The Trace That Thoughts, Words and Deeds Leave by: Michele Michael
The Trace That Thoughts, Words and Deeds Leave
By
Edward Salim Michael
The author hopes that the following experience and his humble understandings of it will be of help to the reader in better grasping the necessity to become more aware of and responsible for one’s thoughts, words and deeds:
One clear summer night, as he was looking up at the sky besprinkled with the innumerable celestial bodies that inhabit it, and as his eyes kept roving slowly from one side to the other across the vast heavens, looking far out into infinity, he could not help but marvel and be filled with awe at the immensity of the Universe, compared to which he felt so extremely small and insignificant.
While he was thus absorbed in contemplating and in trying to penetrate the enigmatic mystery of this incredible cosmic vision—a mystery that seemed to him completely overwhelming and unfathomable—he suddenly became aware that his eyes had been attracted to an intensely luminous star, whose scintillating beauty had captivated his attention and held him so utterly spellbound that he was incapable of moving his gaze away from it for so much as an instant, nor dared he even blink or breathe for fear of losing the delicate thread of the ever-so-subtle and secret revelation that this star appeared to be making to him about the Cosmos and existence—a secret revelation arousing in him mysterious sentiments of an extraordinary inner world, pervaded with an eternal presence and vast reverential silence.
While he was thus plunged in this extraordinary reverie, he gradually became conscious of yet another feeling that had imperceptibly got hold of him and that was kindled by the subtlest intimation he had been secretly receiving throughout about the incredible distance that separated this star from himself . As he was thus lost in his reflections on this heavenly body and filled with rapture and veneration, the thought arose in him that the light of this infinitely remote star must have taken hundreds upon hundreds of millions of years to reach this planet—and that even as he was quietly engrossed in appreciating the beauty of its scintillating light, a light that shone peacefully on this globe after having traveled across an unimaginable distance through space, this celestial being might already have, in fact, wholly ceased to exist hundreds of millions of years before.
The thought that this magnificent-looking star might have actually burned itself out and thoroughly disintegrated an untold length of time ago, even though it could clearly be perceived in the present, gripped him with an inexpressible sentiment of marvel and disquiet. He could not but be pervaded with wonderment as he realized that, although this star might actually not have existed for eons, it continued to give the uncanny impression of being miraculously there in the present, still infused with life and fully possessing its physical mass!
What then struck him as being more amazing and weird was that, in spite of the fact that this star might have altogether vanished from the Universe in some unimaginably remote past, it would nevertheless keep radiating its lustrous light and loveliness for people on this Earth to see uninterruptedly for yet many more hundreds of millions of years to come.
Furthermore, even though the time would finally arrive when the light of this star would suddenly flicker out and disappear, never to be seen again from this globe (awakening one to the truth that this celestial being must indeed have ceased to exist for many hundreds of millions of years), its beautiful light would softly and mysteriously continue to travel through space, spreading forth its effulgence far, far away from this Earth, into unthinkable distances to other parts of the galaxy where, to beings well beyond this solar system, this now totally extinct star would appear fully alive, with long-gone cosmic upheavals and other physical activities still taking place on it!
The most singular sensation of reverential awe then gripped him as a sudden subtle understanding awakened him to the realization that, just as the above-mentioned star may have become altogether extinct an immeasurable length of time ago, never to be seen again from a certain place in the galaxy while continuing to be perceived further away for hundreds of millions of years to come, so it is, on a different scale and level, with a human being’s thoughts, words, and deeds. They do not vanish into total oblivion, as one may be inclined to believe, but leave their trace on other planes where they will, in a very particular sense, continue to be mysteriously active. They can even, in an ordinarily incomprehensible way, be “recaptured”—if so desired—and “seen” by certain beings who have attained exceptional spiritual heights and are endowed with unusual mystical faculties inconceivable to the ordinary human beingperson.
Whatever a person’s way of being and actions may have been during his earthly life—whether he was a sincere and just seeker or a tyrannical monarch, whether he brought spiritual knowledge, inner peace, and joy to others or indulged in words and deeds that perpetuated suffering and sorrow in the world, whether he used his forces positively in the creation of inspiring artistic works to alleviate the painful existence of other beings or spent his energies in waging wars—they will all, like the light of the aforementioned star, continue to exist and manifest themselves on other planes incomprehensible to ordinary thinking.
In certain cases, they will even go on subtly accentuating the particular tendencies in their originator, who, after he has shed his earthly envelope, still remains mysteriously connected and attached to the sort of thoughts, words, and deeds he gave himself up to in his lifetime. Furthermore, if the thoughts, words, and deeds of this person were powerful enough, he would then enigmatically keep thinking, saying, and doing the same sorts of things—including the mistakes he made—over and over again in future existences (no matter what form they may take), thus ever deepening the furrows of his leanings and actions, whether they be of a positive and spiritual kind or of a negative nature.
If someone stands on the peak of a tall mountain at sunrise on a very clear and windless day and sends out a loud call, he will at first hear the sharp sound of his voice shattering the early-morning silence. Immediately afterward, his call will start to echo around among the neighboring mountains and spread far out in every direction, repeating itself over and over with the reiterated sounds of this call overlapping one another and heard a considerable distance away.
Unknowingly, the human being lives on many different planes at the same time, and, in a way somewhat similar to the reiterated echoes in the mountains, whatever he thinks, says, and does on one plane is mysteriously thought, said, and done forthwith on all the other planes as well. Moreover, it will act upon, influence, and color the different levels of his consciousness and inner world in a manner ordinarily beyond his comprehension.
The Creation of the Universe, from the remotest past to the present, is stored somewhere in its minutest details and is enigmatically still taking place in the different planes and spheres of the Cosmos and the mental world. All these events can, as said earlier, be recaptured and seen by certain sensitive and highly enlightened beings. But this should never be the aim of a seeker’s work. His whole attention and interest must be solely directed to the quest for and the understanding of his True Nature—the Source whence he emerged—and to the transformation of himself.
As long as a human being stays as he is, living through the ordinary and narrow aspect of his being without the desire to seek to know himself, then the great enigma of his existence and source of origin will ever continue to elude his comprehension, remaining mysteriously hidden behind the thick veil and distracting noises of his customary self. But if he can stay motionless for some moments, with his eyes closed, and really listen, he will be astonished at the incredible din that is going on in him all the while without his generally being aware of it, the din of hundreds of tiny voices, all speaking, shouting, complaining, crying, desiring, insisting, resenting, and so on at the same time. It is similar to the disorderly tumult of a huge and unruly crowd. All these meaningless chatters and clamors of the “phantom mob” that he unknowingly carries in him, as well as the interminable procession of shadowy images constantly darting across the sky of his consciousness, make up the inner world of the ordinary person, an inner world peopled with nothing but evanescent phantoms!
In understanding the weighty implications of all that has been said, the aspirant can see how very circumspect indeed he has to be about the sort of thoughts he nourishes, the things he says, and the actions he takes. The moment he embarked on this important spiritual journey, he inevitably attracted to himself a far heavier responsibility for everything he does than he might imagine—a responsibility both toward others as well as toward himself. For he will clearly have to come to see how all things in this existence are interrelated, and that the trace his thoughts, speech, and actions leave behind inevitably involves other people also, resulting in a long chain of positive or negative reactions thereafter everywhere around. He will have then understood the real meaning of karmic debts, in what manner they are accumulated, and how they can affect him afterward.
By
Edward Salim Michael
The author hopes that the following experience and his humble understandings of it will be of help to the reader in better grasping the necessity to become more aware of and responsible for one’s thoughts, words and deeds:
One clear summer night, as he was looking up at the sky besprinkled with the innumerable celestial bodies that inhabit it, and as his eyes kept roving slowly from one side to the other across the vast heavens, looking far out into infinity, he could not help but marvel and be filled with awe at the immensity of the Universe, compared to which he felt so extremely small and insignificant.
While he was thus absorbed in contemplating and in trying to penetrate the enigmatic mystery of this incredible cosmic vision—a mystery that seemed to him completely overwhelming and unfathomable—he suddenly became aware that his eyes had been attracted to an intensely luminous star, whose scintillating beauty had captivated his attention and held him so utterly spellbound that he was incapable of moving his gaze away from it for so much as an instant, nor dared he even blink or breathe for fear of losing the delicate thread of the ever-so-subtle and secret revelation that this star appeared to be making to him about the Cosmos and existence—a secret revelation arousing in him mysterious sentiments of an extraordinary inner world, pervaded with an eternal presence and vast reverential silence.
While he was thus plunged in this extraordinary reverie, he gradually became conscious of yet another feeling that had imperceptibly got hold of him and that was kindled by the subtlest intimation he had been secretly receiving throughout about the incredible distance that separated this star from himself . As he was thus lost in his reflections on this heavenly body and filled with rapture and veneration, the thought arose in him that the light of this infinitely remote star must have taken hundreds upon hundreds of millions of years to reach this planet—and that even as he was quietly engrossed in appreciating the beauty of its scintillating light, a light that shone peacefully on this globe after having traveled across an unimaginable distance through space, this celestial being might already have, in fact, wholly ceased to exist hundreds of millions of years before.
The thought that this magnificent-looking star might have actually burned itself out and thoroughly disintegrated an untold length of time ago, even though it could clearly be perceived in the present, gripped him with an inexpressible sentiment of marvel and disquiet. He could not but be pervaded with wonderment as he realized that, although this star might actually not have existed for eons, it continued to give the uncanny impression of being miraculously there in the present, still infused with life and fully possessing its physical mass!
What then struck him as being more amazing and weird was that, in spite of the fact that this star might have altogether vanished from the Universe in some unimaginably remote past, it would nevertheless keep radiating its lustrous light and loveliness for people on this Earth to see uninterruptedly for yet many more hundreds of millions of years to come.
Furthermore, even though the time would finally arrive when the light of this star would suddenly flicker out and disappear, never to be seen again from this globe (awakening one to the truth that this celestial being must indeed have ceased to exist for many hundreds of millions of years), its beautiful light would softly and mysteriously continue to travel through space, spreading forth its effulgence far, far away from this Earth, into unthinkable distances to other parts of the galaxy where, to beings well beyond this solar system, this now totally extinct star would appear fully alive, with long-gone cosmic upheavals and other physical activities still taking place on it!
The most singular sensation of reverential awe then gripped him as a sudden subtle understanding awakened him to the realization that, just as the above-mentioned star may have become altogether extinct an immeasurable length of time ago, never to be seen again from a certain place in the galaxy while continuing to be perceived further away for hundreds of millions of years to come, so it is, on a different scale and level, with a human being’s thoughts, words, and deeds. They do not vanish into total oblivion, as one may be inclined to believe, but leave their trace on other planes where they will, in a very particular sense, continue to be mysteriously active. They can even, in an ordinarily incomprehensible way, be “recaptured”—if so desired—and “seen” by certain beings who have attained exceptional spiritual heights and are endowed with unusual mystical faculties inconceivable to the ordinary human beingperson.
Whatever a person’s way of being and actions may have been during his earthly life—whether he was a sincere and just seeker or a tyrannical monarch, whether he brought spiritual knowledge, inner peace, and joy to others or indulged in words and deeds that perpetuated suffering and sorrow in the world, whether he used his forces positively in the creation of inspiring artistic works to alleviate the painful existence of other beings or spent his energies in waging wars—they will all, like the light of the aforementioned star, continue to exist and manifest themselves on other planes incomprehensible to ordinary thinking.
In certain cases, they will even go on subtly accentuating the particular tendencies in their originator, who, after he has shed his earthly envelope, still remains mysteriously connected and attached to the sort of thoughts, words, and deeds he gave himself up to in his lifetime. Furthermore, if the thoughts, words, and deeds of this person were powerful enough, he would then enigmatically keep thinking, saying, and doing the same sorts of things—including the mistakes he made—over and over again in future existences (no matter what form they may take), thus ever deepening the furrows of his leanings and actions, whether they be of a positive and spiritual kind or of a negative nature.
If someone stands on the peak of a tall mountain at sunrise on a very clear and windless day and sends out a loud call, he will at first hear the sharp sound of his voice shattering the early-morning silence. Immediately afterward, his call will start to echo around among the neighboring mountains and spread far out in every direction, repeating itself over and over with the reiterated sounds of this call overlapping one another and heard a considerable distance away.
Unknowingly, the human being lives on many different planes at the same time, and, in a way somewhat similar to the reiterated echoes in the mountains, whatever he thinks, says, and does on one plane is mysteriously thought, said, and done forthwith on all the other planes as well. Moreover, it will act upon, influence, and color the different levels of his consciousness and inner world in a manner ordinarily beyond his comprehension.
The Creation of the Universe, from the remotest past to the present, is stored somewhere in its minutest details and is enigmatically still taking place in the different planes and spheres of the Cosmos and the mental world. All these events can, as said earlier, be recaptured and seen by certain sensitive and highly enlightened beings. But this should never be the aim of a seeker’s work. His whole attention and interest must be solely directed to the quest for and the understanding of his True Nature—the Source whence he emerged—and to the transformation of himself.
As long as a human being stays as he is, living through the ordinary and narrow aspect of his being without the desire to seek to know himself, then the great enigma of his existence and source of origin will ever continue to elude his comprehension, remaining mysteriously hidden behind the thick veil and distracting noises of his customary self. But if he can stay motionless for some moments, with his eyes closed, and really listen, he will be astonished at the incredible din that is going on in him all the while without his generally being aware of it, the din of hundreds of tiny voices, all speaking, shouting, complaining, crying, desiring, insisting, resenting, and so on at the same time. It is similar to the disorderly tumult of a huge and unruly crowd. All these meaningless chatters and clamors of the “phantom mob” that he unknowingly carries in him, as well as the interminable procession of shadowy images constantly darting across the sky of his consciousness, make up the inner world of the ordinary person, an inner world peopled with nothing but evanescent phantoms!
In understanding the weighty implications of all that has been said, the aspirant can see how very circumspect indeed he has to be about the sort of thoughts he nourishes, the things he says, and the actions he takes. The moment he embarked on this important spiritual journey, he inevitably attracted to himself a far heavier responsibility for everything he does than he might imagine—a responsibility both toward others as well as toward himself. For he will clearly have to come to see how all things in this existence are interrelated, and that the trace his thoughts, speech, and actions leave behind inevitably involves other people also, resulting in a long chain of positive or negative reactions thereafter everywhere around. He will have then understood the real meaning of karmic debts, in what manner they are accumulated, and how they can affect him afterward.
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