At that point I was somewhat dazed and confused, so I stalled Master Fwap, while trying to decide whether or not I wanted to get involved with his Tantric Buddhist revelations.
I asked Master Fwap if he would explain what karma was. I told him that while I had heard the word used as slang hundreds of times, I really had no idea what it meant to a Tantric Buddhist master.
Master Fwap smiled. He explained that I had known all about karma, and many other mystical things, in my past lives, that the knowledge from my previous incarnations was contained in my “other memory”.
MASTER FWAP EXPLAINS KARMA TO ME
Master Fwap began, “Karma is the way that Buddhists explain the universe. Buddhists understand that today, and all other days, have turned out the way they have because of karma.
“The past leads to the present moment, and the present moment leads to the future. The interconnection of one moment with another moment, and of one action with another action, is karma.
“Karma is what happens to you today. It is simply the law of cause and effect in action. What occurs to you today is an outgrowth of what happened yesterday. All moments and occurrences are caused by other moments and occurrences that proceeded them, in an endless causal chain of karmic interactions that leads back indefinitely through time.”
“But Master Fwap, there had to be a beginning to karma at some point! Wasn’t there a ‘first moment’ in karmic time?”
“No, karma has always existed, as have you, I, and all things in this wonderful universe.”
“What you are saying, Master Fwap, is that I exist today the way I do, and the world exists the way it does, because of yesterday’s karma.
“And yesterday existed the way it did because of the day-before-yesterday’s karma. And the day-before-yesterday existed the way it did, because of the preceding day’s karma.
“And every day that has ever existed, has existed the way it has, because of an endless infinity of previous karmas. Is that more or less correct, Master Fwap?”
“Exactly!” he said, nodding his neatly-shaved bald head in affirmation.
“So does that mean that everything is fated, Master Fwap? If what occurs in this moment sets up the next moment, and so on forever, then there is really no such thing as free will, is there?”
“A complicated question from one who is so young. I will do my best to answer.
“You see, karma is fate, it is true! If you throw a rock up into the air, it will come down and land some place. You might say that the place that the rock lands is its karma.
“But then again, it was your free choice whether or not to throw the rock up into the air in the first place.
“Everything that exists, in this or in any other world, or dimension, does so because of the way that things were in the previous moment. I call this the karma of the moment.
“But with free will, we can modify, to a certain extent, the chain of karma that has been set in motion by the karma of the previous moment. That is what free will really is. It is the ability to alter the sequence of karmic fate that was about to become our future.”
“So, Master Fwap, you believe that we are the way we are because of how we were a moment ago. That moment leads to this moment, as this moment will lead to the next moment. I can understand that.
“But if that’s true, then how can free will exist?
“Isn’t the choice to alter your future karma by exercising your free will now, predestined by what you were thinking and feeling, and by what was happening to you in the previous moment?”
Master Fwap shook his head and laughed.
“All of this is perhaps a little bit more complicated than it initially appears to be. Let me try to describe the interaction of karma and free will to you in another way.
“Let us consider, as a way of trying to understand how karma works, who we are, and how we got to be who we are.
“You see, my young friend, karma not only means that what happens to you in the present moment is a direct outgrowth of what occurred to you in the previous moment. Buddhists believe that you are who you are today because of who you have been in all of your past lives.
“It is the Tantric Buddhist belief that today you are the product of all the moments you have lived in your current life thus far, and also, of all the moments, realizations and experiences you have had in all your past lives as well.
“The person you are today, the feelings you have, the thoughts you think, and the way you see yourself, are all part of your past life and present life karmas.”
I must have had a puzzled look on my face, because he laughed.
“Let me use myself as an example. I have always been interested in Buddhism, astrology, psychic perception, and enlightenment.
“I was born this way. My brothers and sisters, who grew up in the same family as I did, and who were exposed to the same physical and spiritual environments I was, have little or no interest in these inner matters.
“They are all primarily concerned with physical things, that relate to their material success, such as making a living and raising a family.
“My brothers and sisters and I, all had the same biological parents. We were all raised in the same way. But each of us is very different. That is our karma—who we were born as, and also who we grew up to be.
“And death is not the end of who we are,” Master Fwap said. “It is only a brief pause in the endless cycle of our lives.
“Each of us is a spirit that cannot die. Our spirit grows and develops traits in each incarnation that it passes through, and then collects and carries the essence of these traits into future lifetimes.
“In Buddhist yoga, we refer to our multi-life karmic traits as ‘samskaras’. They are the internal karmic patterns that make each of us who we are, and what we are.
“When we are born into a new lifetime, our spirit doesn’t lose the samskaras that were developed in previous incarnations.
“At first they are usually hidden by the temporary amnesia of infancy, and by the transient personality that is assumed during childhood and adolescence.
“But as we grow older and mature in each incarnation, we are drawn back by samskaras—multi-life karmic patterns—to previous interests and pursuits.
“This causes each of us to become the same kind of person we were in our past lives.
“We are born into this lifetime as the person that we were at the moment of our death in our last lifetime.
“Our adult personality is a mirror image of who we were in the last stage of our life in our previous incarnation.”
After a period of silence, Master Fwap tried yet another approach to enlighten me on the subject of karma.
He said, “Try thinking of it this way.
“Children go to school in the winter. In the summer they stay at home. When they return to school the next fall, they resume their education in a higher grade because of the schoolwork and the grade they completed the previous year.
“While it is true that a child may have developed some new ideas or interests in the previous school year, or over the summer, the essence of the child’s personality will have remained the same.
“Although the child is now in a new and higher grade, and may now know new things, and have had many new and different experiences, the child is still the same child.
“In much the same way, whatever you have learned in your previous incarnations is retained within your ‘causal body’–your multi-lifetime body of energy that lives from one incarnation to another.
“It is your causal body that is the real you!
“At the end of each incarnation, it carries the knowledge and karmic patterns, of that particular lifetime, in addition to the knowledge and karmic patterns of all of your other previous lifetimes, into your next incarnation.
“Death is only a summer vacation for us. We don’t really change or lose what we have learned or who we have been, when we die, because we are our karma.
“The choices we make and the thoughts we allow ourself to think, the emotions that we let run through our bodies and minds, and the interests we pursue, these are the things that shape and define the spirit.
“That is what karma is really made of.”
Master Fwap paused and looked directly into my eyes. He must have been at least partially satisfied by what he saw there, because he smiled, bowed his head, and then said jokingly, “Buddha’s name be praised.”
Then after several minutes of silence, he resumed his discussion of karma.
“For example, in my last several dozen lifetimes, I was a teacher of Buddhist enlightenment. I was enlightened, and I helped others who were interested in self-discovery to advance along the pathway to enlightenment, in each of my enlightened lifetimes.
“The reason I was enlightened in my last several dozen incarnations, was that many, many thousands of incarnations ago, of my own free will, I became interested in self-discovery and in the study of enlightenment.
“I studied meditation, and learned all about the inner worlds and the higher dimensions from great Buddhist masters who knew about these matters.
“However, in my current lifetime, on the fateful day of my 29th birthday, when I had just met my past life master, Fwaz Shastra-Dup, I had absolutely no idea I had ever been enlightened in any of my previous incarnations.
“Naturally, my master saw and understood my past life karma better than I did at the time.
“Master Fwaz Shastra-Dup then taught me how to use the secret and powerful meditation techniques of the Rae Chorze-Fwaz. After practicing the techniques each day for many years, coupled with my master’s spiritual guidance and auric empowerments, I was able to bring my past life enlightenment back.
“Later, because it was also my karma, Master Fwaz made me his successor.
“This all happened to me in this lifetime, because of the things I had learned, and the choices I had made, in my previous incarnations.
“This is the secret of what karma really is.”
“But Master Fwap, I still don’t understand the difference between karmic fate and free will. Wasn’t it your karma to meet your past life master, and to regain your enlightenment, because of the fact that you had been enlightened in your previous lifetimes?”
“Yes, that is true, but it was through the exercise of my free will in the first place that I began the study of meditation.
“Free will exists and operates outside of causality. It is not hooked to karma.
“Free will is like a well that is on your property. You can choose to draw water from the well or not. That is up to you.
“The well will still be there whether or not you choose to use it.
“Most people choose not to use their free will, so consequently they rarely alter their karmic pattern.
“But if you choose to draw from the inner well of free will, then you can make choices that are outside of your current karmic pattern.
“You can alter the structure of your samskaras, and of your current and future incarnations, by choosing to use your free will today.
“You can become someone vastly different from the person you have been in this life, or the person you have been in any other lifetime that you have ever lived.
“Advanced Buddhist yoga is the art of altering your karmic pattern. Through the practice of meditation, and with the auric empowerments and guidance of an enlightened master, you can totally change your karmic destiny.
“By practicing Buddhist yoga, you can become happy, ecstatic, and free in your current incarnation. Even if you have never been that way before in any of your past lives, or thus far in your current life.
“Believe me, this is true. If there wasn’t a way around the samskaras, no one would ever become enlightened.
“Remember, karma exists within causality. It is three-dimensional. Free will exists outside of causality, it is not bound by karma.
“By exercising your free will, thinking happier thoughts, making happier choices, and by learning and following the Buddhist way, you can totally change your karma forever.”
I asked Master Fwap why we all weren’t born knowing about our past lives. If we all have lived before, we should simply remember our past lives from the moment that we were born, in the same way that we remember something today that we experienced yesterday.
He responded that most human beings who have been spiritually evolved in their past lives go through a stage he called “unknowing”, during which they experience a temporary state of “spiritual amnesia”.
He told me that “unknowing” normally lasts from birth through adolescence.
During this phase, even a very spiritually advanced person would often act just like an average child or adolescent.
One day a person who has attained advanced levels of mind in past lives begins to remember … and spiritual knowledge and talents from past lives begins to resurface into the person’s current self.
During this metamorphosis, people usually lose interest in superficial things, like possessions and relationships, and instead find themselves drawn to the study of the ancient, eternal, and metaphysical truths.
As they enter more deeply into this phase, they become calm, happy, and centered, focused on the transcendental, rather than the transitory.
When a person who has had highly evolved past lives is going through a strong past life transit, that person comes to know things about life, death, and other dimensions, that most people in our world aren’t aware of.
Very often while this is happening, the person also rapidly regains and begins to employ past life psychic powers, and to do things with them that defy description.
ॐ
After another period of silence, Master Fwap told me that most people who had been enlightened in their previous incarnations, would normally begin to regain their past life enlightenment—if they lived at sea level—at around the age of twenty-nine, when their astrological Saturn-return took place.
He said that living in or near sacred mountains, because of their beneficial auric influences, often made past-life returns happen even faster.