A fairly misunderstood word in today’s day and age. The misunderstandings are natural because it is a deep reality that is not in our face nor obvious. We need to think and perceive the world with some depth. Moreover, in spiritual contexts the word has been used to mean many different things. And while it is used in all Indic religions, the meaning changes slightly here and there.
Action
Karma for a lot of people means ‘action’. Even the literal meaning in many sanskrit dictionaries is stated as ‘Action’. I think it is a fairly crude understanding. I don’t know how they have defined the word for a dictionary. In Indic culture the word covers so much depth, that it is not possible to boil it down to one English word. It was probably done to help people translate Indic literature into English, and thus leading to major misunderstandings.
As with a lot of Sanskrit words, it is great value to delve into its deeper meaning.
Cause and Effect
A better understanding is ’cause and effect’. This means that whatever is happening in life right Now is the effect of many things that have happened earlier. And the Now will cause many more Next situations. Like a line of dominoes standing nearby, as one topples, all topple.
One key difference from this domino situation is that – these cause and effects are not linear in time. As in, the effects may happen over many life times. It is very common to find Indian stories where someone is in a situation that is a result of something else that happened 2 or 3 lifetimes back (maybe even more). Great epics like Mahabharat and Ramayana and full of such stories. Almost every character has a story-line that encompasses lifetimes.
Horrible social elements have used this to justify atrocities and discrimination against some groups of people by claiming their current situation is a result of their past life karma. And because of this the liberal and other groups in India abhor words like Karma. But I feel this outlook is childish. As I mentioned in my earlier blog post – Religion is just a tool – so are these ideas. Karma provides a deeper look at Life. By itself it causes nothing. It is humans who use such ideas and whatever other support they find in their distorted minds to channel their greed and personal agenda.
Coming back to this ’cause and effect’ principle, though a simple and fairly relevant one, holds some discrepancies for me.
Firstly, it seems to suggest that ONE action will lead to another effect and that in turn will be cause for another effect. Like a chain of dominoes. But the problem is that it is never just ONE action. It always a multitude of factors. Multiple actions working in tandem, other passive situations throwing their influence and so on which comes together and causes the next set of events.
If we look at a very hypothetical example then we can say, for example, “I ate a heavy dinner so I overslept and so I got late for my meeting“. But it is never so simplistic, isn’t it?
It is more like “I ate a heavy dinner, with sleep-inducing foods and my body is of a certain type that oversleeps in such a situation. Plus, there was no one else to wake me up, nor did I put an alarm properly. And there was no major worry or scare that woke me up on time. etc etc etc…” If you think deeper there could have been many other situations which could have changed the course of events. But they all contrived to make things go a certain way.
So it is never One Action leading to another ONE Effect. It is a multitude of factors leading to another set of factors and ongoing.
Secondly, it is not like these actions and consequences are distinct. It is more like a flow I would say.
For example, “I ate a heavy dinner and hence overslept. And hence got late for my work meeting. The over-sleeping relaxed my body well, so I could perform better at work. As I was eating my heavy dinner it meant less leftovers, so the cat had to go hungry. As I overslept, the maid rang the bell and had to go back since I didn’t open the door. As I was late for my meeting I experienced a different situation on the road, than what I do on my daily on-time commute. It allowed me to meet someone which I never would have otherwise.” And so on. The point is that if we really think about it deeply, every single moment, a whole plethora of consequences of ‘effects’ keep taking place.
“Your Lot of Life”
Thus, it is not like a distinct chain of events – one after the other. It is more like a plethora of effects every moment to moment. And it is not based on your actions. Even your inaction will contribute to it. So, it feels more a nature or law of life than something we are actively doing. Like gravity. Ongoing.
So, a better understanding of Karma is to see it as our “Lot of Life”.
If we get frustrated or want to understand the disparity in humans and other living forms. Or we want to stay rooted even when things are going right. Then we sum it all up by saying, that’s our LOT in life. Or our “karma”.
Because it is all too complex to fathom.
Hence, Karma.
It’s Fluid. the Ebb and Flow of Life. and DEBT.
Given the huge multitude of cause and effects that inevitably keeps happening around us. It seems more like a fluid flow. Interconnected and constantly in motion.
With this flow, it becomes easier for me to understand the “debt” relation of Karma. Some vedic folks take the meaning of Karma to be “debt”.
The way I see it,
in the flow of a river or flow of wind, there is always compensation. If there is a rock in the way then all the water diverts itself and changes its overall flow. Pressure plays a huge role for wind, every time the pressure changes a little bit the entire flow of wind compensates for it. So also with life, every little change in karmic situation means the entire course of life compensates, adjusts. If we dissect it with deep awareness then we can understand the multitude of aspects that caused the course change… but other wise we can just say ‘karma’.
Debt for me is very similar to the pressure dynamics in wind and water. Debt means lack of something, and so it becomes a similar force like low pressure. So karma is the debt in life and the first debt happens when we get born – we take the physical body and other aspects from the world around to create ourselves. So it is said that from this moment on, we are in the cycle of life and death. And life keeps course correcting depending on our various karma accumulated over life times and all that stuff.
So when life is so fluid, always course correcting by itself, how do we navigate it?
Inner Awareness
As usual we come back to square one. We maintain our inner awareness.
With this we are working on our volition or intentions. And as sadhguru says, “karma is not in your action, karma is in your volition” ~@sadhgurujv (here he seems to mean Karma as debt or cause, very difficult to put a single English word for it)
The flow is much more affected by our intention / volition rather than the actual action associated. Thus inner awareness.
And, when I extrapolate further,
As our inner awareness improves, it lowers the mental distortions.
As the mental distortions cease or we are in Yoga, and then pure consciousness or Chitta (sanskrit meaning) or ‘God’ shines forth.
Thus, we touch point with the lot of people who say “Everything that happens is God’s wish”. They are basically not even bothering with all this karma, flow of life, mental distortions et al. They are straight going to the root of things and touching point with the Chitta / God / Yoga.
But this is how, now a days I fail to see any contradiction in spiritual talks. They all approach the matter from one view or another. But with a little bit of understanding we see how all the different views, converge into one.
The really key thing is,
Does it bring clarity to some aspects of life as we delve into this? Or is it all only heavy knowledge reducing our clarity with needless words and concepts.
🙂