that is a definitive statement, and not one I follow, I do not believe in karma in the same way that you do, I refuse to believe in any 'god' that operates such a concept that one should be made to pay for sins in a previous life that one has no recollection of. what sort of god punishes a baby?
The baby is not the baby, the kid is not the kid, the teen is not the teen, the adult is not the adult. In actuality, there's no you, no me, no tree, river , mountain, forest, this and the that.
Its all god playing its weird games . Its just an act, a pretense, something god created in his own joy.
Gurbani often gives a beautiful and really simple but appropriate example of this at several places :
This world with all its stories is like a play. You know Harry when a play happens, a story is written , and an
actor then enacts the characters of the play. The actor changes his appearance to
become the characters . You sit in the auditorium watching the play. The character laughs and cries. You haven't seen the actor but you can say an actor is there because the character is there !
Then the play ends . And the character disappears ! voila .. what happened ?
was the character of the play for real ?? was all that crying and sorrow and happiness and joys
real ? it wasn't , but it did happen before your very eyes. You saw it , so it was real !
but it wasn't !
When the play ended, the character disappeared and only the actor remained !
so does the bani of guru tells us that god created this world for his pleasure will, and he enacted all this characters, you, me , everything else but he's the main actor behind us all. The actor behind us all is same .
This is what the ancient sages called 'aatma' (soul) which is perhaps (? I am doubtful) identical with the 'paramatma' (god).
Thats why Guru Nanak said "no one is hindu, no one is muslim" . Perhaps at that stage, you can't really differentiate all these superficial things.
I could say the same about your Vedic views, we are all different and free to believe what we wish.
I don't have vedic views or abrahamic views . I think both of these are same if you scratch the surface !
there's only one religion ! all superficial things give illusion of more than one religion.
what qualifies you to make this statement?
Guru's word. You can read an english translation of gurbani on internet.
I have no karmic seed, none of this makes any sense to me, sorry.
If I jump off a cliff saying that I don't believe in gravity, will I not fall off to ground and die ?
These are not my views, these are views of ancient sages and also of our guru sahibs.
Without karma (deed in action or thought), we wouldn't be here.
Desires are the reason for birth.
What is remaining balance in your account at end of fiscal year does get carried forward to next year my friend. Same is true for baby perhaps !
not at all, we all have different views and thinking, life would be boring otherwise.
you're free to hold onto your views. We are just discussing
In practical pragmatic terms, what does the above mean ? what is devotional worship?
Perhaps you're already doing some of it !
when you help a person, when you say a big part of your life revolves around helping others, and you act on it, then you're helping others my friend .. you're actually helping yourself .
Once when I was going through the atheistic phase of my life, I once asked our local gurudwara's granthi "Where is god ? why have I never heard him speak?" , to which he beautifully replied "This (you) is god speaking, who else than god ?"
Didn't believed it then, but now remembering this brings tear to my eyes
So strange it is !
