Karma and Discipleship

As we make our way in the evolution of consciousness, there are two important influences that work upon us to draw us toward and into the Christ. These are karma and discipleship.

Both karma and discipleship are teaching programs, but they differ greatly in methodologies, timing, graduation requirements, and outcome. Both are needed in order to bring us to our goal of Christ consciousness, and both have been an integral part of the human experience throughout this Age of Adam. This is despite the fact that most people continue to live in ignorance about these functions, unaware of how much they influence us and correspondingly about the true meaning and purpose of life.

In our present culture we tend to think that the only purpose to our life is that which we decide and the only goals are those that we make for ourselves, such as New Year’s resolutions. Thus, we have the phenomenon of a serious goal-oriented person contrasting with a happy-go-lucky one, with various shades of behavior falling in between. It is all a matter of how we see ourselves and choose to live. But in truth, our uniqueness in this realm is an illusion, and our choices are, in fact, imaginary. Meanwhile, there is only one overall purpose to human life and one goal for us all. The one purpose is to evolve in our endowment of spiritual consciousness, with the one goal being the Christ. There is nothing else of any lasting value going on here on this earthly plane of existence. We may differ in our approaches, receptivity, and temporal priorities, but in the end each one of us is on the same evolutionary journey.

In actuality, consciousness evolution is both our purpose and goal. This is because the state of consciousness that we are aspiring to (Christ consciousness) can only be achieved by way of evolutionary growth. This does not involve our own choice-making, as much as it does our understanding and focus. We need to understand what we are here for in order to allow our evolutionary instincts to hold sway over our actions. And then having this allowance as a continuous top priority, we need to focus on bringing our circumstances into conformity with that outcome. We need to let go of any of our superfluous imagined goals and streamline our life situation. For, the main thing that hinders our evolutionary growth is self-prescribed distraction. Meanwhile, if we remain ignorant about our true purpose and goal, we will have little incentive to streamline our priorities and instead will become distraction addicts.

But the evolution of consciousness is not easily resisted. Its forward impetus is a natural law of creation that seeks its own fulfillment. So, when we resist it through the endless employment of distractions it does not simply withdraw quietly into a corner. Rather it becomes like a bottled-up energy within us—an unpleasant sensation that we usually associate with emotional pain. This is the root cause of so much of our internal struggle and sense of disharmony. It can also lead to physical disease because our bodies respond to this damned-up energy as if it were a foreign host.

The problem is that ignorance and the tendency toward distraction seem to be indigenous attributes of our Adamic state of consciousness. In our Adamic state we see these attributes as natural and effortless and spiritual growth as unnatural and too demanding. The Bible shows us this dynamic in its opening pages, wherein Adam is immediately (upon awakening to his endowment of consciousness) portrayed as having become a highly reactionary creature—one for whom understanding and focus were devalued and shunned. Instead, Adam reacted to life, proactively and incessantly initiating behaviors that served to ease his internal discomfort—behaviors that can also be seen as distractions. As so, our own instinctual behavioral tendencies took us away from the conscious allowance of the evolution of consciousness and instead turned us into distraction machines—machines without an off-switch.

All of this then might also be looked at as a natural coping mechanism that our species adopted along with our embracing of the Adamic state. In other words, instinctively we surmised that our Adamic perspective of life was destined to cause us non-stop inner pain, if we did not do something to alter that dynamic. So, we decided that the best way to keep from feeling the pain was to occupy ourselves incessantly with outward projects. If this was indeed an instinctual coping mechanism, it makes perfect sense. In fact, it made such perfect sense to our ancestors that somewhere along the way they adopted it as part of our reality view—a reality view that we then proceeded to pass along to each new generation through the vehicle of social or cultural conditioning. And when that happened it became a behavioral aspect of human life that very few have felt the inclination to challenge. Without any knowledge about our endowment of consciousness’ evolutionary nature, we became perpetually reactionary and given to distraction.

But just as in other areas of life, it turns out that ignorance is not the bliss that we like to imagine it being. When ignorance leads to the violating of created universal law it ceases to be a justifiable excuse and instead results in the one repercussion that all law-breaking brings: that is, suffering. And the evolution of human consciousness is just such a law. Therefore, this Age of Adam has brought this inescapable progression to the human experience: Adamic consciousness caused us to instigate reactionary behaviors; reactionary behaviors caused us to resist the evolution of consciousness through distraction and busyness, and the violation of the law of consciousness evolution brought us under the judgment of perpetual suffering. But it was not God’s intention to cause us to suffer perpetually. How can we know this? That is where karma comes in. Consciousness evolution is law, and the violation of any law brings judgment (suffering). This holds true even when our main excuse is ignorance. So, God countered this one iron-clad legal reality with another one—the law of karma.

Since ignorance of the law of consciousness evolution was bound to be our downfall in our Adamic state, God instituted the law of karma to tackle and eventually abolish our ignorance. How does it work? Karma is a spiritual agency or intelligence active in the lives of each and every one of us. Its sole purpose is to lead us into life experiences that combat our tendencies towards ignorance and distraction. In this sense it is not karma itself that is the teacher; it is experience. And how does experience teach us? In many ways, but the most powerful way is by causing us to have to suffer through an experience that could have been readily avoided by our own choice. And if we don’t get the message the first time, karma will cause us to repeat that experience over and over again, until we finally get it. And what happens when we finally get it? We stop choosing that experience. It is really no different than finally learning the lesson that touching a hot stove burns our fingers. Eventually, we tire of the pain that burnt fingers brings. And when that happens, we never make that choice again.

The bottom line is that all human behaviors that do not support and align with the directive of consciousness evolution cause us pain and suffering. This is because consciousness evolution is the law of our being. And in our present culture the vast majority of our involvements and activities are of this unaligned variety. But on account of our ignorance, we fail to recognize the futility of such choices and instead keep making them over and over again. It is not that we love suffering, but we do not know enough to attribute our suffering to its proper source. We don’t see that the source of our burnt fingers is the hot stove. We even have come to accept suffering as an inescapable aspect of human life--a blatant lie that has given many people over to an orientation of hedonism. Their logic in doing this is one of evening the score through sustainable moments of pleasure. Since suffering is unavoidable the smartest approach seems to be the seeking of at least equal amounts of pleasure to make life more balanced and tolerable. But once we learn that suffering is not an inescapable aspect of human life, we can begin to see the error of this logic and disconnect the hedonism impulse.

Karma’s role in our lives is to help us see ourselves—especially our reactionary tendencies. And as we see our reactionary tendencies we begin little by little to disarm and uproot them. This then leads to a general easing of suffering for us. And so, karma not only teaches us that there is a better way to live; it shows us how to get there. It shows us how our unconscious reactionary instincts have constrained us to resist the evolution of consciousness and how that resistance has caused us perpetual suffering. And it does this by leading us into the life experiences that show us our own self-sabotaging behaviors.

By law, karma will not release us until its work has been completed. It will continue to do what it does, lifetime after lifetime, until we learn its lesson. And what is the sign that we are at last ready for graduation? It is simply that we have become conscious of our own reactionary behaviors and in so doing have largely disconnected them. This disconnection proceeds to break down our resistance to the evolution of consciousness, while the eroding of resistance allows that evolutionary process to kick in and become our primary motivational instinct. Then when this has been established within us, karma’s work finishes and karma ceases to be a force in our lives. It is at this point that discipleship begins.

Discipleship is also governed by law. This means that it is not necessarily a choice or decision we make. Rather it is part of the overall law-based progression that leads us to the Christ. When karma has completed its agenda of teaching us about our unconscious resistance to the evolution of consciousness, it moves aside and discipleship begins. Say for example that a person who has not yet fully let go of his or her resistance encounters Jesus and decides that they want to become a disciple. Unfortunately, this does not make it a reality. While encountering Jesus and responding with the desire to commit oneself to following him is always a noble instinct, that does not mean that one has entered discipleship. For, as long as karma is still at work in us it is still our master. And if karma is still our master, discipleship cannot yet begin and instead must remain nothing more than a noble sentiment.

To illustrate this Jesus told us a short but very powerful parable—the Parable of the Prodigal Son. When the prodigal son leaves his father’s house and journeys to a distant country it speaks of him coming under the influence of karma. Having awoken to his endowment of consciousness’ Adamic (seed) state, he had become a reactionary creature that naturally sought to resist the evolution of consciousness into the Christ. Thus, karma had by law begun its work in his life—that is, the work of bringing the prodigal the experiences that would eventually cause him to see himself and make choices based on wisdom instead of reactionary impulse. Meanwhile, this long period under karma’s tutelage (perhaps many lifetimes) also involved great suffering on account of the prodigal’s lawless instinctual approach. And it was this element of suffering that finally brought the breakthrough in his consciousness that Jesus called coming to his senses. In other words, it was suffering that caused the prodigal to see the cycle of karma that he had been stuck on and to make the one choice that had the power to end that cycle—the choice for the return to his father’s house.

The moment the prodigal made this choice his karma ceased and his period of discipleship began. It was also at this moment that his suffering was greatly assuaged, although that did not mean that his path was now without difficulties and challenges. Discipleship is not always a walk in the park. But the suffering that comes with karma is of a uniquely intense variety. One reason for this is that until we come to our senses and begin the journey of discipleship our suffering tends to be hopeless and blind. We see no end to it and suspect that it is simply part of life and must be accepted as such. Meanwhile, discipleship has its difficult moments but these can be navigated successfully without pandering to despair. For, the journey back to the father’s house is a journey of light and knowledge, in which we need no longer suffer blindly but rather increasingly behold the light of spiritual truth and daily make progress toward the goal.

For most people then, the time aspect relating to karma is disproportionately longer than the time aspect of discipleship. For when we are groping in the dark and stuck in a reactionary mode progress happens only haltingly. It does happen but it tends to be grinding and slow, often requiring multiple lifetimes of repetitive outcomes. In contrast, discipleship tends to be like the final mile of a long journey, with incremental progress being more of a daily reality.

Jesus chose and trained many disciples. His emphasis was on helping those who were ready for it (those who had come to their senses and begun the return journey to the Father’s house) with that final mile of discipleship, not so much with their karmic predicament. Why was this? Because there was not much that he could do to save people from their karma. He could heal their bodies and try to encourage them. But the karmic program is such that it must be allowed to fully have its way with us. There are no shortcuts with karma. Rather each one must undergo this regimen on their own, and to tamper with that reality would be to violate universal law. But Jesus’ specialty, as it were, was to facilitate the discipleship program and hasten its fruitfulness. This was possible for him to do because discipleship, though governed by law, is not like karma. It can be helped along through the ministry of teaching and enlightened insight. This is what Jesus meant when he spoke these words: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31,32). When we finish with karma and enter the school of discipleship Jesus’ teaching becomes a very powerful source of truth—not just the truth about ourselves but about life in general. Thus, it is in this phase of discipleship that we finally are set free from the many lies and delusions underpinning Adamic culture.

So, not only is there a disparity between karma and discipleship in the timing element; there is also a major difference in the lesson material that each one specializes in. Karma teaches us about ourselves—especially our status in relation to consciousness evolution. It shows us our natural tendencies toward reactive resistance and distraction. It is therefore highly individualistic and personal. Discipleship, on the other hand, teaches us about law and truth. It is impersonal and universal. That is why karma comes first. In order for us to be able to receive and integrate universal truth, we must first master ourselves through the regimen of karmic suffering. Like the prodigal son, we must come to our senses to the point that we are willing to make the important decision to return to the Father’s house. Then it is on that journey of return that we learn the universal truths that set us free to evolve in consciousness into the Christ.