Hi, Mark:
Well, if AS does not shake up our faith in anything, it is not severe enough or just not doing its job!
Sometime before I found what worked for me, healthwise--that is to eliminate AS symptoms--I found a person (a righted, albeit still imperfect servant) who was able to reveal to me the nature of my karma, relative to AS: "I built my prison, stone by stone." In the scheme of things, if You are not responsible for Your own disease, You will start fantasizing that it is just the randomness of the universe or some evil "God" who created one of his creatures just to suffer.
I like the quantum view, where not only are we responsible for causing our disease, but we have the power to un-cause it, too!
But aside from personal responsibility, which is anathema for some who seek relief through others or some government program, I have specific information about my karma that I cannot ignore. So there were "beliefs" and then there now are beliefs supported by evidence that is more than coincidental.
It is a happy event to confront our own failings because once these are recognized we can more often do something about them. And in learning about my own karma, it was quite soon after that the solution to this disease followed: This is the way of the Narrow Path to enlightenment; there are no Buddhas upon this thoroughfare, but all the information we need.
So it is odious for some of us to believe that we caused our own condition; it is for them yet to discover and they would not be here if they had the whole story.
There is a reasonable movie about quantum involvement: "What the [BLEEP] Do We Know?" I would encourage everyone not involved in superstring research to make for themselves some opportunity to see this--although it will not turn a Democrat into a Republican, it is at least a start in the direction of recognizing the Ultimate Tyranny (TRUTH).
Whether "spirituality" has any place in our lives is always up to us, but this word, within our modern lexicon, specifically eliminates organized religion(s), which are never a meaningful part of our personal search, but often serve as a sounding-board or starting point; it is good to know what others believe even if only for entertainment value.
"The Universe" had me under its thumb while I was really doing all the wrong things, and it did not let me go until I practiced well enough those endeavors that were proper for me; it was AS which was my teacher and helped put me right (well, as "righted" as I could become under the circumstances).
Karma? Do right follow the Golden Rule and express love; we will have much less disease then.
HEALTH,
John
