Now, it has been a while since I have had to address the issue of Karma Monkeys, as they seem to have been playing by the Cosmic Rules of Karma without incident very well for over a year or so now, but this morning’s moldy coffee incident got me thinking about them again.
So, I decided to take this opportunity to introduce the Karma Monkeys to those of you who are not aware of or have not yet acknowledged the existence of these Keepers of the Karmic Balance.
Not wanting to assume that everyone knows about Karma or the concept behind it I will start from the beginning. The following is an excerpt from
The Law of Karma:
“In Buddhist teaching, the law of Karma says only this: “for every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first and this second event will be pleasant or unpleasant according as its cause was skillful or unskillful.” A skillful event is one that is not accompanied by craving, resistance or delusions; an unskillful event is one that is accompanied by any one of those things. (Events are not skillful in themselves, but are so called only in virtue of the mental events that occur with them.)
“Therefore, the law of Karma teaches that responsibility for unskillful actions is born by the person who commits them.”
So basically, there are consequences for everything that we do. These consequences will be good or bad, kind of like reward and punishment (but I don’t really think of it that way) based not so much on what we do (which many people think Karma is based on) but more so on our personal reasons or “mental events” that occur with these actions, events, behaviors.
So, now that we understand Karma, we can move on to those who enforce, coordinate, and produce the consequences, or the following “event whose existence was caused by the first.” Someone or something must have this responsibility in some sense, right?
Enter the Karma Monkeys.
There are Orange Karma Monkeys (the harbingers of what some would refer to as bad Karma). It is these Orange Karma Monkeys who hold the positions of those who coordinate, create, and enforce the following “event caused by the first” – which in this case would have been an “unskillful event”. On the other side we have the Green Karma Monkeys who coordinate, create, and bestow “good Karma” rewards for the performance of “skilled events”. Now, the Karma Monkeys are lightning quick and highly skilled at remaining undetected on our plane of existence by using skills that allow them to maintain an ever-present “watch” over us that falls far beyond our simple senses and limited detection capabilities. However, their actions, good or bad, provide more than enough evidence of their existence - as was the case this morning.
Right off the bat, the Orange Karma Monkeys made sure I found the moldy coffee remains first thing, meaning to catch me unexpectedly and off guard in a poor attempt at ruining my entire day by starting it off in such a “bad” way. Didn’t work though. (And I swear I threw out that filter last year… it was just the Orange Karma Monkeys that slyly placed the one I found this morning in my coffee pot, hoping to stop my efforts to take the joy out of their other responsibilities - including the management of the distribution of the Daily Dose of Difficulty which, when followed by my usual Feeling of Frustration and Funk-Up-Ed-Ness, gives the Orange Karma Monkeys great pleasure.)
Mind you, there are rules for Karma Monkeys, but there are also loopholes in these rules (just as there are in almost every set of rules or regulations). The Number 1 Rule that regulates the actions of the Karma Monkeys is that (now, I’m not so sure how often it is checked or if it is just at the end of one’s life this time around) an individual’s Karmic Record must be balanced when the Karmic Auditors come to inspect the Karmic Records. So, being the devious, mischievous, and prankster characters that they are, sometimes the Orange Karma Monkeys will throw the Karmic Records out of balance by dumping a load of “bad” Karma somewhere on someone to prove a point, play a joke, to test an individual (which I believe was the case this morning), or just to mess around because they too get tired of the same-old, same-old, day in and day out.
However, in order to maintain the necessary balance the Orange Karma Monkeys must immediately fill out a form 27b/6 (Tell me why and I’ll buy you lunch. I know the answer, I just wonder if you do ... bloody paperwork) to inform the Green Karma Monkeys of the imbalance created. You see, the Green Karma Monkeys are the only ones who can correct or rebalance the Karmic Record, which must be done before the Karmic Auditors come around.
Now, of course, the Green Karma Monkeys (that, in my opinion, exist in greater numbers than the Orange since people are innately good and therefore the Green Karma Monkeys have more work to do) try to prevent the Orange Karma Monkeys from performing any unwarranted action(s) that would require the filling out of a 27b/6, since correcting the imbalance only adds to their already heavy workload from just keeping up with their daily Karmic duties. However, as much as the Green Karma Monkeys try to prevent such things from happening, occasionally the Orange Karma Monkeys are successful in their plans.
(Note that the Green Karma Monkeys do not perform such regulatory violations as they are aware that in order to balance the Karmic Record an individual would have to endure undeserved “bad” Karma via difficulties, negativity, or whatnot from the Orange Karma Monkeys. The Orange Karma Monkeys don’t give much consideration to the “good” Karma they are inadvertently bestowing on an individual when they commit their illegal offenses - they are too wrapped up in the pleasure they receive from their own destructive disorderliness.)
So, while I was a little thrown by the mold-filled coffee filter fiasco, I have gone on to have a good day thus far, and I am looking forward to the action (however small it may be) that will be taken upon the processing of the 27b/6 for this incident. :-)
So, beware! The paranoids (and the Karma Monkeys) are watching you!
~harvestorm
The first card that I decided to make was that of an Evergreen Tree that I thought would make a nice Holiday Greeting Card for someone who would truly appreciate the sentiment of a one-of-a-kind greeting card that was lovingly and carefully handcrafted by a real-life person (and not mass produced by some machine owned by the large and impersonal greeting-card industry and its conglomerates).
