Why is karma self-defeating?
Karma has in the last few years been hijacked to take the place of “fate”, “kismet”, divine retribution”, etc. I can’t speak for Hinduism and Jainism, but in Buddhism it simply means intentional action. As such, it is one of a number of causal factors or “Niyama” which shape the world that we live in, and what happens to us. So if you get cancer, for example, one type of causal factor in play could be genetics; another could be physical environment; and another might be your Karma, or intentional actions in the past. If (and only if – how could you tell?) this were the case, the cancer would be “Vipaka”, or the results of that Karma. So the reason why bad things happen to good people is that there are many different causes happening all the time, and often human actions are the very least of them.
my mom told me this story… there was this holy man who would continuosly meditate and one day some robbers were going to rob a king, they passed the holy man and said that if they succeeded in robbing theking they would split the shares with him, the holy man didn’t say anything and the next day while he was meditating the robbers as they promised left him half the shares, the king found the holy man and had no choice but to hang him, the holy man asked god before he was going to be hung, ‘I have been done nothing to harm anyone in this life or the 100 past lives before’ God replies ‘Look at you 101 past life you were a boy who was torturing an ant for your own fun and that ant is this king’ if you followed that story, it basicly means if you believe in past lives and what not then karma can come from you doing the smallest things.
I believe that reincarnation explains the things like birth defects. From the other side we are given the choice of parents and the body that we select to go through this life in. We make our choices based on the way that we have lived in previous lifetimes. Karma comes in during this side of life. If we do “good acts” without thinking about them being good acts, then we are creating good karma for ourselves. Karma can negate some of the bad things that we do during our time on this side. Or, on the other hand, can create even more bad karma if you don’t work at doing good acts. I could never accept the existence of a Supreme Being if I did not believe in reincarnation. After all, why would a baby be born with mental and/or physical defects without there being some reason for it? For me, reincarnation explains a good deal of things. If you are interested read some of Author Ford’s books or those by Edgar Cayce or Ruth Montgomery. Reincarnation accounts for many, ,many things.
The Law of Karma teaches us to be responsible. Our current lives seem illogical if we view only one life at a time. In a single life we suffer or are blessed for no apparent reason. God seems to be arbitrary and random. The principle of spiritual responsibility makes more sense as we accept the principles of karma and reincarnation. Reincarnation teaches that we are born again and again until we learn the spiritual lessons of life. The Law of Karma ensures that we link our behaviour with its inevitable results. We reap in one life what we have sown in another. If we impede the development of another being, we will incur a karmic dept. By our actions, it’s clear we haven’t yet learned the Law of Love. The debt will have to be paid, and a lesson will have to be learned. The suffering, which may follow, is not the act of a vengeful God. We are just reaping what we have sown. The Soul develops its highest spiritual potential through experiences.
