Aquarius wrote:I did not say that it was a terrifying thought. I simply don't believe that seriously harmful things happen to souled people without their higher selves allowing it for some reason, however difficult that might be to believe for some other folks.
I didn't mean the "terrifying" question to be directed specifically at you, though it was your post that made me think of it. For the record, however, how does the possibility of the opposite of your belief make you feel?
I generally agree with you on the nothing-happens-without-our-higher-selves-allowing-it theory. A higher self implies a lower self, though, and a possibility of a conflict of wills between them.
I think what the essay in the first post was getting at, in part, is that when people say: "It was their karma," they're using the pronoun "their" to refer to the higher self and ignoring the existence of the body and mind. A souled person isn't a single unit. It may be continuous in terms of energy, but it rarely is in terms of awareness.
...I guess if you thoroughly identify with the life-is-a-videogame take, then sure, who cares what happens to the character on the screen? It's all a game. What's important is the player. But what's the difference between people feeling that way about the violence on earth and the people who grow callous to videogame gore? (I suppose in asking that I'm inferring that there's something wrong with people who play violent videogames and think nothing of it...Maybe nothing is wrong with it. It is a game).
Both points-of-view come to the same thing: it's a game...it isn't real. I think that's why I chose to respond to this thread so much. The "none-of-this-is-real" belief behind the "your-higher-self-is-in-complete-control" belief. There are probably more beliefs than that behind the higher self belief, but that's one of them.
So now I feel like a kid in Sunday school. If only the will of the higher self matters, why have a lower self with a will? Why bother?
You can't change a tiger's stripes,
but you can avoid its teeth.