Negotiation

We should never protest against our karma. When life brings us problems, challenges, suffering, do not complain. Instead, learn how to transform it. Learn how to negotiate your karma.

The first step in negotiating karma is to stop performing harmful actions. We all do things knowing they are wrong. We know it is wrong to speak badly of others, to criticize, to curse. We know it is wrong to treat one another badly. Yet we do. We feel justified. We feel that it is our right. We feel that others deserve to suffer.

We get angry when we are accused. We are envious of other’s looks. We are proud when we are proven right. We are afraid when we may be discovered. We are constantly, from moment to moment, in tension, because we are so under the influence of hidden motivations and impulses, and we are running from event to event, from scene to scene, always with the subtle belief that somehow we will get away with it all.

“The results are always that which speak; it serves no purpose to have good intentions if the results are disastrous.” —Samael Aun Weor

Our intentions are not weighed on the scale: our actions and their results are. Therefore, we need to know how to act properly, not merely relying on our good intentions.

Do things as you would have them done to you. If you want to be treated well, then treat others well, and you create a cycle of actions and consequences. This is the fundamental way to negotiate karma: stop harmful actions, adopt beneficial ones.

If someone offends you, and does something that you consider to be really terrible, then the right action may be to forgive them and love them, and to help them without judging them or trying to tell them what you think of them.

A good example of this type of conscious action can be found in the life of Gandhi. There was a tremendous upheaval in India, and the Muslims and Hindus were killing each other. This was a very bitter and very violent civil war, and many, many people were killed and maimed. To protest this situation, Gandhi fasted, refusing to eat, because he understood that they were all unable to listen to reason, being so motivated by passionate hatred and anger.

Even though he was Hindu, he was well-loved by Muslims and Hindus alike, and so people eventually responded to his protest and stopped fighting and killing, and many, many people came to see him, lying on his bed, near dead from lack of food.

One Hindu man came to him, crying in remorse, and said he realized he had done terrible things, and he said he had killed many Muslims, and had killed even women and children. This man was deeply remorseful and asked what could he ever do to make up for it. Because he was so remorseful and recognized that he was responsible, Gandhi knew he was open to hearing. So Gandhi told the Hindu man to find a parentless Muslim child, take him as his own child, and raise him. The man eagerly agreed to this, and was very grateful. But Gandhi said, “Wait, that is not all; you must raise him as a Muslim.” Of course, this surprised the Hindu man: to raise a child of his enemy according to the ways of his enemy? This was, of course, the right thing to do.

Strong action produces strong effects. To overcome strong effects, one needs to perform even stronger actions. Remember: a superior action overcomes an inferior action.

The greatest forms of action are great acts of sacrifice, in which we sacrifice our own interests and desires in order to better serve others.

“O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You [will].” —Jesus, Matthew 26

This is Right Action. This is conscious action. This is sacrifice, and is a beautiful example for all of us to learn from. But remember: sacrifice means we give something up. The Hindu man of our example was going to have to give up a lot: his social image, his pride, his vanity, his own religion, all for the benefit of a child, and as penance for his wrong actions...

“Give and you shall be given. The more you give, the more you shall be given, but whosoever gives nothing, even that which he has shall be taken away from him." —Samael Aun Weor, The Pistis Sophia Unveiled

“The sick, instead of worrying so much about themselves, should work for others, do works of charity, try to heal others, console the afflicted, take persons who cannot pay to the doctor, give away medicines, etc., and in this manner they would cancel their karma and they would be totally healed.

“Whoever suffers in their home should multiply their humility, their patience and serenity. Do not answer with insults; do not tyrannize your fellowmen, do not upset those who surround you, know how to forgive the defects of others with patience multiplied to the infinite. In this manner you would cancel your karma and would become better.” —Samael Aun Weor

All of these efforts-—beginning with the moment to moment effort to observe yourself, to be conscious of everything you do and to be watching the mind very carefully—indicates to your inner Being that you are willing to change. If you demonstrate though your actions that you are willing to renounce your desires and comforts and conveniences in order to serve the greater good, then your Innermost can negotiate your karma on your behalf, thus you will receive what you need to continue in resolving your debts.

Those who are serious about activating the three factors in their moment to moment experience will gradually awaken consciousness until they are capable of another level of negotiation of karma: direct negotiation in the Temple of Karma. A student who has awakened enough consciousness can earn the right to go to the Temple of Karma in the Astral Plane, out of the physical body, and negotiate with Anubis and the Lords of Karma, to solicit credit, or ask for help.

To pay what we owe, we must perform good deeds.

We cannot perform good deeds when we are hypnotized by craving, aversion, and ignorance.

Desire causes suffering. To be free of suffering, free yourself of desire. Those beings who are free of desire become completely free from bondage, and are able to act in splendorous ways for the benefit of all beings. Yet those who are bound by desire suffer and cause others to suffer.

Karma exists to purge us of desire.

The One Law, with intense compassion for the consciousness, delivers our karma unto us as a medicine for our own good, to deliver us from our own evils. When we suffer, it is for us to learn.

The creatures who suffer in hell are there because God has compassion on them, and wants to give them another chance to reach for perfection.

The One Law punishes the formations of desire. Unfortunately, when the consciousness is trapped inside the formations of desire, the consciousness suffers when the formations of desire are punished.

The consciousness can appeal to the law for help. The consciousness can receive assistance, benefits, credits, etc from the law. However, nothing is free.

To come into harmony with the law requires that we be cleaned of all ego.

The formations of desire are opposed to the One Law. The formations of desire are the result of our past actions, and are our own karma, and bring us suffering.

To come into complete harmony with the law means to embody the law.

Karma is beyond good and evil.

Karma is the balance of action.

Within all good there is bad, and within all bad there is good.

The gods transcend good and evil. The gods embody Love, which is the law.

Karma is cognizant love in action.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give my body to be burned (out of pride), but have not love, I gain nothing.

“Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

“Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.” - The Apostle Paul from 1 Corinthians 13:1-10

Learn to love consciously, and you will learn to live in balance with the law. Deeds, not intentions, are what count.

“For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be fulfilled.” - The Apostle Paul from Romans 2:13

Love is the law, but conscious love. Do what thou will, but know that thou shalt have to answer for all thy deeds.