To Shift Lives

Teachings and teachers that are of genuine substance are recognized by two criteria that are important to keep in mind:

First, they are capable of connecting you with the experience of The Universal Presence.

Second, they are capable of intervening in your life in such a way as to actually bring relief and easing into difficult and painful circumstances. In other words, they are powerful enough to substantially diminish suffering.

This ability to affect and neutralize the suffering of another human being is the signature of what in Buddhism would be termed a Bodhisattva and generally is reached only after considerable longterm spiritual effort that may span lifetimes.

If there is in our life the presence of suffering, this can be compared to a block that has an energetic volume. And the only way to dissolve this block is by introducing a force greater than the energy of the block that causes our suffering. It really is a simple equation.

Imagine you have a two-ton rock in your driveway. You can walk up to it and push it, knock or kick it. It will not move. That rock represents an energy not matched by whatever your body could do.

You will have to become more creative. You could invite 200 of your neighbors, put a rope around the rock and get everybody to pull. You will now move the rock, as the collective energy of the group now supersedes that of the obstacle.

Or if you enjoy more spectacular ways of obstacle removal, you can light a stick of dynamite and place it beneath the rock. This too will create an energy greater than the rock. It will give.

Karmic obstacles that cause us suffering, on whatever level, are just like that. They can be dissolved if one has learnt to generate energy greater than the obstacle.

Adepts who are capable of this feat exist on a scale of levels, due to the degree of their own mastery.

While this removing of karmic obstacles can at times take place without affecting the adept too much, at other times it does. This is how we can explain that great teachers can die of cancer, have terrible car accidents or are involved in other dramatic events. What we have here is a transfer of negative karmic emanations onto the body of the teacher, mostly from people under his wings.

I have come to think that Christ willingly allowed pain and crucifixion in order to alleviate the collective karmic negativity of the planet. I think that his death made a collossal difference to mankind, most interestingly, mankind being in utter ignorance of the transfer.

Similarly, most beings who are subject to such transfers remain equally ignorant of what actually transpires, since the Bodhisattva generally does not say, "I did this for you."

What we have here is a silent offering of great love.

In India there exists a great story of karmic transfer. A man had a son he deeply loved. This son became gravely ill and was bound to die. The man became desperate and prayed to the god of death to spare his son. The god of death was very touched by the devotion of the man to his son. He said, "I wish I could help you, but I myself am bound by laws. The time has come for your son to pay his karmic bill. This bill must be paid! Unless... you wish to pay it for him."

The man was surprised. "You mean I can pay his debt?"

The god of death said, "Yes. It is possible. I have the power to transfer, but generally nobody asks me for such a thing. You want to pay for your son?"

The man did not hesitate for a moment and said, "Please. Take me instead."

And the god of death said, "As you wish."

Instantly the illness of the son transfered to the man. The son recovered and the man died shortly after from the illness.

Our painful life circumstances represent the bills we get for our past behavior that brought suffering to others and in most instances, somebody must pay those bills.