no? For purusha/God, action is defined as more than just a doing. It can be the thinking of the doing, you dig?
Once, via yoga, or religion, we become sensitive(or crazy)enough to believe how the system works, then we see that we are, then, bound by it(and it is actually so even before we understand or believe it)so that the only way to escape it is to cease and desist thinking bad thoughts, or doing evil deeds.
There is no escape.
We were born with sensitive receptors, the job of which is to inform us, all along our inevitable journey to self-realization. And, if we resist treaveling on this journey, misery shall be our constant companion, not via the old school fire- and brimstone analogies, but via our ignorant ways of becoming attached to things which shall only dissolve, eventually. We must be perfect, even as "our Father is perfect," and only then might we attain the right to "cast[any]stones." And it is, both, the unawareness of this very Abacus effect, and, most importantly, the lack of discipline needed to do right by it, that I have observed, in myself and my students, indeed, in the virtual whole of humanity, over this last year of my keen observations. And these deficiencies keep us complaining about undesired circumstances which befall us---which, in the end, were, all, our very own faults.
What Faults Do I See(or Have, Myself)?
I have observed a vast number of people who evidently misunderstand the dictum, "yield not to temptation." This does not mean to dance with the Devil, every Saturday, at the local ecstasy-financed club, merely to brag to our equally ignorant friends that we didn't sleep with him. It means that, once we know for sure that it is the very Devil, himself, who frequents the club, we are to cease going, altogether. Immediately. Why? Because no matter how strong a human is, enough time spent with the Devil and we will begin shining his shoes…
…and then, inevitably, one thing leads to another.

But, who is the Devil? His manifestations work a lot like God's. As God's fingerprint is on everything created (and that, of course, is everything, in toto) God, then, is manifested in forms. But then we give the forms names, and we get bogged down by these same names, are identified by them(for we are manifestations of God, but get identified and trapped by the names our parents gave us, and the forms in which our true selves reside, temporarily...)and forget that these forms are merely are "His" manifestations. They are "Him," in "His" infinity. Then we become attached to the forms, and when they morph and dissolve, we are in hell.
Forms are but glimpses of the whole. And when we see the whole in the glimpse, or the part, we are liberated. But when we are owned and informed by the parts, and identified by them, we are doomed.
The Devil, also, can clothe himself in a myriad ways. But, your "senses" can tell you when evil is near. When they do, run! That is 'yielding not,' not telling the Devil to wear a condom. I mean, that'd be like telling someone to flavor your cyanide with licorice. Have a clue: don't take the cyanide…
…or, for God's sake, if you do, don't complain to the rest of us that it tastes bad (and you are slowly losing your sight---and hearing---and sense of touch---)
What else?
Many people complain that 'my friends' (and substitute 'friends' here with 'boss,' 'brother,' 'mother,' etc) are getting on my nerves! They are so rude and inconsiderate and use me so much!' Really? Have we not figured out, at long last, that part of this thing called life is that the cycles found within it, and all the play of the phenomenal world, were essentially designed as cosmic entertainment for devotees of God, on their way, diligently, to liberation. To remind us of our progress, one of the main ways nature, since she was set spinning, does her thing is to send us beings, into our orbit, as I like to say, or to our lives, to be mirrors of our own actions. If we see them that way, we won't tire of them; we'll tire of our own faulty actions, and correct them. If we don't, our friends, and bosses will continue to annoy us. They are supposed to; they were never supposed to change their roles in our play, nor their annoying ways. We were. And it works the same, for them; we are actors, in their play. What did Shakespeare say about all the world, and our roles, therein, hmmm?
Once we learn from their(our)mistakes, a fresh batch of beings are sent in, with ever more subtle hints to our own flaws. And so it continues, throughout our whole lives.
Anything else?
Sure: temper management.
We lose our composure, much too often, with those with whom we should not. And really, with whom shoud we lose our tempers? Sure, a Buddha might lose her cool, if she hangs out and argues incessantly with those who care not to be awake. But a Buddha is a Buddha partly because she knows not to hang with them, lest she become muddied. If one, while striving for liberation, is struggling and making honest and innocent mistakes, then we help, and never lose patience or compassion. If, however, the person doesn't have any respect for liberation, we tarry not. That person could be dangerous. Do you remember the maxim about the pearls and the swine? I know w'ed hate to make references to humans through the analogy to swine. The good news is we don't have to make the analogy; Jesus already did.
Let Him take the blame. Methinks He can handle it...
...anyway, shine your light and beacon of inner devotion, but from afar if you must. And, along the way, if you cannot manage your temper, there is an easy solution: never give up trying. You are not, yet, what you can become. Well, maybe you are; but when you know what you really are, actions change. If you know but still are an ass, you don't really know. You are still in battle with yourself, trying, maybe, to change. Better to be an ass in solitude, than to a multitude. As the old Black preachers used to say, just "sit right down, and wait for your change to come." Offend no one else, until your change is done.
Mostly, the thing to do is to be aware. Just know that there is something more for which to yearn, and it isn't fame, or money, or clout, or status. It does not matter how many try to tell us that we must have ambition. That word has become ugly, any more. Sure have ambition, but if you're not one of the many running after fiscal solvency, so what? That quest is so ordinary! Rather it would, for my mind, be better to yearn after peace, and utter fulfillment. If that is attained, one will be equally as happy with, either, $1,000,000, or a glass of milk. After all, money and milk, both, eventually fade, and leave us, and where we are headed, they cannot come. Money and milk, and our bodies, are composed of matter; they are material things.
We are spirit.
Can you dig it?
I am not the master of these things, merely a feeble herald of them. Believe any of this, if you like, practice none, should you choose.
The Abacus runs its course, no matter what we decide.
Peace,
dm