To someone who asked how Jesus could have a personal karmic debt requiring the crucifixion for its expiation if he had become Christ and was in total conscious union with the Absolute.
This was part of the Great Sacrifice made by Jesus. Definitely he had no compulsory karma whatsoever. But he willingly retained the karmic debt in order to facilitate his mission as a World Savior.
He could have just consumed that karma and let the world continue to muddle through, but did not.
Masters are able to retain karma to use as a kind of karmic thread, a means by which they can more easily reincarnate back in this world.
A master plans for his future
For example, Master Yogananda had decided in detail upon his next earthly life in India when he will wander by the Ganges throughout with just a few chosen disciples. For a year prior to his mahasamadhi he had occasionally been warning his disciples that he would be leaving this world in the near future.
Naturally, most of them just could not take it in, one of the reasons being that he scheduled an ocean voyage to India for 1952 and designated the disciples who would be going with him. For some years he had basically lived without eating. He had a little clear plastic “satchel” in which he took nuts and fruit with him during the work on Lake Shrine. And that he mostly gave to the workers, who found that a tiny mouthful stopped all hunger and thirst and gave them the energy for the day’s hard work.
But toward the end of his remaining time he began only eating elaborate Indian food, giving great attention to its preparation. Much of his time before the Indian Consulate’s visit at whose banquet he planned to leave his body, was spent perfecting various Indian bazaar dishes for his honored guest, particularly singharas (samosas). In over thirty years in America he had never been able to duplicate them exactly like those in Calcutta, but at last he succeeded.
Mastering karma
By using his karma at will, not being under its power at all, he created a karmic force in that last year which would facilitate his return. For no matter how trivial a desire, decision or action, if unfulfilled or undissolved it will being a person back to incarnation. (A great nineteenth-century master, Sri Brahma Chaitanya of Gondawali, Maharashtra, told of a little girl who had been brought back to rebirth solely because she wanted a necklace! When she gave to him, silently indicating that she was offering it to God, she left her body after a few days.)
It was the same with Jesus. Neither karma nor karmic debt mean to the Masters what it means for us.
More on Karma
- Understanding Karma as the Basis of Reincarnation | Podcast
- What is Karma?
- Prayer and the Law of Karma