Karma

A belief that once settles in the mind is hard to displace. The mind closes round it and ceases to think about the matter of the belief any more. Whether it is good and true and justifiable or not, whether it accords with observation and experience or not, whether it can answer and explain questions related to the belief or not, the believer would not want to judge. His close-mindedness is particularly rigid if the belief is about a theological doctrine, for which reason theological hypotheses remain and have remained inexpansive and stagnant. They can give for a time the sort of satisfaction and comfort which one seeks from his religion at times of mental unrest, but cannot satisfy when reason wakes and eyes open to facts of life.

The doctrine of Karma which, I won’t say was but will rather say has become an integral part of the current Hindu faith, has been endowed with such solemnity that one seldom feels inclined to judge if it explains all the various incidents and happenings in life. A man is in distress, one is unhappy, one is in sorrow, is poor, one is miserably suffering physically or mentally; while another has plenty, is happy and well.

The explanation, according to the doctrine of Karma, is that one enjoys or suffers, is happy or unhappy, according to his Karma. If no such Karma as could account for their different lives could be found in their present lives, they must have done such Karma in their previous lives. By referring to previous life, about which nothing could be proved, the hypothesis provided a convenient and readily acceptable explanation which could not be questioned. But does it really explain what it seeks to explain?

A man’s sorrows, for instance, are said to be due to his misdeeds in this or in the previous life, but quite often we see a man is in all respects good, honest, virtuous and even saintly, yet his life has been full of misery, suffering and sorrows. In this life he has done nothing wrong or sinful which could be said to have brought him his miseries. If it be said that in that case he must have been a sinner and a bad man in his previous life, then it can surely be asked that if he was a sinner and a bad man in his previous life, how could he have been born a good and a saintly man and in a good family in this life? If the consequences of his bad and sinful Karma in the previous life pursued him to this life, his bad and sinful ways and tendencies must also have come therewith. To change from bad to good, from a sinner to a virtuous man, according to the Karma doctrine itself, one must do good Karma. One must do penance and acts of virtue for a prolonged period, because the change from bad to good cannot be sudden, quick and easy. But in his sinful previous life he did not obviously do that. To say, therefore, that the miseries of a virtuous man born in a virtuous family are due to his sins in the previous life is to evade the question and not to answer and explain it.

Another thing which the Karma theorists omit to consider is that miseries and sufferings in a man’s life have occasional breaks and gaps when spells of brightness and good time come, and so also the good time of a happy man is at times hit by sad, unhappy experiences. The consequences of good and bad deeds should run till exhausted and not come in spurts. This is but natural and easy to understand and therefore to say that that need not be and that consequences could come in any order is, on the face of it, a laboured effort to uphold faith in Karma and not a sincere and open-minded desire to probe and understand the mystery of life.

Strangely, it is not also considered that good and bad, sin and virtue cannot be assigned absolute values. They are judged, appraised and discriminated differently by different men, different societies and different religions. And also whether an act is good or bad depends on the conditions and circumstances in which itis done. For example, killing may be condemned as bad but killing an attacker to save an innocent man is commended. There is hardly any act, any behaviour, which can universally be said to be good or bad and which can be so judged independently of attending circumstances.

So that if a man’s miseries be attributed to some definite fault of omission or commission in a previous life according to one way evaluating good and bad, that will not be acceptable to those whose social customs and conventions are different. Therefore the Karma hypothesis cannot explain the circumstances of one’s life to the satisfaction of all.

There are other questions also which cannot be contained within the framework of the Karma theory.

According to this belief a man carries his Karma to his next life and therefore as many should be born as die. A man born for the first time without a Karma record of a previous life will have nothing to regulate his life, nothing to cause incidents, happenings and circumstances in his life because they are to be the results of his previous Karma. There is an idea in some religions that man comes after having passed through many animal yonis or lives, but that also does not clear the above question because animals are supposed not to be responsible for their behaviour and therefore their Karma is without any Karma-phal or consequence attached to it which can affect his next human life. Change in human population thus remains unexplained by the Karma hypothesis.

Again, when in a catastrophe, as in a cyclone or in an earthquake, hundreds and thousands meet a fatal end, can it be suggested that the Karma of all of them had been the same and so they all met the same fate? Further, improved sanitation, hygiene and medical knowledge and treatment have increased the longevity of those who get the advantages of them though their Karma was not better than the Karma of those who do not get those advantages.

When attempting to make a theory to explain the happenings in life, man forgets or rather chooses not to admit that life is such a mystery that no one easy, simple theory can unfold it and explain the unknowns and the uncertainties which fill it. When one theory is found inadequate he brings in others to supplement it, but thereby the issue is generally more confused. To explain what Karma could not account for fate and free-will have been thought to be two other potent factors which influenced and shaped human destiny. But fate and free-will, if they mean anything, are independent of everything in their scope and operation. When any of them takes the field, Karma has to stand away. What fate decrees Karma cannot undo and free-will in that cannot work. If Karma must take its course fate or free-will then must be helpless and inoperative. And so if free-will is to be free it will not allow Karma and fate to play any part in its game. The effort, therefore, however earnest and insistent that may be, to work out a compromise between the three so that each may continue to have the respect of its believers, can but be an exercise in futility, and will not impress one who is uncommitted and keeps an open mind to see and know more and more of this very complex and mysterious life. As he reflects on life and its mysteries he looks around and observes stars and galaxies forming, bursting and reforming, mountains rising and crashing, rivers running and breaking over boulders, insects, birds and animals crawling, flying and jumping for a while, the earth, the sun, the moon whirling and dashing into emptiness. Why? he wonders and asks. Is the Karma of their previous existence, in whatever form that may be, responsible for their movements, their activities, their functions and transformations? What kind of Karma that could be and could they be classified as good and bad, virtuous and sinful, according to our code of ethics?

Reflection on such questions leads to other reflections and raises the question–Does the doctrine of Karma apply to man only and not to other things in the creation? Is man not a creation of nature, a creature of this creation as other things are, that the laws and rules of nature which apply to other things and which regulate their existence do not apply to man who is subject only to his own Karma and who is master of his own will that gives the urge to his Karma. Do Karma, free-will and fate have special and singular meaning for man and to nothing else in she universe?

To answer the questions man has to rid himself of the obsession that he is an unique creation of primary importance in the universe which was created and worked for his creation. But the obsession has taken very deep roots from which have grown many faiths and beliefs which man has for long hugged and cheriehed and which he does not want to and indeed cannot give up. And so he avoids facing the facts of life and turns away from the question–In coming and going does man leave a mark, a scratch, not on the pages of history which he writes, but on the record of this creation?