Karma defines the consequences which accrue to an entity through thought and action. It plays a key role in Hindu and Buddhist comprehension of the human (and, for that matter, cosmic) condition. The basic idea seems clear enough, but when the problematic nature of causality is considered, the usual “karmic rules of thumb”, such as, “You get what you give,” seem woefully inadequate. Such rules may be morally useful, but for every instance of a karmic quid pro quo, a contrary instance may be cited. To put this in another way, lots of morally reprehensible people are well off, and lots of virtuous people live short, mean, and miserable lives.
Fate
In the classical Grecian view, the inequities among persons by birth or circumstance were so marked and seemed so unrelated to any principle of fairness that human life was considered to be determined by Fate. Fate was older than the gods, and so even the gods, in their capricious treatment of men and heros, were subject to fate. Fate was responsible for the warp and woof of history. The gods could be appealed, but Fate could not.
Fate as the Will of God
The Judeo- Christian perspective assumes that each human soul is a singularity, and each person is specially created. As a special creation which has an appointed time on earth, not only are gender, dispositions and character given, but also class, family, nation, and cohort. In the Judeo- Christian scheme, individual past actions cannot account for birth. Birth is due to the will and design of god.
According to modern Christian theologians, god does not interfere with natural law, therefore the birth of an individual is conditioned, but conditioned by natural antecedents. These include ecology, history, heredity, economics, and generally all the factors that shape material existence. Therefore god must chose the time and place of birth of the individual with great care, since time and place of birth locate him in history, and history is destiny (since god does not interfere with the natural law). This is the fundamental insight of astrology.
Is a soul necessary?
If this is the case, is it necessary to have any soul at all? Or at least soul in the sense of individuated character? Soul might as well exist as a kind of “spiritual” monad which is completely characterless, until written upon by the hand of heredity and experience. If the soul is monadic, then what gives the individual uniqueness is heredity, experience, and moral choices. One soul will do as well as any other, given the same circumstances. This view, as examined later, underlies communist epistemology.
Nevertheless, traditional Judeo- Christianity seems to adhere to belief in the graded individuality of the soul. Just as god created all the angels and made them different orders of magnificence, so also he created souls (although I am unaware of any christian categorization analogous to angels –an oversight?). Early christianity seems to have been ambivalent on this matter, since the early christians defined one another as “brothers in christ” –and therefore seemed inclined to egalitarianism.
Virtue is Submission to Fate
If justice exists for persons and no reincarnation occurs, heaven, hell, and purgatory are necessary destinations. In this way, Judeo- Christianity maintains belief in ultimate justice, if not in this life, at least in the next. You take your chance, make your gamble, and get the consequence. Within the Judeo- Christian framework, the consequence is long-term because no second chance is given.
The Judeo- Christian perspective greatly accentuates the role of god’s action in the special creation of each individual under given historical conditions. God’s action in determination of the person’s birth and circumstances largely condition his fate. If the person questions or resists fate, she questions or resists god. The good Christian is therefore a good lamb, and the archetype of Christian piety is Christ.
Is God good?
A deep assumption of the Judeo-Christian point of view is that God’s will is good. Numerous instances in the old testament call into question the goodness of God’s will, foremost of which is the Book of Job. The Book of Job’s answer to the apparent capriciousness and injustice of fate is that God is not subject to merely human morality. God makes the rules, and his vision is a deeper one which penetrates to ultimate aims (known to him). Creatures owe him their existence, and it’s not for them to question why, but to do and (ultimately) die. The Book of Job’s answer to the problem of Karmic injustice is the existence of two moralities: One for creatures and one for God. Fate oriented approaches to personal existence therefore entail submission and, to a greater or lesser extent, fatalism.
As a corollary to special creation, since this life is the person’s one and only life, and whatever he does will warrant either eternal salvation or damnation, what he does ought to be done with flair. I’m reminded of a remark made by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (which he must have uttered around 1900 before the roof caved in on Europe) that the most Christian of countries are those with the greatest extremes of good and evil (he must have had Italy in mind). Chesterton may have had a point.
Derivative ideology
Communism first enveloped Judeo-Christian countries. Communism is a kind of dialectical opposition to Judeo-Christianity, but in its opposition, mirrors its essential elements. Communism entails a strong belief in historical process, individual character (Proletarian or Bourgeois) as a consequence of fate, good or evil depending upon party loyalty, and the guiding force of a higher dynamic (the historical dialectic). Persons play out their allotted role given by history. Reminiscent of Job, even the ends justify the means. Heaven on earth, the worker’s paradise, is fated as a consequence of inevitable dialectical process, but here on earth, collectively, rather than individually. Communism is judeo- christianity without the afterlife.
Karma & Judeo- Christian Beliefs
The juxtaposition of Hindu and judeo- Christian beliefs serves to contrast the deep ontological assumptions that separate the two world views. In the Hindu- Buddhist perspective, the soul is subject to an evolutionary and developmental process. The analogs to heaven, hell, and purgatory derive from human thought and action. Evolution is ruled by law (defined by Karma), and its endpoint is knowledge and harmony with the absolute.
In comparison to the Christian doctrine of special creation and fixed reward, the doctrine of Karma and reincarnation seems optimistic and hopeful. The individual soul is responsible for its fate and evolution and is permitted multiple opportunities for congruence with the ultimate. Even error is an opportunity for growth. Existence, in its guise of the divine, is rendered intelligible and benign. The disharmony of perceived reality is healed. In contrast, the Judeo- Christian perspective points to a god whose purposes may only be revealed in accord with his plan. Consequently, the intelligibility of divine purpose remains obscure and unknown. In such a world, faith is far more important than knowledge –indeed the intelligibility which knowledge demands creates resistiveness. Resistiveness breeds heresy, and heresy, damnation. The Judeo- Christian god shares much with his whimsical Greek and Roman cousins.
The doctrine of karma and reincarnation stresses the role of knowledge as instrumental to enlightenment. Knowledge brings realization of the consequences of thought and action, and ultimately, the self’s true nature. The doctrine of karma and reincarnation promotes spiritual reflection as its means to liberation.
Karma Updated
The traditional view of karma as a sequential causal principle seems to fail if the continuity of the soul with its accumulated karma is untrue. However, the traditional view may still stand in a modified form under two senarios. In the first scenario, the soul continues as a monad associated with some existence after death. In this model, all monads are alike and only clothed with individuality when embodied. However, the results of action in material existence continue after the death of any individual. Some monad will endure the consequences. Since all monads are alike, the self monad is no different than any other monad, and therefore consciousness indistinguishable from the self will endure the consequences of action. The second scenario is like the first, but posits no continuity of the self from embodiment to embodiment, but only the existence of characterless monads which are given character by the circumstances of birth and experience. Again, karma is continued by the material strata of existence. These scenarios postulate the universal equality of human kind and creaturely existence. Whether the soul possesses continuity or not is largely irrelevant since all souls are essentially the same. Difference only arises because of the conditional nature of existence. This later view strikes me as a reasonable paraphrase of the deep structure of some buddhist versions of karmic reality.
Karma may have two other interpretations besides that of a sequential causal principle: Karma may derive as a correlative of contemporary action, or karma may arise in relation to the end point toward which evolution is directed.
Karma as a correlative to contemporary action suggests that what is karmic depends upon the system conditions that operate at any given time. The system, the total set of forces that operate at one time, determine the consequence. In this interpretation, karma is a function of being “in synch” or “out of synch” with the totality like harmony or disharmony with the Tao Te Ching. Mindfulness meditation accentuates awareness of the present moment, and is particularly compatible with the view that karma is created, moment-to-moment, in relation to the totality. At any moment, therefore, one may be redeemed
Karma as a consequence of the endpoint toward which thought or action is directed is analogous to Aristotle’s category of “final causality” –a debatable form of causality. I do not wish to take sides in the debate, but include this form of causality for the sake of completeness. What finality suggests is that a person may endure some life circumstance for the sake of future development, quite apart from any past actions. So, for example, Christ’s birth as a carpenter’s son was intimately connected with his socio- historical role in the formation of Christianity. If he had been a rabbi’s son, he might have cheered the Pharisees. In karmic traditions, final causality may be a silent partner to karmic destiny since Hindus and Buddhists presume that souls evolve. Therefore, karma is as much a consequence of divinely ordained progression as it is of past thoughts and actions.
Karma and Consciousness
The definition of Karma as the consequences that accrue through thought or action may account for history, but history is still history. Whether consequences are good or bad, karma appears a closed system of cause and effect. Viewed from a karmic causal perspective, a rock has karma since a rock behaves in strict accordance with natural law. In fact, a rock has karma par excellence since it cannot as a rock modify its “rockness”. In the Buddhist tradition, karma is bondage, and its antidote is enlightenment and liberation.
Enlightenment is awareness of the karmic conditional nature of existence. In accord with the analysis in the preceding section, karma may be conditioned either by the past, present, future, or all simultaneously. Enlightenment is to see into this nexus and the play of causality, moment by moment, in the present. Therefore, enlightenment is not an arid philosophical attainment. Liberation is the corollary to enlightenment. With knowledge of the play of causality comes freedom from delusion and liberation of the essential man. The Self is no longer in thrall to appearance. Its identifications are relinquished, and It is set free. So liberated, the Self is no longer subject to karma.
Therefore karma only accounts for the material conditions of existence, not transcendence. This is why the Buddha says existence in the human realm is more fortunate than existence in the god realm, since in the human realm, conditions promote attainment of liberation. This is not a matter of good karma or bad karma, but the human condition which promotes reflection.
Fate and Prayer, Karma and Meditation
To the god which is other, who keeps his purposes to himself, who possesses his morality which is not human morality, one can only pray. One should only act in accord with his word and wishes and pray for guidance according to his will. As a creature who has been specially created, each person has a special role to play, known only to the divine. To act otherwise is to court sin and wretchedness. In the Judeo- Christian perspective, the two are inseparable, since the actions not in accord with the will of god are not in accord with the nature of the self. In the god-as-other perspective, human kind is responsible to god’s plan, not to the self.
Within the karmic tradition, knowledge of the one’s nature and relationship to existence is sought through practice and meditation. From the divine which inheres in all things, from which the self is not separate, who reveals his mysteries everywhere, who binds the fabric of existence with one law and one being, one can seek revelation. One should act in accord with the universal laws that bring benefit to sentient beings through identification with the divine which upholds existence. Communion with the divine, as one’s essential birthright, is embraced. In the karmic tradition, god is intelligible and distance between god and creatures is only illusory. In this tradition, god is love without condition and without reprise. The divine sustains no eternal damnation or hell, except the miseries born out of karma.