Notion of Growth

Author(s): Hermann Kuhn
Publisher: Crosswind Publishing Germany

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Hermann Kuhn
Yet real growth - i.e. the fundamental and steady expansion of our range of experience - can only take place, if we do not restrict our consciousness by binding new karma. Freedom from karmic attachment is ensured if we orient the actions we undertake to realize our ideals and values along the 'Five Freedoms' described in THE APPLICATION.
Life without action is no valid alternative for us, because we then could not release our existing karmic matter - i.e. our emotional attachment to certain themes of life - through action. Life without action would cement our present karmic state and also our current stage of development (gunasthana) into eternal permanence.
- The binding of karmic matter to a living being (bandha).
Karma is not an inaccessible, mystic force whose inexplicable mercy we are subjected to. Karma is a kind of (subtle) matter that is present everywhere in the cosmos and differs fundamentally from the inherent nature of our consciousness (jiva).
Through ignorance, error, skepticism and strong negative emotions we attach this type of subtle matter to our consciousness. Though karmic matter does not possess consciousness, it has the characteristic to bind karmic mechanisms to our life. It works in a similar way as the particles of our body that bind us to the material world which surrounds us in the waking state.
The emotional force with which we pursue our ideas and desires determines the strength and duration of the bond. The type of activity we perform at the time of