Cookies Think back to a time before cookies were maligned, before they became an invasive way for other computer users to give you things you might not want or to take information from you. Think back to when cookies were sweet treats and welcomed, especially with a cup of good cold milk or tasty juice. I think of karma as cookies. I can earn cookies. I can consume cookies. I can fill up my cookie jar when I have the opportunity so there will be cookies left for me when I need or want them. I think that I must have had a lot of extra cookies with me when I came into this lifetime because this life has been so good and fun and mostly easy for me. I feel that I could have really eaten a whole lot of cookies without cutting myself short, but I haven't. I would assume that I've done this for a few lifetimes in a row, in order for me to have so many stockpiled now. It's also possible that I have suffered in many lifetimes and I'm now reaping the karmic benefits of that. Perhaps that's why I give freely, because I know what it's like to be without. By the same token, perhaps that's why I do not consume selfishly. I will admit that I need to learn to be a little more generous with myself as well as others. How karma works is a rather debatable issue but most people agree that you get points for doing 'good' things and points are taken away or you get demerits when you do 'bad' things. Now the definition of good and bad is a real sticking point with some folks. In my experience and by my spiritual beliefs, anything I do that doesn't affect anyone else is a freebie. It's neither here nor there. It's a neutral action and does not gain me any points but neither does it cost me. If I am helpful to another person in some way, then I gain points. How many? I don't know. Could be a one to one thing. Could be a sliding scale based on how helpful I was and how much effort I put into it. I imagine that a more selfless act would reap more benefit, karmically. The same principle would apply when I hurt another person. If it was totally accidental, ie, without intent to harm, I would think I could slide by with minimal demerits, as opposed to the hit I'd take on karma points if I purposely set out to really harm someone. The greater the harm and intent, the more points I'd have to pay. The concept of karma has been passed around a lot so it's not all that new or radical. Even people who know nothing of Eastern religions and never ponder a spirit's possible value or score sheet, will make jokes about karma. My favorite line on this is "My dogma is chasing my karma." I find this funny as sometimes while trying to be helpful, I feel like a dog chasing a parked car. I have to learn when to give up the effort, preferrably before I break my own nose. I'm not so concerned about missing karmic points but I'm frustrated that I feel compelled to assist and seem to be getting nowhere. Ultimately, I must have misjudged the situation. Maybe I get points for trying? I don't know. I only know that I must continue to try to help, but maybe I need to be less aggressive about it and learn to read the signals better. Through my heightened awareness, even before awakening, I used my easy enjoyable position in life as a means to give some of it away to others. I have adopted a policy of noblesse oblige. I am the recipient of generosity from many spirits around me and from the powers of the universe and thus I am compelled by a higher sense of honor and responsibility to share this wealth. I have extra cookies. I can afford to pass some around. I don't care if I get paid back for them. While I feel that I likely get more cookies back at some point, it may not be obvious. That doesn't matter. I feel that everyone could always use a cookie and if I have some to spare, then I want to be generous. In this way, I feel I've been racking up a lot of points and this has also served to elevate me to a higher level of spirit work. It's an upward spiral, I think. The more I give, the more I have. This is an ancient concept and I believe in it. The downside is that without knowing how many cookies I have for sure, I might give too much away. Well, I have to trust that if I run out, an opportunity will come along where I may earn more. Perhaps I will suffer through some event in my life but in coming through that, I will begin to build my karma back up into the positive side again. I think it would be very difficult to run out of karma points while giving of yourself to others. Seems to me that you'd be racking up a lot of points and spending very few, even if you messed up royally. On the other hand, I think it would be very risky to decide to spend a few points just to get back at someone who really twisted your knickers. Think twice. You don't know for sure what it's really costing you, in this life or subsequent lives. I can only think of one thing that might cost you all of your cookies, all at once. Self-destruction is about the only thing that I can imagine which would be something like 'unforgivable.' Killing another spirit, whether figuratively or literally, would be very very bad and it might cost you everything or might not. In the case of having to kill one in order to save more, then I think there may be some loss of karmic points but the points gained should more than compensate, providing you have accurately read the necessity for this action. There would always be a price for destruction. What the price is would depend a lot on the reason for doing it. I suppose it could be argued that there might be a circumstance where a person would be destroying themselves in order to help others but I'd have to wonder about that spirit's judgement and whether they could really be objective in such a situation. I would still put the highest cost on self-destruction. It's too much like taking yourself out of the chain and letting down the support for all others to whom you are linked. It would create a hole and you would no longer be available to help patch it. The other factor is that you would not truly be destroyed. You may kill this body but you cannot kill the spark of divinity which is your spirit. I believe the physical laws of science in this case may be applied to us as energy citizens of the universe. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Once the whole system was set up, at the beginning of everything, then it is what it is. We exist and shall continue to do so. We may change properties and move about and mutate into something different, but we cannot ultimately be destroyed by ourselves or anyone else. At least, not until the power that runs the system decides it's time to pack it all up again. Considering that the universe is all of us together, working toward a oneness, that will not happen on a whim. We'd have to do it in a unified manner. Perhaps that is what we're working toward, one unified spirit with one collective and harmonic will. In the meantime, if you cut short your own journey or that of another spirit, for whatever reason, you will be back to continue your work and they will come back for theirs. You will carry with you the resulting damage. You may have to start all over or drop back several steps. You will be paying for your uncooperative actions. You will have big lessons to learn. It's something to think about while you're enjoying a cookie or find you could use one. You have to wonder how you got to that condition and how you can use your spirit's will to help yourself out in the future. Some people have proposed that spirits may come back together again for unfinished business from previous lives. I think that might be true in some cases, especially if that spirit is one in your circle or you have not yet learned the associated lesson. I think it's not likely to be true in all cases. It would be really difficult for two spirits to end up exactly in a karmic tie at the end of some lifetime together. What happened on your previous soul journeys is certainly taken into account for future ones but it may not be so directly manifested. After all, we are not currently privy to all the information at hand when these decisions are made outside this realm, either by ourselves or by some collective committee of energy assigned to coordinate or assist. Being a soul journer myself, I cannot detail the process of journey selection for you. I only offer theories and possibilties but I offer them from the same logic and common sense that has helped me get at least a working grasp of what we're up to here. Even the concept of karma and any point system is likely a contrivance we use, just like time and space, to help us get our minds around the way things work. I cannot say yet how things really work or how they are measured, in the context of the whole universe. But for now, between you and me, I like thinking about the cookies and earning them and giving them away, as a symbol of my own cooperation with the greater whole that is Us. (Cookies)

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