What does "The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions" mean?

[Sacred Fool]

Because at the end of the day, karma is not there to punish us, it's there as a tool for the seeker to help evolution.

Sure, lots of us delay reckoning with the stuff we carry, but as soon as we sit down to meditate, guess what?  Up it comes.  Karma delayed is not karma avoided.


How do negative entities put the brakes on a karmic burden?  Is it through forgiveness? 

I think that to answer this, you need to look deeply into what forgiveness is and what effects it has on an entity.  Also, you need to look more deeply into love.  What is love if the 4D entities learn lessons of love (love of self) while hurting or destroying others?  What is love that it is learned in this way allowing a negative entity to graduate to 5D?
  
This quote, I believe, offers a clue.

34.5 Questioner: If an entity develops what is called a karma in an incarnation, is there then programming that sometimes occurs so that he will experience catalyst that will enable him to get to a point of forgiveness thereby alleviating the karma?

Ra: I am Ra. This is, in general, correct. However, both self and any involved other-self may, at any time through the process of understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness, ameliorate these patterns. This is true at any point in an incarnative pattern. Thus one who has set in motion an action may forgive itself and never again make that error. This also brakes or stops what you call karma.

I would submit that the skillful negative entity does not see cruelty and other forms of manipulation as mistakes; rather, they see them as necessary actions, not something that needs correction.  Therefore, there is nothing there to forgive.  For this reason, perhaps, they carry different sorts of karmic burdens than positive entities?  Perhaps karma is programmed by our own sense of self reflection, that is, how we feel things reflect upon us?  So, maybe forgiveness is a personally defined and experienced thing which helps define our view of self?

      

[Sacred Fool]

 
Here's some more information on the same topic.

To begin to master the concept of mental discipline it is necessary to examine the self. The polarity of your dimension must be internalized. Where you find patience within your mind you must consciously find the corresponding impatience and vice versa. Each thought that a being has, has in its turn an antithesis. The disciplines of the mind involve, first of all, identifying both those things of which you approve and those things of which you disapprove within yourself, and then balancing each and every positive and negative charge with its equal. The mind contains all things. Therefore, you must discover this completeness within yourself.

The second mental discipline is acceptance of the completeness within your consciousness. It is not for a being of polarity in the physical consciousness to pick and choose among attributes, thus building the roles that cause blockages and confusions in the already-distorted mind complex. Each acceptance smoothes part of the many distortions that the faculty you call judgment engenders.

From this perspective, acceptance of self is the consequence of forgiveness, is the preliminary goal of spiritual growth.  If one is negative and one accepts this, then one progresses in the ways of love.  Karma, the learning mechanism, is laid to rest as one no longer requires this or that learning experience of self acceptance.

Kinda cool, I would observe.
    

[Patrick]

...Perhaps karma is programmed by our own sense of self reflection, that is, how we feel things reflect upon us?...

That is how I understand it as well. And so the negative entity might even program karma when it fails in negative endeavors like failing to manipulate others might give them karma that will help them ensure they get proper catalysts towards getting better at manipulating others.

[rva_jeremy]

Confederation sources talk about karma as a kind of momentum. Polarizing service-to-others, we're trying to slow down that momentum and find the center point of forgiveness. As a metaphor, I'm thinking of when you're pushing somebody on a swing set, and you start to push less and less hard, slowly decelerating the swinging by becoming more gentle and using a lighter touch.

But polarizing service-to-self, I wonder if the goal is to instead use the momentum in an ever-accelerating manner. Instead of seeing the opportunities for balance that karma offers, folks on this path sees opportunities to "push the swing even higher" and using whatever pain, frustration, and agony that obtains in response as energy with which to hone one's resolve and will to power. Every opportunity to balance, by this thinking, is also an opportunity to further imbalance, right? And I wonder if this is a way that the STS path builds spiritual power in a way that, when intensified sufficiently, allows them equivalent access to harvest as opening the heart. In a way, it is a kind of use of the heart in the negative sense if it is seeking out greater and greater injury in precisely the same degree that we seek healing -- like using one's aversion to pain in the heart as a way to force the self to drink more deeply of it instead of seeking less pain.

This is all just speculation; the big problem talking about all this subject is that we're talking about an entire sense of self that is alien to what all of his, I imagine, have chosen or are on the way to choosing. To truly become that otherself who is polarizing negative might simply be too painful in third density beyond a certain threshold of detail -- in other words, we can become the other abstractly, but the more we understand the details of their desire, the more this might reflect discomfort in excess of what we as STO students can handle. Luckily, I don't think an intellectual model of this is very useful beyond a point that I'm sure all of us are near or past.

[AnthroHeart]

Well for me, being able to feel the Universe energetically, I can feel the pain of others beings, and I find even that beautiful in its own way
as I help transmute it to love.

[Minyatur]

3D is the density of self-awareness. It makes sense that the more aware you are of yourself and of your desired path, then the less catalysts are required to help you to realize yourself. From the material, it seems that the further you are along a path and are polarized, then the easier it is to switch polarity because of your power and awareness.

To me karma is a whole lot about states of tensions within the self that attracts what can help to balance them. A negative entity still has a whole lot of tensions within themselves, obviously, but not necessarily in their sense of self-aware identity which our 3D revolve around. The material states that forgiveness is always inclusive of the self, so it makes sense that what forgiveness really does is ultimately release a tension of the self with the self. Becoming acceptant of yourself is to be without tension with yourself, hence without gravity towards events that resonate with these tensions. So karma does not necessarily seek to make you the perfectly balanced entity, but instead merely to come to terms with what your state of balance is. This applies to both a positive and negative entity.

[Sacred Fool]

This is all just speculation; the big problem talking about all this subject is that we're talking about an entire sense of self that is alien to what all of his {us?}, I imagine, have chosen or are on the way to choosing. To truly become that otherself who is polarizing negative might simply be too painful in third density beyond a certain threshold of detail -- in other words, we can become the other abstractly, but the more we understand the details of their desire, the more this might reflect discomfort in excess of what we as STO students can handle. Luckily, I don't think an intellectual model of this is very useful beyond a point that I'm sure all of us are near or past.

 
Well, friend, I would posit that your thinking here is applicable only up to the point where one wishes to take on the honour/responsibility of disciplining the mind a la the Ra method.  That is, if one chooses to take this on, one then accepts that one already encompasses the negative path within self, for "The Mind Contains All Things."

The disciplines of the mind involve, first of all, identifying both those things of which you approve and those things of which you disapprove within yourself, and then balancing each and every positive and negative charge with its equal. The mind contains all things. Therefore, you must discover this completeness within yourself.

Naturally, taking on this responsibility is not for everyone who plods along, but is there for those who would dig more deeply into..............................knowing the Creatrix as self.

What do you suppose?
  

Becoming acceptant of yourself is to be without tension with yourself, hence without gravity towards events that resonate with these tensions. So karma does not necessarily seek to make you the perfectly balanced entity, but instead merely to come to terms with what your state of balance is. This applies to both a positive and negative entity.

If so, then what is the point?  Is it simply a matter of comfort in being more balanced, or might there be a deeper purpose?

  

[Patrick]

...If so, then what is the point?  Is it simply a matter of comfort in being more balanced, or might there be a deeper purpose?

Isn't it by reaching our own perfect balance that we become a perfect unique perspective of the One?

[rva_jeremy]

Naturally, taking on this responsibility is not for everyone who plods along, but is there for those who would dig more deeply into..............................knowing the Creatrix as self.

What do you suppose?

I suppose nobody in this thread is at the advanced level you correctly describe. Everybody engaged in the thought experiment I proposed, therefore, has the handicap I suggested. Perhaps I suppose wrongly, but that is my supposition.

[Patrick]

...I suppose nobody in this thread is at the advanced level you correctly describe...

How dare you?!    

[Sacred Fool]

    

...If so, then what is the point?  Is it simply a matter of comfort in being more balanced, or might there be a deeper purpose?

Isn't it by reaching our own perfect balance that we become a perfect unique perspective of the One?

If so, then how might the upward spiraling journey of consciousness tie into to a "perfect balance?"  Would there be a dynamic process of balancing, taking on more lessons, re-balancing, etc.?  Or would it become more subtle and more beautiful than that, I wonder?
  
 

Naturally, taking on this responsibility is not for everyone who plods along, but is there for those who would dig more deeply into..............................knowing the Creatrix as self.

What do you suppose?

I suppose nobody in this thread is at the advanced level you correctly describe. Everybody engaged in the thought experiment I proposed, therefore, has the handicap I suggested. Perhaps I suppose wrongly, but that is my supposition.

 
If the handicap you reference is that much of self is alien to self and that the work of reconciliation is a difficult business, then I cannot argue with you.  At the same time, however, the door is there and the keys are there......

There may be an handicap, yet there is also a pathway (plastered with distorted mirrors) available to one who seeks.

    
HA HA HA  Where are the forums for those who wander in the manner of encompassing the mind as an whole?
 
 
   

[flofrog]

Forums for those could be anywhere, here too.

[Patrick]

...If so, then what is the point?  Is it simply a matter of comfort in being more balanced, or might there be a deeper purpose?

Isn't it by reaching our own perfect balance that we become a perfect unique perspective of the One?

If so, then how might the upward spiraling journey of consciousness tie into to a "perfect balance?"  Would there be a dynamic process of balancing, taking on more lessons, re-balancing, etc.?  Or would it become more subtle and more beautiful than that, I wonder?

It's a push toward that upward perfection. It can look like it's a pull, but it's really more of a push. That push is not forced, it's just something implemented in the design itself. We feel our way upward, just by following our sense of: are we getting warmer or colder. What informs that sense is that which is already that perfected balance, it knows what it feels like to be that, but not how to get there. So the Creator is interested more in seeing how we are going to feel our way there (within a given set of parameters), rather than the end result itself, since the end result is already there.

[Spaced]

Well here I am to offer my own confused understanding of things.

I think the idea that "Each thought that a being has, has in its turn an antithesis" and "identifying both those things of which you approve and those things of which you disapprove within yourself, and then balancing each and every positive and negative charge with its equal" is important. As one attempts to discipline the mind and balance these seeming opposites we see that they are indeed equal. Patience and impatience are simply polarized expressions of the same thing, for example. 

This balancing and realization of the completeness within the self could be seen as creating a potential energy simply waiting for a release. The Choice then is what creates polarization which allows one to tap into this potential energy to accomplish work. That polarization is what drives evolution through the higher densities. 

The idea then is to become aware of the completeness of self and identify which pole you approve/disapprove of in each case ("light and dark are both expressions of the wholeness of creation but I prefer the light," etc.) and accept that within yourself. Recognize and accept which kind of picnic you prefer.

19.17 Questioner: Can you tell me what bias creates their momentum toward the chosen path of service to self?

Ra: I am Ra. We can speak only in metaphor. Some love the light. Some love the darkness. It is a matter of the unique and infinitely various Creator choosing and playing among its experiences as a child upon a picnic. Some enjoy the picnic and find the sun beautiful, the food delicious, the games refreshing, and glow with the joy of creation. Some find the night delicious, their picnic being pain, difficulty, sufferings of others, and the examination of the perversities of nature. These enjoy a different picnic.

All these experiences are available. It is free will of each entity which chooses the form of play, the form of pleasure.

[Minyatur]

Becoming acceptant of yourself is to be without tension with yourself, hence without gravity towards events that resonate with these tensions. So karma does not necessarily seek to make you the perfectly balanced entity, but instead merely to come to terms with what your state of balance is. This applies to both a positive and negative entity.

If so, then what is the point?  Is it simply a matter of comfort in being more balanced, or might there be a deeper purpose?

I think it is just a nécessité for the evolution of consciousness. Meaning is a subjective notion.

[flofrog]

Ra did imply how balancing chakras is an ever importante thing to growth.
Not sure now, as this concerned chakras if it applies here to this conversation in fact . So in fact, apologies in advance

[AnthroHeart]

Ra did imply how balancing chakras is an ever importante thing to growth.
Not sure now, as this concerned chakras if it applies here to this conversation in fact   .  So in fact, apologies in advance

Exactly flo. If you balance your chakras up to crown, you will being to realize that even nature will change according to your desires,
as per what Kyron has said. I'm noticing little things in nature like seeing more squirrels, and I love them.

I'm also hearing songs I never heard before that supposedly came out like 20 years ago. They are so beautiful I'm surprised I never
heard them on the radio. Though they manifest outside of time.

[Sacred Fool]

Becoming acceptant of yourself is to be without tension with yourself, hence without gravity towards events that resonate with these tensions. So karma does not necessarily seek to make you the perfectly balanced entity, but instead merely to come to terms with what your state of balance is. This applies to both a positive and negative entity.

If so, then what is the point?  Is it simply a matter of comfort in being more balanced, or might there be a deeper purpose?

I think it is just a nécessité for the evolution of consciousness. Meaning is a subjective notion.

When I typed "purpose," I was thinking along the lines of functionality, not personal interpretation.  I'm asking, if karma serves to point out what one needs to balance, and this mechanism falls under the broader category of self acceptance (my contention), once self acceptance becomes a deep discipline, what does this conduce to?  Is it merely decorative, let's say, or does it have a much deeper function or deeper, less obvious consequences?  Does the ego-self shift in some way at that point?  If so, what consequences might that have?
 
  

[Sacred Fool]

Ra did imply how balancing chakras is an ever importante thing to growth.
Not sure now, as this concerned chakras if it applies here to this conversation in fact   .  So in fact, apologies in advance

Apologies accepted.  Ra recommends chakra balancing so as to promote flow of the upward searching energies, and this is conducive to spiritual growth, as you state.  This would fall under the category of the disciplines of the body, in Ra's terminology.

But your experience of this, your interpretation of it, everything, is brought to you through the mind.  Therefore, any distortion or imbalance in your mind inherently inflects or distorts your experience of spiritual exploration.  So, the balancing of the mind is a bit different from--through certainly related to--balancing of the energy centers....as I perceive it through my own peculiarly distorted instrument.
   

[Patrick]

Becoming acceptant of yourself is to be without tension with yourself, hence without gravity towards events that resonate with these tensions. So karma does not necessarily seek to make you the perfectly balanced entity, but instead merely to come to terms with what your state of balance is. This applies to both a positive and negative entity.

If so, then what is the point?  Is it simply a matter of comfort in being more balanced, or might there be a deeper purpose?

I think it is just a nécessité for the evolution of consciousness. Meaning is a subjective notion.

When I typed "purpose," I was thinking along the lines of functionality, not personal interpretation.  I'm asking, if karma serves to point out what one needs to balance, and this mechanism falls under the broader category of self acceptance (my contention), once self acceptance becomes a deep discipline, what does this conduce to?  Is it merely decorative, let's say, or does it have a much deeper function or deeper, less obvious consequences?  Does the ego-self shift in some way at that point?  If so, what consequences might that have?
  

If there is karma present then the ego self still needs to shift towards becoming more able to accept, then more able to forgive in understanding and growth.

[Raukura Waihaha]

Becoming acceptant of yourself is to be without tension with yourself, hence without gravity towards events that resonate with these tensions. So karma does not necessarily seek to make you the perfectly balanced entity, but instead merely to come to terms with what your state of balance is. This applies to both a positive and negative entity.

If so, then what is the point?  Is it simply a matter of comfort in being more balanced, or might there be a deeper purpose?

I think it is just a nécessité for the evolution of consciousness. Meaning is a subjective notion.

When I typed "purpose," I was thinking along the lines of functionality, not personal interpretation.  I'm asking, if karma serves to point out what one needs to balance, and this mechanism falls under the broader category of self acceptance (my contention), once self acceptance becomes a deep discipline, what does this conduce to?  Is it merely decorative, let's say, or does it have a much deeper function or deeper, less obvious consequences?  Does the ego-self shift in some way at that point?  If so, what consequences might that have?
 
  

At this point, the acceptance is turned toward all and forgiveness of all as self. This is what Ra refers to as "stepping off the wheel of karma", from what I understand.

[Ohr Ein Sof]

Ra did imply how balancing chakras is an ever importante thing to growth.
Not sure now, as this concerned chakras if it applies here to this conversation in fact   .  So in fact, apologies in advance

Apologies accepted.  Ra recommends chakra balancing so as to promote flow of the upward searching energies, and this is conducive to spiritual growth, as you state.  This would fall under the category of the disciplines of the body, in Ra's terminology.

But your experience of this, your interpretation of it, everything, is brought to you through the mind.  Therefore, any distortion or imbalance in your mind inherently inflects or distorts your experience of spiritual exploration.  So, the balancing of the mind is a bit different from--through certainly related to--balancing of the energy centers....as I perceive it through my own peculiarly distorted instrument.
   

I kindly disagree with your statement that the balancing of each ray is a discipline of the body. The body is the creation of the mind. All is the mind. The entire universe is mental or mind stuff. The subconscious mind creates the body, the body then is the creature of the mind in which Ra suggests in the Material.

[Ymarsakar]

There are many bodies and many minds. Human language is too limited to communicate much here.

[Sacred Fool]

I kindly disagree with your statement that the balancing of each ray is a discipline of the body. The body is the creation of the mind. All is the mind. The entire universe is mental or mind stuff. The subconscious mind creates the body, the body then is the creature of the mind in which Ra suggests in the Material.

Yeah, I know what you mean.  In this particular context this division of mind and body is made so as to define a pathway for investigation.  That is, it's hard enough to explore the energy body in any case, so Ra recommends stilling the mind first.  It makes sense in that way, I think.
   

[EvolvingPhoenix]

Does this mean that by doing good works and intending love for humanity, you risk hell?

It means that "good intentions" do not justify doing something bad or something that, if you were just willing to put your naivety amd "good intentions" aside for long enough to assess from a place of logic, you could have seen would very likely LEAD to a bad outcome. And that the ends do not justify the means.

So basically, the ends do not justify the means and the intention does not justify the outcome.

[EvolvingPhoenix]

Jesus Christ. A whole deep diving thread on karma and metaphysics is not needed to explain this saying.

Just say it's a saying used to hold people with supposedly good intentions accountable for bad decisions that harm the world around them, despite their supposed intentions. Then point out that Gem is taking this too literally. Hell, I'm autistic and even I didn't take that quote at face value.

Hell is subjective Gem. Most people who go to "hell" after they die do so because there is nothing left once they die but the dreaming awareness. That dreaming awareness, no longer held back by the laws of physics, dreams up whatever it wants, which could be heaven or hell. Most peoples' dreaming awareness is atrophied from lack of use, so in order to understand the dream, it must be strengthened which could take a bit, as they get acclimated to the dream they are dreaming. No matter how "eternal" the place seems however, I assure you they do not stay there forever. Just until they understand the meaning of the dream.

[Ymarsakar]

It ia good to reask basic questions. Like what is space or gravity. Many mysteries remain

[EvolvingPhoenix]

Ymarsakar, he was asking, essentially, if the saying is literal. The answer is no.

[AnthroHeart]

Jesus Christ. A whole deep diving thread on karma and metaphysics is not needed to explain this saying.

Just say it's a saying used to hold people with supposedly good intentions accountable for bad decisions that harm the world around them, despite their supposed intentions. Then point out that Gem is taking this too literally. Hell, I'm autistic and even I didn't take that quote at face value.

Hell is subjective Gem. Most people who go to "hell" after they die do so because there is nothing left once they die but the dreaming awareness. That dreaming awareness, no longer held back by the laws of physics, dreams up whatever it wants, which could be heaven or hell. Most peoples' dreaming awareness is atrophied from lack of use, so in order to understand the dream, it must be strengthened which could take a bit, as they get acclimated to the dream they are dreaming. No matter how "eternal" the place seems however, I assure you they do not stay there forever. Just until they understand the meaning of the dream.

Maybe that's exactly what was needed. How can we know what is needed until it comes out?

If a "bad" person like Hitler thinks they are doing good and are really doing bad, how can a "good" person know they are really doing good?

[Patrick]

Jesus Christ. A whole deep diving thread on karma and metaphysics is not needed to explain this saying.
...

I thought so too !  

Looks like we were both wrong. So much so that I am not going to be using that saying anymore. To me it has never nor will it ever mean what you said it means to you. That's important to know I think.

Took a whole thread for that, but I learned something unexpected and I am glad for that.