Random Ra Material Questions

[APeacefulWarrior]

To the negative mindset, karma is delicious. The building up of it is delicious. There is joy in creating more karma because this is the by-product of control over others and manipulation of others. Consequently, there is no attempt to alleviate karma in the service-to-self path, but only to hone the edge of rage and anger until it is ever more penetrating and ever more effective.

You know, that Quo'te about the building up of Karma got me thinking about the French King Louis XIV, the so-called "Sun King." There's something interesting about him a lot of people don't know that illustrates what karmic buildup can lead to. (Man, it sounds like a toothpaste ad when I say it that way...)

Louis XIV, the man reviled for his extreme excess, lacked the one thing that even the poorest commoner could enjoy: Privacy.

He felt that as the head of the state, he must ALWAYS be visible to his people so that they knew their King was working for them. His entire life was an open book, and the only - I repeat ONLY - time he had anything approaching privacy was in his bedchamber, within the drawn curtains of his own bed. And even then, people would probably be in the room. Even his morning constitutionals were overseen by attendants and courtiers and other assorted lackeys.

He lived this way for more than sixty years.

And I've always wondered - not that we could ever know - did he revel in it, or revile it? Was it his grand stage, or the world's most gilded cage?

Karma's funny that way.