This is a fascinating topic to me. Karma versus Life Plan. I have been wrestling alot with these two lately in trying to get a handle on events in my own life story.
I wonder are the two necessarily juxtaposed?
For the longest time now, I have viewed life through a set of karmic spectacles. I have found in the past the concept of Karma to be a parsimonious explanation for the why's and how's of so many of lifes unfoldings. For me, the notion of Karma had tremendous explanatory power, and although I certainly didn't attribute all happenings in life to Karma (a kind of deterministic fatalism), much of what seemed on the surface as random happenings, were equally and better explained for me in terms of Karmic unfoldings.
However, I never seriously entertained the notion that what was happening in and around my life could also potentially be explained as the result of some pre life plan. Until recently. I have been reading Gary Schwartz's 'The Afterlife Experiments', and a number of other books which have really begun to cement for me this idea that the data coming from mediumship research, NDE's, psychic and psi phenomena, past life and between life regression and much more, is really pointing to an objective spirtual reality, which is central to who we are, and what we are doing here.
Now, the reality they seem to point to, seems to be quite different from the almost impersonal Karmically driven model of the universe many idealistic philosphies proclaim. We seem less to be bumbling karmic idiots, haplessly sowing seeds of desirable and undesirable Karma, and sliding up and down the spiritual ladder, than beings attempting a determined and focused spiritual progression. In order to progress, it seems it is important to experience both pleasant and unpleasant realities, highs and lows, light and dark, with a lot of emphasis on the experiences characterised by suffering.
I am now beginning to see that a spiritual universe in which the soul chooses great adversity, rather than merely paying back a karmic debt to the spiritual bank manager, is one which will greatly facilitate tremendous growth and maturing. In the blind Karmic model of the universe, it is as the buddhist suggest, as foam being tossed around by a mighty ocean, and it is only through good fortune that one miraculously stumbles upon a method of liberation (the dharma). Contrasted with the Life Plan model, whereby this drama of life, so real and believable, is planned in such a way that the knowledge gleaned from life events no matter how painful, will in the bigger picture, serve only to aid our spiritual advancement and refinement.
I do still wonder though whether the two are necessarily opposed, or whether in some way they don't both function. Could it be for example that we plan the method of repaying our Karmic debt, and the result is an expedient means of learning and progressing spiritually? And also, that we freely choose negative events which have nothing to do with Karma, and are merely expedient means of the souls learning?
Another reason for my re evaluating this theme, and questioning the notion that Karma may be the central spoke around which the wheel of lifes events revolve, comes from dreams and precognition. Since I was very young, I had this strange dream, which felt more like a memory than a dream, which has always been lurking in the background. At the age of 36, a serious of life shattering and life changing events happened, which were entirely related to this dream/memory. On both a literal and symbolic level, the reference to the events which unfolded in my life were impossible to ignore. All of a sudden, this memory, became a precognition, and it fit events 100%. I do not wish to share details, but I know that the themes and literal circumstances portrayed in my memory/dream fit no other episodes in my life nearly as well, either symbolically, or literally, so I can only conclude the memory was actually a precognition of some sort. Just like I always knew these events would happen some how. These were the most defining events of my whole existence, and will continue to be so until I die.
Lots to think about.
Soul.