COVID-19: Is Spain at receiving end of karmic retribution?
Posted on April 12th, 2020
Spanish colonial crimes – Bull Fighting – Spanish Flu – Covid-19 do you see a connection? Do these trail of thoughts carry a trail of tears? Do they implore Spain to revisit their moral standing of past and present actions? Over 500 years of colonial crimes, over 300 years of bullfighting, Nature has watched silently and patiently the pain and anguish of the natives whose lands & pride were stolen by European explorers and the tortures bulls were subject to. When nature saw no signs of repentance or remorse, Nature unleashed her fury. First in the form of the Spanish flu (Jan1918 to Dec1920) killing some 50million people and now in 2020 Spain has again been brought to heel and face a new agony – covid-19. Mother Nature has made Spain to go through exactly what they inflicted for centuries on natives that they tortured, killed and plundered and for the cruelty they inflicted on bulls in the gruesome sport of bullfighting. Will Spain treat covid-19 as karmic retribution and resolve to atone for its crimes by apology and reparations to South America & to end bullfighting? Hemingway wrote, A death will occur this afternoon, will it be man or animal?” – it should be neither.
What the Spanish conquistadors did to South America over 500 years are far worse than what Hitler & Germany committed on the Jews.
The Indians were totally deprived of their freedom and were put into the harshest, fiercest, most horrible servitude and captivity which no one who has not seen it can understand. Even beasts enjoy more freedom when they are allowed to graze in the field.
Bartolomé de las Casas”
The Age of ‘Discovery’ meant declaring as ‘found’ already inhabited islands and territories. Spain was responsible for eliminating erasing 3 ancient civilizational tribes – Incas, Mayas and Aztecs, committing genocide of their culture, their literature, their language and their customs. Today these very nations are sending their people to study about the ancient civilizations that they erased and turn their stories into coffee table books.
Native Americans were turned into slaves, slaves were imported from Africa. The Natives had their customs, traditions, rituals erased. They were forced to sign illegal treaties that ceded their lands to White Nations. Historians estimate 50million natives lived in Americas when Spain landed in the 15th century. That number became 2million in one of the world’s forgotten genocides committed by European explorers via small pox/measles and the gun.
Hernan Cortes, Pedro de Alvarado destroyed the Aztec civilization (present Mexico), Batoleome de Las Casas, Juan Gines de Sepulveda, Francisco Pizarro conquered the Incas (present Peru) & the Mayan empire constituting the modern countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras & El Salvador were all vanquished.
Covid-19 is making Spain undergo a catharsis and the agony is likely to continue until genuine signs of repentance is seen. Until such time the world cannot sympathize or empathize with Spain. Spain and the Spanish people must atone for their crimes.
If Germany & Japan were made to face their sins and forced to atone for their crimes, there is no reason why Spain shouldn’t. Germany was forced to atone for its crimes via the Nuremberg Tribunals in the case of Spain, Mother Nature is showing Spain a lesson for not only killing man but animals as well.
Isn’t it ironic that most of the countries severely hit by covid-19 inspite of proudly referring to themselves as the First World, calling themselves ‘civilized’ nations, are unable to deal and contain the virus. Is it that they cannot or is it that Nature is divinely interfering to make them taste the medicine they forced upon others. Aren’t these nations including Spain now facing the same tune they inflicted with cruel intent on others?
Spain never received the justice it deserved because the white man controlled the world. All of the former colonial powers gathered to protect their own and continue to do so. They decided what was fact and what was fiction. Victor’s justice ruled. They wrote and rewrote history according to their whims and fancies. All of the worlds’ discoveries became attributed to the white man. Only now we know Columbus never discovered America!
As Spain suffers from covid-19, with close to 20,000 deaths and over 180,000 cases, Mother Nature is telling the Spanish to open its eyes, to repent the crimes committed in the past against humans and animals and look at the crimes being committed in the present.
500 years of colonial crimes and 300 years of bull fighting leaves Spain much to ponder over. The tears of the bull are no different in measure than the tears of natives slaughtered to death. Until the bull learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter”
Before a bull enters the ring, his horns are cut with hacksaw without anesthesia, his eyes are smeared with petroleum jelly to blur vision, his ears are stuffed with cotton, his nostrils are stuffed with newspaper, he is denied food & water for days, Epsom salt induces diarrhea, a needle is shoved into his testicles, he loins are beaten, some are even given tranquilizers, days before the fight he is kept in darkness to further traumatize him and just before he enters the right he is poked with harpoons. Then they take turns on slowly killing him while crowds cheer. With so much pain inflicted for days in advance what is this ‘mastery’ that a matador boasts of over the bull? Eventually the bull is butchered often while still alive and this is called Spanish culture. If Spain regards the matador as ennobled, the mass murderers during colonial rule would have also been garlanded.
Spain is today facing the law of karma. Do good – good returns. Do bad – bad returns. Newton says ‘every action has a reaction’. What returns can get modified but it cannot be eliminated. The change happens only if a person realizes the damage done by one’s deeds and resolves to ensure such deeds are never repeated. Spain tap your heart & conscience.
As you sow, so shall you reap” when Spain and other European explorers confiscated lands already inhabited & declared they had ‘discovered’ them the white historians made us all to believe these were ‘their lands’.
Spain and its white-exploring partners completely disregarded the law of creation – that life doesn’t just happen. They thought they were the universe and their will must rule. They brushed aside the law of humility. They completely ignored the law of growth – all others had to change except themselves. Their law was US vs You. In so doing they ignored the law of responsibility taking accountability for one’s actions. They ignored the mirror showing their crimes, the tears and sadness of the people and animals they inflicted pain and torture.
The innocent people that welcomed these strange travelers had their generosity and hospitality abused. In return for their smiles of welcome, they received the sword and thus the law of giving and hospitality was broken by these white nations.
It was only time that they would also break the law of connection. By breaking away from the universe they were closing the door to Nature.
So long as perpetrators of evil to man, animal and nature do not atone for their crimes history will repeat and continue to repeat until lessons are learnt and the path of change is adopted.
Annually pandemics have taken place in 1720s, 1820, 1920s and now in 2020. What is clear is that the perpetrators have not learnt a lesson. Will 2020 instill the law of change?
The intent must now be good thoughts, compassion, humane living, loving contribution to man, society, Nature and even animals.
Shenali D Waduge
April 12th, 2020 at 10:18 am
Shenali
As far as the way I understand Buddhist philosophy, the karmic retribution can not be applied to a country or a society. The majority of Corona victims in the UK are from the minority community, mainly west Indians, Indians. Similarly in the US majority, people are from NewYork state and are from the black community.
According to Buddhism, there are five orders or processes (niyama) which operate in the physical and mental realms.
They are:
Utu Niyama – physical inorganic order, e.g. seasonal phenomena of winds and rains. The unerring order of seasons, characteristic seasonal changes and events, causes of winds and rains, nature of heat, etc., all belong to this group.
Bija Niyama – order of germs and seeds (physical organic order), e.g. rice produced from rice-seed, sugary taste from sugar-cane or honey, peculiar characteristics of certain fruits, etc. The scientific theory of cells and genes and the physical similarity of twins may be ascribed to this order.
Karma Niyama – order of act and result, e.g., desirable and undesirable acts produce corresponding good and bad results. As surely as water seeks its own level so does Karma, given the opportunity, produce its inevitable result, not in the form of a reward or punishment but as an innate sequence. This sequence of deed and effect is as natural and necessary as the way of the sun and the moon.
Dhamma Niyama – order of the norm, e.g., the natural phenomena occurring at the advent of a Bodhisattva in his last birth. Gravitation and other similar laws of nature. The natural reason for being good and so forth may be included in this group.
Citta Niyama – order or mind or psychic law, e.g., processes of consciousness, arising and perishing of consciousness, constituents of consciousness, power of the mind, etc., including telepathy, telaesthesia, retro-cognition, premonition, clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought-reading and such other psychic phenomena which are inexplicable to modern science.
Every mental or physical phenomenon could be explained by these all-embracing five orders or processes which are laws in themselves. Karma as such is only one of these five orders.
April 12th, 2020 at 10:42 am
The Western approach to Coronavirus is an utter failure. Data from east Asia shows testing, tracing and isolating people with coronavirus is the best way to tackle the pandemic
Sri Lanka was lucky. You have a Russian trained doctor in charge (Dr. Anil Jasinghe) to formulate the correct procedure.
There’s a crucial difference between the response to coronavirus in China and that in the UK (& all in the western world). From the beginning of the outbreak, the Lancet researchers note, “only residents were allowed to enter residential communities, face mask-wearing was made compulsory, and non-essential community services were shut down”. Health authorities also found cases, traced contacts and isolated them, monitoring their quarantine closely.
So it was not just a lockdown and social distancing that were responsible for bringing down the R0 number in China, but the country’s community surveillance approach. Scarred by memories of the Sars outbreak in 2002, China and other East Asian states acted with greater speed, imposing total or partial lockdowns supported by a protective shield of community measures – finding people with the virus, isolating them swiftly, and tracing those they contacted.
In South Korea, this took the form of mass testing and digital contact tracing; in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Vietnam, health authorities identified cases based on people’s symptoms and used testing when available. Strict isolation of cases and contacts was monitored by phone apps and home visits. Rather than enforcing a one-size-fits-all approach, China varied lockdown across different regions. While Wuhan was under total lockdown, other provinces had more autonomy and focused on quarantining the household clusters where most transmissions took place.
April 12th, 2020 at 10:57 am
THE LAW OF KARMA, IS NOT SELECTIVE. IT WILL COME DOWN FORMIDABLY ON INDIVIDUAL OR COUNTRY, ACTING WITH EVIL INTENT. NATURE TAKES ITS COURSE.
April 12th, 2020 at 2:20 pm
In Hinduism, there is individual karma and there is also collective karma. As a family, as a community, as a nation, as humanity, Hindus believe that they share karmic memory among ourselves. Maybe individually, we did not do anything. But our society is doing certain things. Because of that, there will be consequences.
But in Buddhism, karma is based on individual volition deeply associated with one’s consciousness. So there can’t be shared karma and its retribution.
With karma-as-intention the karma created is not as great as the karma from actually doing it. On the other hand once our thought turns into karma-as-intention-manifested, the real word repercussions will be greater and karmic retribution from that action will also be greater .’ Retribution ‘in relation to karma carries a neutral meaning, as it depends on the kinds of cause and the kind of results.
Karma can ripen in three ways: through thought through speech, and through action. Karma-as-intention that does not ripen into karma-as-intention-manifested is ‘concealed karma,’ since it only exists in one’s mind. Opposed to this is ‘manifest karma,’ which refers to karma-as-intention plus speech and/or action. Relating this to intention, we see that karma can ripen as intention only, intention plus speech, and intention plus action.
April 12th, 2020 at 2:20 pm
In Hinduism, there is individual karma and there is also collective karma. As a family, as a community, as a nation, as humanity, Hindus believe that they share karmic memory among ourselves. Maybe individually, we did not do anything. But our society is doing certain things. Because of that, there will be consequences.
But in Buddhism, karma is based on individual volition deeply associated with one’s consciousness. So there can’t be shared karma and its retribution.
With karma-as-intention the karma created is not as great as the karma from actually doing it. On the other hand once our thought turns into karma-as-intention-manifested, the real word repercussions will be greater and karmic retribution from that action will also be greater .’ Retribution ‘in relation to karma carries a neutral meaning, as it depends on the kinds of cause and the kind of results.
Karma can ripen in three ways: through thought through speech, and through action. Karma-as-intention that does not ripen into karma-as-intention-manifested is ‘concealed karma,’ since it only exists in one’s mind. Opposed to this is ‘manifest karma,’ which refers to karma-as-intention plus speech and/or action. Relating this to intention, we see that karma can ripen as intention only, intention plus speech, and intention plus action.
April 13th, 2020 at 4:06 pm
Lord Buddha has told that the subject of Karma is infinitely complicated and Achinthai – Unimaginable by the mundane! However one can see karmic retribution directed at large populations is somewhat approximate to that of the average individual – a strong centralizing tendency closely resembling the Central Limit Theorem!
April 14th, 2020 at 9:32 pm
I do not agree with this analysis in which we hide behind Karma and try to find a reason for a tragedy in a foreign country where thousands are dying each day due to a natural cause. This sort of cruelty to animals is wide spread in all religions except Buddhism. In Rome also the same thing happened and is that why people are dying there too?.
What has this far away country done to us in SL?. Instead of finding ways to avert a situation that happened to Incars who were overwhelmed by a crafty Iberian commander and a few hundred soldiers, why we go on bashing them at this juncture. EU countries and US are knocking at our door trying various schemes to take over our country using a set of unpatriotic rogues since 21/4. It is very clear to anybody that 4/21 was a creation of the whites to colonize us for another long period of time. One journalist, Chapa, has already raised a red flag. Sometimes a simple trick can avert it.
I give an example from Spain itself. When they had gone to Borneo to take over that land, the locals had put poison to their water sources and the soldiers got sick. Unable to solve the problems Spaniards left never to return again. But they were welcomed in Philipines where their different islands must have been divided and conquered peacefully. And they were there for four hundred years. Same can happen to us again. Therefore we should get together and leave out the unpatriotic rulers who display traitorous tendencies. Solution for to regain the country that we lost five hundred years ago is simple.
April 14th, 2020 at 9:34 pm
Sorry, correction: “…widespread in all regions where Buddhism is practiced.
April 14th, 2020 at 9:46 pm
Another thing: on 4/21 the grand scheme was defeated by one person. And that is the Cardinal who advised his followers to stay calm. The scheme plotted by that jewish lady et al was defeated. Please note that she is still there, now plotting another scheme via the Pathfinder, the former Gallion adviser and some Colombians. The Gallion Raj cannot send anything without the concurrence of uncle Sam.