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.