Category: Karma

Spiritual or Soular Challenges and Karmic Merit

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I have been mulling over this subject on and off for a number of days now. It is surprisingly difficult to put into words nevertheless I will have a go.

I’ll start this off with a postulate.

In any given lifetime we are presented with challenges which we are required to face in order to evolve. We must endeavour to engage with these with as much willingness as we can muster and try to face them and learn therefrom. They are pivotal to our development as incarnate beings and are a requirement of/for our Souls. They are a part of the lessons we chose to try to learn for ourselves in selecting our birth.

Whether or not you agree with this postulate does not matter especially in the context which it sets up. It frames life no matter if you believe it or like it or think it is poppycock. If the postulate holds it has consequences spanning lifetimes. If you do not accept the postulate and yet it still holds it has consequences. If it is a pile of bull I made up because I was bored and it is raining outside there are fewer consequences. You are “free” to act like an arrogant arsehole should so wish.

Place your bets…

Modern life has boundaries and laws. It has social contracts and is heavily laden with social expectations. There are the itchy back game endless transactions. There are thousands of “shoulds” and “oughts”. These are to an extent culture and peer group specific. Some things are expressed in law and in general it is wise to follow these laws or you could find yourself fined or in gaol. These are “hard” and are relatively non-negotiable. The shoulds are more bendy. The requirement to behave according to a “moral” code is partially enforced by humans and peer groups. These are subject to the vagaries of time. It is no longer socially acceptable to black up for a black and white minstrels show. Morals are flexible and some consider themselves less beholden than others. But you can get cancelled and if you hang out with a famous paedophile in your Y-fronts it can change your future.

Often that which seems too good to be true, is. People like shiny things and fail to appreciate the price attached. The free lunch is a cornerstone of mythos.

The Soular challenges that I am thinking about are not required by law, nor by peer pressure , nor social compliance. Even if you might “get away with it”, by not doing it, these challenges ask that you rise up above that mentality. In listening to your Soul you have no choice but to be utterly impeccable even if that has to it a seeming cost, pecuniary, social or otherwise. The reward is karmic merit gained and a heart enlivened because you have been at your impeccable best.

Doing things when there is no pressure to do them and when nobody else sees them is not something which transactional beings tend to do. There is no apparent immediate reward. There is no “look at me” kudos to be had.

Simply an impeccable and often compassionate act is sufficient in and of itself. It is satisfactory. There is no drum roll, no heralding trumpets. No great big drama.

The acts which gain karmic merit are often to be found in overcoming selfishness, pettiness and greed. They may be invisible to others. But karma has eyes which see more than the profane. These acts are nearly always about “getting over your-self” and they engender a wider humility and understanding of the universal and not the me-personal. Most of all these acts are about attitude. If the attitude in benevolent and not seeking of personal reward, the acts have a nice hue, a rich colouration. There is a subtle perfume to them. They smell nice.

But in order to engage with these challenges one is required to overcome social fear. Often one has to stand out from the crowd in some way. One has to make some kind of an integrity based stand. Which may have a price. In most cases the barrier to doing the act has been bigged-up to gargantuan proportion. Only hindsight concludes, “what was all that fuss about?”  The mind and little-self does its best to dissuade.

Most of these challenges are to do with mind and perception is some way.

Spiritual and Soular challenges can be very subtle indeed. The opportunity is readily missed in the maelstrom of modern living.

There is no, “what is in it for me?”

This mentality of reward and even bribery of a kind is far too prevalent in our times. It does not generate karmic merit.

To do a genuine, as opposed to for show, 180 degree shift away from personal reward is not to the liking of most.

But if you want to evolve you need to change the way you think, the way you act and the way you orient towards life. Otherwise you will stay the same. It is not rocket science.

If you have been lucky enough to have a relatively easy incarnation then chances are it will have a number of subtle yet very important challenges for you to face. You gave yourself the wherewithal so to do…

You can try to run and hide from these challenges but that is not an evolutionary attitude, is it? If you are too important to face your challenges and learn from them what does that say about your attitude to learning and evolution? Maybe you are already so evolved that you are above all that…

Evolution after all is just for the plebs….

Impermanence – Cop Out or Motivation?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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The trouble is you think you have time...

Siddhartha Gautama

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I have paraphrased here something I read in the Dhammapada. In this the notion that there is always tomorrow or mañana and demain is hinted at. People can put things off over and over. This especially  true of anything which is inconvenient. Even though they know that they need to address something they put it off. People can justify inaction to themselves rather than put themselves out or do something positive perhaps transformative. The safety of the unpleasant status quo of life is so tempting; the inertia of sameness is like a duvet. The fear of risk forbids any reward for courage.

It is evident that life is impermanent. Everyone without exception dies. Which means that allotted time is finite.

It is easy to fall into the trap of “hey man all is impermanent” and use that as a cop out for not doing anything. If nothing lasts, nothing matters, so why bother? If  all of life is an illusion then why interact, why take part?

It is easy to take an overly passive view on karma. If everything is pre-ordained and fated because of past actions why try to ameliorate? That is a gist of karma. At some stage you have to interact in a meaningful way to work with your karma and acquire karmic merit. You have to learn the lessons that karma has in store and which you have selected for yourself by your actions. Karma is there to teach. You need to learn your lessons otherwise you repeat your folly ad infinitum.

Impermanence teaches that you have little or no time in which to act and yet you must not be obsessed about result or outcome because these are not permanent or real.

It is easy to get the balance wrong and be overly dismissive and fatalistic or to try to force things to fit how you want them to be and thereby create more karma. If you put things off you are deciding so to do. Procrastination cannot work on karma.

You have no time, much less leisure than you imagine, so get busy but do so without obsession or desire for guarantee. Impermanence teaches that all forms of obsession are folly. It also teaches that you have little time to figure out what it is you need to learn and then to seek out those lessons.

In any given life, time is not a luxury which one in reality has.

Copping out because things are impermanent is copping out, it is a form or “reasoned” and “excused” inertia and avoidance.

Whereas impermanence might encourage you not to waste a single second of your allotted time.

Working with impermanence as a fact to acquire skill and discernment is a very profound and meaningful practice.

Impermanece teaches balance and the middle way.

Karma Quotes

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don’t even notice it.

Sakyong Mipham

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I want revenge, but I don’t want to screw up my karma.

Susane Colasanti

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You cannot control the results, only your actions.

Allan Lokos

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How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

Wayne W. Dyer

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Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

Eckhart Tolle

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If you’re really a mean person you’re going to come back as a fly and eat poop.

Kurt Cobain

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Even chance meetings are the result of karma… Things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.

Haruki Murakami

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Is Fate getting what you deserve, or deserving what you get?

Jodi Picoult                                

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Dear Karma, I really hate you right now, you made your point.

Ottilie Weber

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Strange things conspire when one tries to cheat fate.

Rick Riordan

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I guess one of the ways that karma works is that it finds out what you are most afraid of and then makes that happen eventually.

Cheech Marin

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Karma, when properly understood, is just the mechanics through which consciousness manifests.

Deepak Chopra

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There’s a natural law of karma that vindictive people, who go out of their way to hurt others, will end up broke and alone.

Sylvester Stallone

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To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.

Bodhidharma

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I am what we call a ‘karma yogi’ in Sanskrit. A karma yogi is somebody who believes in data. I collect a lot of data.

N. R. Narayana Murthy

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Whether or not we believe in survival of consciousness after death, reincarnation, and karma, it has very serious implications for our behavior.

Stanislav Grof

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With some things, karma is good enough. Lessons come back in different ways, you know what I mean?

Big Narstie

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Being vegan just gives you such great karma.

Alicia Silverstone

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As long as karma exists, the world changes. There will always be karma to be taken care of.

Nina Hagen

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Following the footsteps of a rag doll dance…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Not all cultural references are directly transferable some are “time of life” and others are “time of man” related.  I personally view myself as being on the conservative side in that outwardly I am not outlandish. It always used to amuse me how the “goths” had less of an idea of the shadows than I did.

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But Siouxsie et al. were definitely a part to the soundtrack of my life.

In the “A Discovery of Witches” TV series the notion of the main protagonist being spellbound has come to the fore. In which her parents cast a spell which both hid and prevented the usage of her powers. She was literally bound by spell or spell bound. The narrative suggests that this practice was usually reserved for insane witches and that it was a harsh thing to do, to prevent the person from living to their full potential, to inhibit and otherwise hinder them. The back story is that the “creatures” are forced to hide from the discriminatory humans and their notions of normality. Humans are depicted as prejudiced. The story also has “time-walker” as a top echelon witchcraft skill. A lot of the plot revolves around “powers” of a magical and special kind. Power ever being the motivator for political intrigue, shenanigan and skullduggery. Somehow Diana is able to summon an old text which may or may not hold the secret(s).

In physics a lot of stock is made upon observables and making an observation. If one in any way makes an observation one changes the system. For example if one “observes” a photon using a detector that photon changes the energy state of an electron. The photon ceases to be. The energy has been transformed from one thing to another. At a very local and very tiny level every act of observation changes the system.  Science rhetoric is less explicit as to the nature of interpretation and subsequent assimilation caused by the observation, the act of observation. One could say that the observation of a “handful” of particles in a science experiment can have a truly dramatic and wide ranging impact because of interpretation and assimilation to or with a previously held thought form or model. I might infer that a photon is the witness to an act of proton transfer. My observation hints at a physical process. Any observation changes the system and it cannot be undone. If I talk about it down the pub that handful of photons triggers synapses and a train of thought heads off on whichever trajectories.

I have always had a few problems with the notion of time travel because of observation. It is impossible to travel back in time without altering its forward propagation. Although pleasant as an artistic and entertaining notion it is philosophically tricky. {Ok there may be some time reversal events at sub atomic levels that I am unaware of but these may be mathematical legerdemain}. In terms of karma time travel is also problematic.

In my mind it raises an interesting thought line. “Does reminiscence alter the past or merely our recollection and narrative assimilation thereof?” We do not travel back in time to the acts of perception but how we retell what we “remember” does change our futures because our basis for world interpretation has altered if only slightly.

If for example you held a view that I was a complete bastard and you hated my guts, then any future interaction would be coloured by this framing. If on reminiscing you decided I was only a partial bastard then you have already changed the future. Your change of mind changes the future(s).

Time-walking may be seen as a reinterpretation of events previously observed. Bearing in mind that the apparatus of observation must of course be error prone and never 100% accurate. Not all instruments are sensitive nor well calibrated. We do not actually go back in “physical” time rather review our mental registers of how we have constructed the time evolving narratives. We could re-consider, re-view and possibly re-perceive. Much like an astronomer may apply correction factors to space telescope raw data. There is some “algorithm” which enables (perhaps) a more reliable assimilation. We may refuse to apply said algorithm because we are stuck in our ways and like to cling to old perceptions, prejudices and world views.

The quantum mechanics of a 75kg lump of wet proteins and fats going backwards {or forwards} in time do not seem plausible. Perception and “mind” however are clearly much less physically tangible. In a sense these may be able to travel along what might be called time-registers. In the absence of matter time has no meaning. In a sense time as it is measured is a property of matter (vibration or time to travel between spatial coordinates). How we currently measure time is by the observation of photons in a fancy physics rig.

To extrapolate wildly by measuring time we are changing our futures.

Expansion of Consciousness and Letting Go

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Before I get into this I will take a little diversion. It is to do with karmic “debt” which is another way of simply saying imbalance. If you take more than you give that is unbalanced and ultimately unsustainable. If we “wrong” someone we may feel guilty especially if we are socially caught in so doing, found out, reported to teacher. We may be socially required to say “sorry” even if we do not mean it. It does not change the “wrong” one iota. It is the sort of thing our mothers might require of us if we stole our sister’s Maltesers. It is a social “peace” keeping. It does not change the karma one tiny bit. Until such time we feel it in our hearts to be wrong, we will continue to accrue karmic debt from similar acts. Were the scales to fall from our eyes one fine day we might want to change our ways. We might re-orient our behaviour towards our fellow human beings, try to stop being selfish bellends and do some nice self-less stuff for a change. We would not do this for “show” or PR. Karma does not give a toss about PR. We can never undo a wrong we have meted out to someone nor can we “make it up to them”. What we can do is ensure that we do not inflict that behaviour on others.

Say for example you were to slag me off. You could never undo that. What you could do is make a general effort not to repeat this behaviour, not to inflict it on others. You could strive to be generally more positive and less derogatory. You could balance out your unpleasantness by being more pleasant generally. In so doing you would start to balance your books with the universe. There is no requirement to do anything in respect of me, rather a more general debt to the universe. I personally am unlikely to feel aggrieved or owed. So to try to make it up to me would be silly and probably disingenuous.

Here we have an example of a consciousness expanded away from the petty and personal to the wider and universal. At the moment it seems Trump takes everything personally and vindictively so. His focus is centered on him and does not have a wider universal view. It is all about his personality and his sense of self. He feels hard done by a lot of the time and is prone to playing angry victim.

This sense of victimhood is shared by vast tracts of humanity; they bemoan that life is unfair and complain that things are not as they should be. They imagine life a burden forced upon them. They try to have life on their own terms. If they don’t like how they look they will pay a plastic surgeon to surgically disfigure them. Their consciousness is not expanded beyond their perception of how the meat looks. They are fixated on something arguably silly.

In the blue books opus the Tibetan discusses initiation as a sequential expansion of consciousness, here diagrammatically represented.

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In the diagram, the scale is reconfigured at the end of each open cone. The diameters represent the breadth of consciousness and width of inclusiveness. Each successive cone is an order of magnitude increase in breadth of consciousness. The scale is perhaps logarithmic.

According to the text the consciousness of a fifth degree initiate differs very markedly from your normal common or garden human. What might concern them is not the same as the house home heart wallet and genitals of normal people. Normal people worry about a host of mundane things which in the wider evolutionary scheme do not matter very much. Your much sought after promotion in job is of no consequence in terms of your spiritual evolution.

If you think of a snake as it grows and evolves it has a tendency to shed its skin so that it, no longer constrained, can grow. A similar view can be had here. As a person evolves the ways and thought patterns of the old life must be shed. Let go of. So that a newer nascent consciousness can expand unburdened by the habits {bad} of the past. The fresh new skin does not need the scaly old ways to constrain it. This letting go can mean relationships which drag you down or they can simply need recalibrating. Old habits die hard and these are the detritus that needs letting go of.

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Being obsessed  with little trite details can prevent the expansion of consciousness. One needs to move from the petty and personal to more universal and joined up. To recognise there is but one life to which we all pertain.

To the would be initiate expansion of consciousness and spiritual evolution are the only goals of merit. They seek to rise above the mundane and not remain trapped in the mire which is often petty and of a deeply personal nature.

Letting go is vital in order to enable expansion of consciousness. Mental skin, rigid self-image must be shed again and again.

You cannot expand your consciousness by keeping the same view of the world you currently have. It acts as barrier to evolution, a ghetto wall which keeps you constrained.

Letting go is a truly vital component to the expansion of consciousness. Letting go vivifies.

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The Lotus Eaters and a Logical If

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

As the nights draw in and the temperature drops the occurrence of wildlife in the garden goes up, becomes more frequent. Already the badger is looking for roots, soon we may get deer grazing. For sure the “lotus eaters” aka Coypu or Nutria will return. There was evidence of an attempted perimeter breach overnight. The charge on the battery driving the electric fence has dropped. I had a shock off it yesterday, a tickle. Today I have replaced the battery. This means if any of the Coypu family come to snack on our tasty lotuses Thor may release a lightning bolt to discourage. Since we have installed the electric fence by the river our display of lotuses has flourished. This year was magnificent.

Om mane padme hum

If we take dream content as evidence and consider visions as non hallucinatory then we might conclude that I have had at least four and probably five lives in a priestly or monk like Buddhist incarnation. It is therefore not too much of a stretch to suggest that the term bodhisattva might apply to me, I can be considered as someone seeking liberation. In one of these “visions” I was told that this is my very last incarnation, a suggestion which is internally consistent with the aforementioned logical if.  

This may not sit entirely easily in juxtaposition with a brief career as a pukka scientist. It might seem odd to the class professorial. To me there is no jarring.

We then come upon the Garry Glitter question, “to whose gang do I belong?”

Am I Toltec?

Am I Buddhist?

Am I boffinacious?

One could perhaps draw a Venn diagram, if one could be arsed.

I am unlikely to fall into worship of anti-scientific superstitious conspiracy theories. I am not science-phobic. Nor do I believe in the whole saviour fallacy. Nobody died to save you; it is up to you. Confessing your sins will not remove karmic debt even if you pay the pope a cool million quid. You cannot bribe karma.

To follow on from the logical if. There is an addendum.

If you have treated a bodhisattva badly then that is karmically “bad” for you.

We then get quickly into splitting karmic hairs about degree of bodhisattva and extent of transgression.

The basic rule of thumb is try not to be an arrogant bell end to anyone. It does not need to be any more complicated than this. It is not a bad mantram.

“Remember to try not to be an arrogant bell end…”

Ian – P&L – Didn’t Ask – Avocat – Big Mistake – Dream 25-09-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream. It is perhaps the most out-of-the-blue I have had considering the subject matter. It was from between 6:15 and 8 AM. I had thought that the present “cluster” of dreams was over and that I would not go back to sleep.

I am sat in a lounge like living area of my house. Which differs from the current real world one. Ian my flatmate from the early eighties is with me. He has come for refuge from the hurly burly, the stresses and strains. We are chatting and I pour him a  glass of wine. He says that “they” are probably going to close his university department, meaning the “senior” management. It has been an uphill battle and student recruitment is down.

I offer to look at the P&L accounts for his department to see if there is anything he has missed. I explain to him that I was a company director. He hands them over and I do a thorough look. Two of the three sub-courses are loss making. I don’t see an obvious way to turn it around into profit, but losses can be reduced. I see an alternate revenue stream. Which we discuss. We have a brief siesta.

To get some fresh air we go out into the garden. It starts by looking like here. Then we get on a quad bike to explore more widely. He sits pillion and we race about having some fun. We come to an area of the garden. There is a paved path going from the main road across the/my property to a fenced off industrial quasi-governmental compound with low rise multi-storey buildings. There is a security fence with gate and pass code entry. This morning the path was not there. They have built it while we were asleep.

When the wife comes back from the supermarket she too will be unimpressed.

I drive up along the path to the security gate. Ian and I dismount. I press the buzzer on the gate and a workman in dark blue overalls appears. I ask why they thought it was a good idea to build the path across my land without permission or legal right of way. He does not understand English. So I repeat in French and say that I am about to call my avocat-attorney on the ‘phone. He needs to get me someone senior to talk to.

He goes and come back with a young man in his thirties-forties. He is wearing jacket and jeans. I ask him why he thought it was a good idea and otherwise OK to build on my land without asking and why they infringed property trespass. I will sue for trespass. He is placatory and acts as it does not matter, bof. I am unimpressed to understate.

I proceed in French to demand that he gets the company head because I will be taking the lot of them to court. I will hold each one personally responsible. I start to increase the intensity levels considerably.

He scuttles off and returns with a man around my age who is tall with receding hair. The man dismisses what I am saying. I say to him I have only one question for them. In English now.

“Why did they think it was fine to not ask me, to build without my permission, why?

He says that he has read about how tired I am and that they did not think that I would mind and that in any case there is not a lot I can do against a corporation like theirs.

I reiterate, “why did you think it was a good idea not to ask me?”

He says that they did not want to bother me and they thought that I would like this. I can have an honorarium for everyone who uses the path.

I switch back into French. I explain to him that a couple of decades ago I raised five million in start up funds and that the type of person who does this is not ordinary. That it is and was a very stupid thing to underestimate someone like me. I say that he is probably right that in the end they will “win” and I will loose money. I say that in the meantime I will make life incredibly difficult for them and that karmically speaking to behave in the manner towards me is utter stupidity. They do not understand quite how stupid.

As I say this I am swelling in intensity. The man who is used to being obeyed and having people fawn is finding the encounter very difficult. He does not know what to say or how to respond. His implicit threat has not worked. He looks nonplussed.

He says,  “but we thought you would not mind and that we did not need to ask you. We thought we were right…”

I say that they have made a grave and serious mistake.

The dream ends.

Note – I am capable of an interpersonal intensity which very few have experienced. I hold  back.

Atonement – Ruining Lives

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The other night we watched a quintessentially English film called “Atonement”. It was very well acted and full of luvvies. The costumes and setting were excellent. It was full of repression and class tension. The gist of it was that a posh teenage girl lied about events, a possible sexual assault. As a consequence a lower class man previously sponsored through Cambridge by the family was arrested and gaoled for the assault. The young woman of the house {the sister of the informant} and he were finally opening up about their strong feelings for each other just before the event. He, the outsider, was sent to prison in disgrace and their relationship was severed. The young woman of the house left the family. All because of the younger sister’s lies, the stretching of “truth” by the teenage girl who was too embarrassed to change her story. Before she got to atone for her sins, her older sister died in a Nazi bombing of London and he died during the BEF retreat to Dunkirk. The young informant wrote a whole novel imagining the lovers together and her atonement. It was all made up in her head, something she imagined doing but never could. It was too late. She did not atone. She imagined making up a “happiness” for them atoned for her actions. In reality it did not nor could not.

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It shows that those fond of attention with a talkative tongue can invent shit and ruin the lives of others. Talk can literally derail lives. A few words in haste can have a devastatingly destructive impact. I am fairly sure that the basic gist of the story is played out time and again. The versions and circumstance vary, but lying for attention may be a very common theme. The film suggested that the protagonist who wrote a novel about the betrayal struggled with appreciating the impact and scale of what she did. Not everyone will struggle, the more sociopathic may feel justified and never think of it again. But if we are human we all kind of know when we have betrayed, let down and not been impeccable. Our conscience may vary. We may have a few nights on the pillow before sleep when the ghosts of deeds past parade before our mind. It may be more impactful and of a greater longevity.

It is often the outsider, the person who is not present, who has their lives ruined.

If we are so lucky as to be offered a chance to atone in some way for our deeds then the universe is kind to us. Should we fail to seize such a thing then our guilt may grow and metastasise. In reality we can never change nor undo the damage we have done. Any “sorry” if heartfelt is to assuage our own feelings of misdemeanour. Karmically it is at least an acknowledgement of responsibility and perhaps of learning. If we learn from misdemeanour then it has at least served some purpose. If we are a serial offender then pain and ruin has been wasted. It is wanton destruction.

It is logical that one lie almost invariably leads to others. Unless the truth is out, the lies propagate. The karma of lies can often be the perceived need for more lying, more falsehood. The causal impact of lies and exaggerations can be manifold.

A simple act can bifurcate through space-time.