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Sarah walked into her manager’s office seeking permission to take the next two days off and Mr. Noble happily acceded to her request. He said to himself, after Sarah left his office, “How was it that I knew her request before she voiced it?”
Mr. Noble is no stranger to sensing events before they happen. Just yesterday, he rightly predicted the caller before picking up his ringing phone. He had previously dismissed such events as flukes but the multiple occurrences within the last year proved otherwise and spurred him on to further investigation.
He decided to write down everything he could remember about his condition during these occasions. He realized that his intuition was sharpest when his spirit was filled completely with helping thoughts of others and when he spoke only out of necessity. The concentration of his thoughts on service to others freed him of himself while his practice of silence strengthened his connection with his inner voice.
Armed with this knowledge, the importance of guarding against the dissipation of energy through non-value added activities and idle talk became clearly evident to him.
Heading home on the train after a long day at work, Emeka relaxes to the tunes on his music playlist. His eyes were slightly closed as his head swayed gently back and forth to the smooth sounds from his headphones. As the train slowly came to a stop at the next station Anthony, who stood between Emeka and the exit doors, swiftly grabbed Emeka’s headphones and ran as fast as he could into the night.
Emeka quickly overcame his shock and pursued the thief. He had just purchased the expensive Beats by Dre Studio Wireless headphones last month after three months of saving towards it. He ran after Anthony with all his strength but could not catch up to him.
Two months later, Emeka spotted a young man on the street wearing what looked like his stolen headphones. Upon closer inspection, the young man had the same blue sneakers as the man who stole his headphones. Emeka and his friend ran up to the unsuspecting stranger and took the headphones back but not before knocking him to the ground.
An elderly woman cleaning her windows witnessed the event and quickly called the police. She told them everything she saw describing Anthony as the unfortunate victim of two thugs who beat him up and stole his headphones.
…..
“We regard it as just when good is rewarded with good and evil is punished but expect the relationship between cause and effect to be discernible to us. Where the connection is lacking, an occurrence appears to be unjust.”* Only the man who is privy to the threads of karma linked to Emeka and Anthony can judge rightly. Keep in mind that these threads often date back decades, scores, perhaps even incarnations.
As stated by Dr. Richard Steinpach in his book How Can God Allow Such Things? “In all events, our inability to see the connection between cause and effect merely proves the inadequacy of our ability to judge and not the absence of justice.” This does not support abandoning a struggling neighbor to his earned fate but that help be offered without presumption for we are usually ignorant of the preceding causes that brought forth the effects.
*Dr. Richard Steinpach
Once upon a time there was a large kingdom governed by the greatest of kings. The king so loved his people that he made the realization of their deepest aspirations possible through his laws. The law of reciprocity was the supreme law of the land in which men received in abundance whatever emanated from them. To enforce this law, the king had a plethora of servants who went around the vast realm collecting the thoughts, words and deeds of every dweller. They tended them carefully until maturity and then distributed them accordingly at harvest. In this land, just as a plant springs from the seed so also did man’s circumstance spring from the seed of thought, word and deed.
Two strangers from a far-away land heard about the great king and journeyed to this land of love and prosperity. The first stranger was in awe of the wonder that surrounded him. It seemed to him as though everyone lived for the joy of the other, the greed and jealously so prevalent in his homeland was absent here. Gratitude so filled him that he subconsciously went down on his knees whispering words of thanks to the distant king. The king lived very far away in the capital and most people had never seen him, they only experienced his nature through his laws.
For the second stranger, however, the beauty and abundance of the land awakened greed within him. In a few months, he began running into difficulties; his house collapsed during a storm and his crops struggled to yield fruit. “What kind of horrible land is this…? I don’t have enough food. Where is the love of this king everyone talks about? Does he even exist?” He could not connect his thoughts of scarcity and greed to his unfavorable condition.
He thought of his fellow countryman who was always cheerful and decided to speak with him. “How come everything works in your favor in this country, what is your secret?” He laughed in reply, “Secret? There is no secret, I have simply come to realize that the greatest joy lies in the service of others because the more I help others, the greater is my joy.” The radiance in his face as he spoke these words did not escape the notice of the second stranger. He understood his friend completely and began a new life of service.
Slowly he too began experiencing help on every turn. He realized that he was the cause of his suffering for he reaped what he sowed. The king did not change and his law remains inviolable; the change in his circumstance was attributable solely to the change in his volition. He was glad for this recognition and gave thanks for it.
Lonnie, a truck driver who usually works through the night, came home unexpectedly one night at 11 pm. He went into his fourteen year old son’s room and to his surprise Jack was nowhere to be found. Lonnie has been a good father to Jack since his mother left them after his birth; he loved his son and was very protective of him. He had told Jack on several occasions never to leave the house after 7 pm without first seeking his permission.
Lonnie waited for his son in the living room all night. The longer he waited, the more anger stirred within him. “How long has this child been sneaking out?” He thought to himself.
Jack suddenly walked in just before dawn…
“Where have you been? You foolish child, I work my tail off to put food on the table and this is what you’ve been doing behind my back? You defy my authority…. If I ever catch you…!”
From then on, Lonnie began coming home sporadically to check on his son and always found him in bed as the experience of his last outing was still fresh in Jack’s mind. A few months later, however, Jack again went out to a party with his friends without his father’s permission. It just so happens that Lonnie left work early that day because he had back pain. “This boy left the house again without my permission? What should I do with him?”
As he pondered over the situation, he thought of all the pranks he played on his parents as a teenager. He remembered that his father’s yelling never had a positive impact on him, all it did was make him plan the next adventure more meticulously so as not to get caught. He laughed as he thought of this. His mother was able to reach him because he felt her love for him in the words which always followed the spanking. With his father, he never felt this love. It was only anger and irritation that his son disobeyed him and defied his authority.
With this recognition, Lonnie met Jack calmly as he walked into the house around 3 am. He explained to him why he did not want him out late at night. The teenager, who was at first shocked by his father’s measured response, listened attentively and for the first time felt ashamed for betraying his father’s trust. He no longer saw his father as his adversary but as a confidant because he now understood that his father’s actions were driven by the love he had for him.