This came to mind today, startling enough I want to record it. When I first started writing about the soldier a lot of people were alarmed. They just didn’t know what to make of it and I don’t blame them because I didn’t know what to make of it either. But at some point someone emailed me (with no malice) to suggest the soldier had a lot of karma to work off due his career in Special Forces.
I had formed no opinion of this at the time. I just didn’t have enough information but being as I have Libra, I wrote back to oppose (to balance) the assertion. ‘What makes you think he’s done something wrong?” I asked.
We were talking about “sins of the father” back then and the assumption was that the soldier had done all this sinning due his career and would now have to atone for it. And I didn’t know if this was right or it was wrong but I thought the assumption was wrong so I challenged it and it was a good dialogue as I recall. The man is still talking to me, so you know. Ha ha ha.
But anyway today I thought of this and my thoughts and feelings about it have matured. The same thing has probably happened with the person on the other side but get this: The thing in question is a long career in service as a Special Forces soldier.
One person looks at that and says that person has incurred a karmic debt.
The soldier thinks he is actually PAYING is his debt (from past lives) by living this career.
Is that not amazing? I think it’s amazing and I don’t even think it matters who is right. What matters is that you understand people have their own way of seeing things.
How hard do you try to see the other person’s point of view?
I have to work harder to shut them out.
I’ve always had a feeling that soldiers carried a lot of the sins of the rest of us. Most of them voluntarily. “Here, give it to me, I’ll catch the hell.”
Ewinbee, I agree with everything you said.
Me, too, ewinbee. You’re really in top form today.
I’ve always thought that soldiers were working out the collective karma of the male… and continuing the cause in perpetuity.
What’s really astounding to me is that a soldier/trucker believes in (and has worked out his own) past lives. That doesn’t seem consistent with any of the military guys I’ve known or the truckers I’ve grown up around – they seem to be of the belief that this life is all you get, either from a standpoint of atheism or a strict religious upbringing that prohibits even questioning that we get more than one trip around the block. How did he come to his belief?
Avery, aww, thanks. I’m actually sitting here in my pj’s all baggy-eyed and having eaten junk food and taken a three hour nap this evening. 🙂
Thank goodness for soldiers. The most fighting I can handle is in print.
I don’t know. If someone tells me what they think/feel I can accept it at face value. I can agree with you, Elsa, about not forming opinions about things immediately.
I think it’s more of an assimilation kind of thing…or learning through osmosis, or whatever you want to call it.
i’ll listen. i may not agree, but extra perspectives are always useful in adding color to the complex tapestry of story which flows through all the lives on the planet….
avery- the soldiers in my family have had some extremely interesting stories. but they won’t just up and tell them.
they have to trust you.
there’s a difference between following orders and agreeing with them and a soldier has to to separate their inner life from their actions. they can get extremely good at that. it depends. but the surface expression tends to focus on maintaining order. following a standard of behaviour. doesn’t mean they don’t think about things like the patterns of life and death. in fact, they’re often a bit closer to those places than most people.
(at least once they’ve had a little time under the gun.)
I always try to see people’s point of view. Even if I don’t agree with them, it’s really interesting to me to see how perspectives can differ so much based on their own experiences. Also, I try really hard not to judge opinions. They are after all, just opinions.
🙂