Karma

With the advent of the germ theory of disease, centuries of interest in what is now called the body-mind connection fell into disrepute. I have described myself as a medical philosopher and would like to begin the incredibly difficult and important section on emotions with a few broad remarks.

During the time of the Inquisition, doctors were prohibited from "curing" patients because the medical fashion at that time, dictated by a Church going through one of the most incomprehensible and dark eras of history, was that disease is a sin. So as not to interfere with either God's wrath or the opportunity that patients had to expiate their sins, doctors were neither to cure nor provide relief from suffering.

I never understood this theory, not in the context of a Christian faith founded not only by the greatest healer known to have walked the Earth but by a great soul who taught forgiveness of sins and compassion for those who suffer. However, as history would have it, the Inquisition burned approximately nine million people at the stake, mostly women who practiced a gentler and more humane form of healing than that espoused by the officialdom of the times.

I believe in the law of karma, but I do not interpret this law in a vengeful way. I understand karma as a natural law, as natural as the law of gravity: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The purpose of this law is to maintain balance and with this to align with the purpose of God's Plan. In other words, karma is not retribution for misdeeds so much as correction for disharmony.

 

Future topics:

Getting to the bottom of causal issues
Disappointment
Grief
Fear
Suffering
Expectations
Blame
Recrimination
Unfairness
Injustice
Anger
Rage
Selfishness
Failure
Sorting through relationships
Happiness
Making life meaningful
Learning from one’s experiences
Reaching understanding/acceptance of the past
Support
Pain
Death

 

Removing Obstacles to Cure