Karmic Guide for the Newly Dead

(Chapter 481, from A Brief Guide for the Newly Dead,

published by The After Life Corporation)

My name is Akasha, and I am the angel of karma. Oh, well, nothing as insipid as a typical church angel, but at least that is a word you will understand. At the request of my supervisor, who heads the Department of Transmigration and Karmic Law, I am writing a short introduction to the mechanism of karma, a sort of incarnation FAQ sheet.

This guide book project came about because of a group of philosophy students who were all killed in a bus accident. While making their way through the Soul Migration Center, they asked some amazingly stupid questions: will I reincarnate as a dog or a rock? Where is heaven? (We get that one quite frequently.) When will I be judged? (We have a satiric poem that is sung to the tune of “When Will I Be Loved,” but since it doesn’t reflect too well on humans, perhaps I’d best not share it.)

Back to the instructional guide…of course, the application and portioning of karma is truly an angelic prerogative. After tens of thousands of years in this business, it is vexing to be asked for a summary of the “mechanics” of this business as if I was running some miserable drool-and-die shop. Karma is a high art of means, reasons, causes, effects, resources, and timing. We also avail ourselves of absurdity, irony, and paradox. I conduct an endless symphony of form and function both material and ethereal, but a human value system doesn’t enter into it. I feel it’s necessary to mention this for the benefit of those silly, newly dead philosophy students, who appear to have their mental lips locked on Aristotle’s nipple. Ha! They’d do better to get their pap from Sartre or the Bhaghavad Gita.

The system of karma is over twenty aeons old; and the angelic language is sublime beyond the ken of humans. For instance, there are scores of verb declensions entirely unfamiliar and unnecessary to humans simply because you don’t live long enough to need them. The playing field of karma exceeds the boundaries of linear time. An incarnation could include elements of the ancient past, distant past, recent past, family past, as well as the repercussions from actions in a current incarnation that are set to reverberate in a future one. There are, as well, credits, debits, neutralizing factors, divine response factors (that is, when prayers are answered), and a number of protocols that hinge on the make and model of the assigned physical body and its response to a variety of stimuli and temptations that fill the texture of the material world.

Some tidbits of terminology are necessary, or my introductory guide will be less than useless. The case studies outlined below include the following abbreviations: PLC and PLD (past life credits and demerits); CIC or CID (current incarnation credits or demerits), IK (instant karma); FIC or FID (future incarnation credits or demerits); FKC or FKD (family karma credits or demerits); KR (karmic remuneration, which represents an effort on the part of the individual to fix bad karma through prayer or good deeds); NK (neutralizing karma, which is usually noted when we haven’t decided whether a deed is good or bad).

I would also add, for reference purposes, that as human behavioral and societal trends change, we have to make some shifts and adjustments as well. After all of this time, there is very little that surprises us, but we’ve had to wait and see about certain things like new prescription drugs on the market. Usually things like this culminate in mass apportioning of CID’s or IK’s. The recent Fen-Phen incident is a fair example of this.

Now, let’s move onto a few case studies. These studies demonstrate the ebb and flow of the tapestry of karma. Since this is supposed to be a brief guide, I can’t really go into all of the whys and wherefores of how each batch of incoming and outgoing karma has been applied. My department’s decision-making process is entirely proprietary and may seem wildly random, but I assure you, it is not. However, I’ve pulled out the big book, the self-titled “The Akashic Record,” to seek out sample cases where the actions taken by my department were largely self-evident.

With billions of souls to manage, I delegate most of the day-to-day monitoring to my subordinate angels. And as dedicated as they are, most souls don’t feel the bite of karma on a daily, or even yearly, basis. There just isn’t enough supervision to go around any more. My remarks about karmic actions are noted in italics.

Case Study One: Lucy. Lucy was born into a middle class American family (PLC) of banal, bourgeois tastes (PLD- a previous life of relentless snobbery in Boston). Her mother had an unfortunate tendency to nag Lucy constantly (FKD – her mother was her spinster sister in a Victorian life time). However, Lucy was fairly good looking, healthy, and had a talent for communicating. She got a job in the advertising industry (a combination of PLC and CIC, although the long-term karmic impact of mass advertising is still being studied by the Department).

Lucy got into a relationship with a man named Bob that went well for several years, until she discovered that Bob was a closet homosexual and cross-dresser (PLD – he was her brother in a past life in ancient Greece, an actor who frequently appeared as female characters in comedies by Aeschylus. She looked down on his profession, and snubbed him in public after her marriage to a wealthy merchant). Soon after the break-up of this relationship, Lucy started to have problems with her digestion that were difficult to diagnose and cure (PLD – problem originated in an 18^th century life in France where she was an opium-eater and burned holes in the lining of her stomach from too much drug use).

Because she found little relief from her doctors, Lucy became interested in alternative medicine, meditation and yoga. Due to her intensive studies and practice, her health problems were alleviated, and she was able to begin a new relationship with a master herbalist named Ted (KR, PLC and CIC combined – points for remedial effort in her current life, plus credits from a life in ancient India where she was a wealthy wife who donated generously to the poor throughout her marriage; the new boyfriend was the swami of the ashram where she lived until her death in that life). They are now happily married and living somewhere near Seattle.

Case Study Two: Klaus. Klaus was born into an impoverished German family about ten years after the end of World War II (PLD – he was a German soldier during World War One, and executed civilians and prisoners of war without mercy). His mother was an alcoholic, and his father abandoned the family (FKD and PLD – during Napoleon’s reign, he was a French bureaucrat and an alcoholic father who abandoned his family in much the same manner; the father of the current incarnation was the son in the past incarnation).

During his teen years, Klaus would have dropped out of school except for one teacher who inspired him to take up music and continue his studies (PLC – the teacher was his mother in a past life who was a cousin of J. S. Bach’s; the whole family was musically talented). Klaus latched onto music as his life line – he studied hard, graduated from school, and formed a rock band in the early 1980’s (PLC – the band members were his tribal hunting brothers in a pre-historic lifetime in the same geographic area). With diligent effort, Klaus and his band, “Die Kunst Kinders,” [The Art Kids] exploded on the heavy metal scene, and set trends for the German heavy metal scene thereafter (CIC for dedication).

Unfortunately, because of the band’s popularity, Klaus spent a little too much time with groupies and got a sexually-transmitted disease (IK). Klaus became involved in Green Peace and lobbied the government to ban nuclear weapons and energy sources. Because of the influence of Klaus and his band-members, they had great success in getting the concerns of young people heard by their government (PLC – was a member of the Spartan legislative assembly under Lycurgus). Klaus continues to be politically active, and is living with a woman twenty years his junior in a small town near Hamburg (CIC – his peace-seeking efforts earned him another chance at a relationship with a soul he’d been separated from during the Crusades).

***

As you can see by the above samples, karma is not a very straightforward affair. Past lives from centuries past can pop back into play, or reverberations from a more recent past life can set the stage for the beginnings of the new incarnation.

Most lives experience a mix of credits and debits. Very few lives are all bad or all good, although those are subjective terms of debatable meaning around the Department. But since there are sporadic extreme cases, I’ve selected a few incarnations that show the most diverse effects of accumulated and current life karma as examples.

***

Case Study Three: Prajananda. This fellow lived several centuries ago, but is a prime example of karmic credits. He was born into the Brahmin caste in India (PLC – previous life as a kindly Brahmin who guided many souls to good works and better karma), and was a devoted son to his parents as a child (FKC – his parents were his siblings in a previous life, and they loved each other very much). From an early age, Prajananda was drawn to mystical studies. He was an able student, and his parents enrolled him to study with the best astrologer in their city (PLC – his astrology teacher was a good friend and fellow student in a past life).

After his coming-of-age, Prajananda joined an ashram, and spent several years in meditation and in the practice of austerities. His mastery of astrology became famous in that region of India, and he further developed the use of harmonic charts for forecasting (PLC – he was a revered astrologer in a previous life, and was able to carry on the same work in his current life. Note – because of this prior incarnation’s awareness, the Prajananda incarnation chose an extremely favorable birth date and time to make his entrance in the world, and his birth chart assured him of a high position as an astrologer). He taught many students, and guided many people toward more happy lives throughout his life time (FIC – his generosity toward both students and clients earned him future credits). As Prajananda became elderly, he practiced constant meditations on the god Krishna, and his continual chanting of mantras and intense devotion to the god earned him the post-mortem status of avatar or bodhisattva (FIC of the highest level).

After his death, the Prajananda soul was relatively free to choose any incarnation where he felt he could be of service to humanity, and has returned several times. Most recently, he incarnated as a pampered and adored house cat named Drogo who was beloved by all who saw him, and gave measureless love to his guardian human. Once again, his astrological timing was impeccable – he went in during the Harmonic Convergence (a spectacular planetary alignment in 1987) and returned to the After Life during the Harmonic Concordance of 2004. Again, he earned yet more FIC’s, as well as conferring some of his accumulated FIC’s on his worthy human guardian, who recognized him as bodhisattva.

Case Study Four: Soszka. Where Prajananda is an example of the highest order, Soszka is an example of the lowest. Soszka was born to a farming family in a community outside of Sarajevo. Although raised with love and good training (PLC – he was an uncle to his parents, who he raised after their parents’ death during the Crimean War), Soszka was an angry, ornery kid. He shunned children who seriously pursued their studies, and sought for companions children who were aggressive bullies. With this group of children, he was cruel to children and animals, and progressed to assault and burglary at a fairly young age (PLD – past life as a slave master on a trireme in the Roman Empire; his circle of companions came from a life time that occurred shortly after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, when he and these companions were a band of thieves and miscreants).

Although he was constantly exposed to more salubrious influences by his concerned parents and relatives, Soszka could not be swayed from his brutal ways (FLD). As Milosevic came into power in Serbia, Soszka moved into a highly-placed circle of black-marketers and thugs that threatened the peace and security of local residents. His gang impounded private property and stole from others without remorse throughout the 1990’s (FLD).

At the fall of Milosovec’s government in 2001, Soszka was in an increasingly difficult position. Forces of law and order were combating the rampant abuses of black-market operators and drug dealers; members of his gang were systematically hunted, arrested and prosecuted. Regardless, his violent and illegal actions continued, and eventually Soszka was arrested and prosecuted for the murder of a young man; and was legally executed for this crime last year (CID and IK).

***

Soszka compiled an impressive (if disgusting) accumulation of past, current, and future life demerits. We are still deciding when and if we will release him into a new incarnation; in the meantime, he’s in a state of “bardo arrest.” Bardo is a Tibetan term that indicates the condition of the soul immediately after death; our Department has the discretion to freeze particularly undesirable souls in that state until a disposition for their case can be determined. The Soszka soul may be sent through a course of spiritual remediation before it is returned, but all options are being considered by the committee in my Department that handles hard cases like this.

Actually, I had thought that the good influence of his parents might have swayed him toward better behavior during his early years – at least, it was a possibility in spite of all of the debits from brutality he had accumulated throughout a dismal series of past lives. There will be precious few credits to help him on his way in the next incarnation.

For my final example, I’ve located one of our stranger cases. Sometimes the various forms of karma can get mixed up in a bizarre fashion. I often suspect that one of my subordinates is overly concerned and tampering with an incarnation. Another possibility is that a particular incarnation becomes the subject of an office betting pool, and as you humans say, too many cooks spoil the broth.

I generally discourage this kind of behavior as unbefitting angelic legionnaires, but sometimes have overlooked it for my own amusement. Beyond the paradoxical and ironic conditions inherent in any incarnation, we do occasionally experiment with new applications of karma, depending on the opportunities that a societal environment presents. One may suspect that this is the case when a futuristic prodigy appears in the most unlikely situation. When the time is ripe for a prodigy mission, a special branch of my Department dedicated to studying and creating karma on the larger levels of city, nation, and civilization inserts an appropriately prepared soul to impact mass consciousness.

Prodigies compel social groups to examine their superstitions, hypocrisies, and prejudice, a side-effect that is rather uncomfortable for the prodigy soul. We do compensate prodigious performances with FIC’s, but early on it was a raw source of complaints. Most prodigies worthy of that description are smart enough to sense that they are the tools of the Karma Department, and resent being a genius in hostile territory. To be entirely fair, their lives are unusually complex and unpleasant, so we often ship their next incarnation into something fairly plush and undemanding.

Modern history has made a to-do about its prodigies, so I have chosen a case that just missed being recorded in an historic book.

***

Case Study Five: Babitha. This woman was born outside of Constantinople during the middle of the 4^th century of the current era, as humans record time. Her parents were ignorant peasants scratching out a meager living from the soil and from a small herd of goats (NK – there were a lot of peasants back then, and not a wide variety of family settings from which to choose). Babitha was physically beautiful from her first breath of life, and became more beautiful as she grew into childhood. Because of the family’s relative isolation, few were aware of this rare pearl forming in the area. Babitha was an oracular dreamer, and often had dreams that she could barely understand, much less interpret (PLC – prior life as a famous Magi in Persia during the reign of Xerxes).

As she reached puberty, her dreams began to manifest as waking visions. Her family was concerned that these visions would make her less marriageable, since, as a beauty, she was worth several goats as a bride-price. The native peasants of the area were wildly superstitious, so an oracular yet extremely attractive daughter hovered somewhere between a desirable asset and an enormous liability (karmic paradox).

Her father made cautious inquiries, but he couldn’t find a husband for Babitha. Selling a kooky daughter for a bride could get him stoned to death in the public square. But one day, a foreign merchant happened to attend the local marketplace. He was not too old, and had a stunning array of fancy imported goods. Babitha had recently had a dream about such a man, so her father introduced himself. The traveler was willing to visit their homestead before he set off again.

This merchant, one Tardur, had traveled more widely than any of these primitive peasants could have imagined. Born a native Greek, he had ventured throughout the Middle East and northern Africa, and had seen a great deal of the contemporary smorgasbord of religions brewing at the time. He was stunned to see beautiful Babitha in a family of grubby peasants. He could barely take his eyes from her all evening. Not being completely stupid, the father offered him a corner of the goat barn for his bed.

Babitha’s dreams erupted that night (Departmental intervention to get her out of East Goatdung). She woke and wandered out into the yard proclaiming her vision in a stentorian tone quite unlike her usual sweet, soft voice. Tardur was wakened by the commotion, and came out into the yard as she prophesized in full force. Rather than being put off by this unusual girl, Tardur was intrigued. The next morning, he made an offer to her father which he accepted, and Babitha went along with the merchant after a primitive marriage ceremony (PLC – they were previously together as a couple working for an ancient Greek temple to Zeus).

It took Tardur several months to figure out the extent of Babitha’s gift, and several more months to get to a place where it could do them some good: the Rome of Africa, Carthage. Tardur took his young wife to the temple of Isis, and spoke with the head priest about his wife’s visionary gifts. The priest questioned her, and they arranged for her to lodge within the temple under the supervision of several experienced priests (PLC – she had a pre-historic incarnation as a priestess in a goddess-worship enclave in what is now known as Turkey). Before going to sleep, Babitha was given several sacred symbols of the Isis worshippers.

In the middle of the night, Babitha sat up in her bed holding one of the sacred items and chanted in a language unfamiliar to Tardur. One of the observing priests recognized the language as an ancient form of Egyptian, and translated most of what she said. The next morning, the head priest conferred with Tardur, and Babitha’s life took another turn. She was invited to become a member of the Order of Isis with full privileges, so long as she would share her prophecies exclusively with the order (IK). Tardur was allowed to remain her husband as long as they kept it quiet so the temple could promote her as a virgin prophetess (FID – for willful deception of the masses, although this was somewhat ameliorated by the good she did for people with her prophecies).

Babitha spent the remainder of her life in the temple of Isis at Carthage, and her prophetic visions created a short-lived upsurge of interest in Isis worship (karmic irony – an obscure peasant girl as a leading voice of a substantial religious cult). She gave prophecies to supplicants, one of whom was the man history remembers as St. Augustine. Unfortunately he was drunk at the time and had no clear memory of the incident, or he might have mentioned her in his “Confessions.”

As Babitha’s life was drawing to a close, the spread of Christianity discouraged Isis worshippers. Babitha predicted this years earlier, although her fellow priests assumed that some other religion would fall into disfavor rather than their own, and the prophecy was buried in unrelated temple paperwork. After her death, the local common people told tales about the beautiful foreign prophetess who was the evening star of the cult of Isis (FIC – we like good folk tales and stories about prodigy incarnations in the Department, so give credits when it happens).

Babitha’s soul reincarnated in the 1950’s in California. With a few variations – her husband is a telemarketer – she is living a fairly similar life, and gives tarot readings to clients in San Luis Obispo. She was not assigned the gifts or duties of a prodigy in this incarnation, but it is fair to say that her readings are usually accurate.

***

This concludes my Karmic Guide for the Newly Dead. I hope these examples have illustrated the various ways in which karma may function. Although the actions of my Department are cloaked in mystery, let me assure you that every effort and attention is given to each soul upon arrival and departure. We let no soul go unturned or untried, and work tirelessly to provide beneficial, developmental lessons to each and every client of this galaxy.

If you have problems understanding the events of your former life, or have inquiries about a coming incarnation, please direct your questions to the Customer Service Office in the Soul Migration Center. If you feel past, present or future life debits have been applied in error, you are entitled to file a Karmic Nuisance Form with the Office of Karmic Complaints, but be aware that this substantially delays the transmigration process.

Eternally in the service of soul evolution and enlightenment,

Akasha