on karma

[arethinn]

comment I posted in wiccan:

Like silvertree, I'm a bit bugged by patching karma (a Hindu concept) into Wicca, especially what with the rather distorted conceptions Westerners tend to have of it. My opinion on karma is that it is basically cause and effect. An action's "effect" is not necessarily that it will return to you, like bouncing a ball off some cosmic wall. Taking a lot of negative actions does tend to encourage negative consequences, but then again, you might get away with it, too. I believe we should consult our ethics and then act as we feel is right; there is no way to know if one is an "agent of justice" or not, because such a thing is way beyond the nuance of our daily lives. By the same token, one should not not do things because "karma will take care of it".

Comments

[shalora.livejournal.com]

I just love the people who do good things, not because it is what a decent person does, but to store up good karma. As I understand karma, it is much like a spell in that intention is everything. So if your express intention is to do it for the karma, then it won't do squat! The intention is all wrong! So they're actually shooting themselves in the foot... I suppose I should be glad, though, that something good is actually coming out of it, one way or another... ;)

[ungarsfragile.livejournal.com]

Now, disclaimer: what I know about karma is gleaned from twenty-odd years of religious practice and a working knowledge of sanskrit, but I believe it to be much simpler than you make it out to be.

See, Karma is based on a premise: Atman and Brahman are causally equal. Atman is the idea of the self. Me. I. The universal soul; the only constant through reincarnation. That's Atman. Brahman, on the other hand, is simply everything. The Universe. The Cosmos. Void and existence; all space and all time.

So if Atman and Brahman are functionally and causally equivalent, then whatever action I take upon the universe, on a micro or macroscopic level, I therefore enact upon myself. Intent is inherent within the action, it needn't be selfless to be karmatic. (Arguably, there are no selfless good deeds, so this is a good thing (tm).) One of the resultants of Brahman transcending time means the effects may be immediate, or they may take hundreds of thousands of years to catch up, but such actions always resolve; by definition, they must.

That's Karma, baby.

[aaangyl.livejournal.com]

Dunno, the "karma" system seems to work for me. *shrug*

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

That's cool. Mainly what I'm on about is people whose ideas about karma seem to come from "Wicca 101" books, and in fact, the linking of it into Wicca as though Wicca didn't already have a perfectly good ethical system of its own in the first place. The original question was:

What are your veiws on Karma and the Karma like system?

Are you a supporter of the "everything shall return to you (and therefore everyone) threefold" idea?
Do you think that we must take control of Karma and deal justice ourselves?
Or do you have a totally different opinion?

Personally, I'm in the first group. I was just wondering what everyone else thought about the subject.

[chemalfait.livejournal.com]

The word karma is usually translated as action or works. I look at it as strictly cause and effect. I don't look at it, as many do, as a sort of synonym for fate or destiny. Our actions and works do help shape our own fate or destiny, as do the actions and works of others,just as actions of others help shape the fate and destiny of ourselves. The most common illustration is the ripple effect, Drop a pebble in a pond and watch the ripples as they sweep out and touch everything, eventually reflecting off the banks and other objects, until the whole surface of the pond is covered in ripples. This is how I understand the idea of return,not so much tit for tat,but eventually the 'ripple' will return, though the ripple may be modified by what it has been reflected from.
Can one take command of karma? yes one can take command of their own actions. There is choice. We can determine our own actions. We are, however, sometimes at the mercy of the results of the actions of others. Then the choice is whether to act or react.This is also part of return.