Why is understanding of Karma important? Simply because we are Karma personified. We are nothing but the sum total of our Karma(s) across all lives and in order to understand ourselves we have to understand our Karma. Not so easy because ordinarily we do not have knowledge of our previous karma and mostly we do not possess (unless we happen to be really evolved souls) the wisdom required to understand it in detail. Again most of us always manage to find reasons for our actions in this life and again continue to have unresolved karma. Our human quality of self delusion makes us biased when it comes to self judgement and therefore unless we acknowledge we have done wrong, we cannot rectify it. Or even if we accept we have done wrong, we justify the effect to be not significant enough to require an equally opposite corrective action.
Karma is only the cause and not the effect. The word in the Upanishads used for the effect is “vipaka”. So when people refer to “good karma” they actually mean “good vipaka” but the use of the word “karma” to mean both cause and effect has been accepted so universally that “vipaka’ is rarely used anywhere. Karma and Vipaka. Cause and Effect. That’s what it is all about. Making choices (by our actions) and inheriting (living) the consequences of those actions. We live the consequences and this is not punishment for the actions. Living the consequences are lessons that are meant to make us realize the causality of our actions and learn the results (hurts) our actions had on others. This repeated process leads to the evolution of the soul. So Karma and the effect and the process of understanding the relationships between the actions that we choose and the resulting effect is a learning tool akin to a laboratory where we can only by carrying out practical exercises and not theoretical.
So how does Karma work without punishment for bad deeds? Lets say X slaps Y for no reason as a starting point. Y is hurt. The degree of hurt felt by Y is the “karmic debt” which X now owes Y. IT DOES NOT MATTER at all what X feels about the slap. X cannot reduce his karmic debt by justifying that the slap was just a touch. X’s karmic debt is in direct proportion to the degree of hurt felt by Y. Let us assume that Y does not react and does not take any action against X (to make things simple here). The question is how does X rid himself of the karmic debt? By doing an equal and opposite good act for Y. X and Y then become karmicaly neutral. Again, this karmic neutrality cannot be obtained by Y slapping X in return. For the simple reason that two negatives do not cancel out but add up to double negative of the same. Further, the degree of hurts felt by X and Y will not be the same so karmic debt cannot be eliminated so simply.
A negative deed (karma) can only be balanced out by an equally opposite positive deed. Therefore when we live the consequences of our actions (the needless slap in this case) they are not always negative or a punishment. In this case X simply has to realize that he has wronged Y by slapping him needlessly and doing something in return for Y based on the realisation that Y is hurt and try and feel the degree of Y's hurt. X’s report card shows “bad” karma of slapping Y but then it also has a “good” karma of the good deed done for Y and they balance out. Y’s report card shows nothing. Neither did he slap nor did he do anything to X as a result. Neither did he get good karma when he was slapped nor did he get any bad karma (or a karmic debt) when X did something good in return for him. So karma is literally “action”. It is good or bad depending on the “effect” and not on how you justify the cause. (to be continued).
No comments:
Post a Comment