Karma: What It Is, And Isn't! Just V Easy Introduction

Everything you wanted to know about karma but didn't ask! We'll cover the history of karma, what it is, what it isn't, what to do with it. Bring your questions. Lots of good karma if you show up for this talk! (joke).
Karma is the principle of cause and effect, where actions, thoughts, and intentions create consequences that shape one's future experiences. Rooted in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, karma encourages ethical behavior, as positive actions lead to beneficial outcomes, while negative actions result in suffering, influencing both this life and future rebirths.

Transcript

So somebody in my group asked me recently about karma,

And I promised that I would talk about karma,

What it is,

And isn't.

Everything that you wanted to know about karma,

But were afraid to ask,

Will cover the history of karma,

What it is,

What it isn't,

What to do with it.

By all means bring your questions,

And my joke here,

Lots of good karma if you show up for this talk.

That would be an English joke.

So diving in here,

Karma is originally an Indian term,

But known in the West.

So essentially,

Whatever a man sows,

That he will also reap.

That one's from the Western Bible,

The Galatians 6,

King James's version,

Written approximately AD 55-57.

But having said that,

It also exists in the Mahabharata around the 3rd century BCE,

The 3rd century before Christ.

Translated as,

As a man himself sows,

So he himself reaps.

As a man himself sows,

So he himself reaps.

Essentially,

The concept of karma was around before the time of Jesus.

And there were books like the book,

Jesus Lived in India,

His Unknown Life Before and After the Crucifixion,

By Holger Kirsten.

This idea that Jesus had lived time in India,

Both before and after the crucifixion.

There is a burial site for him in Srinagar,

Kashmir,

The Rosabella Shrine in Kashmir,

That is said to house the physical body of Jesus.

So,

Very old concept.

It's been around many hundreds of years,

Almost certainly before the time of Christ.

And yet to translate into a Thai version,

T-H-A-I,

Taiwanese version,

The saying in Taiwanese reads,

Oxen will come back to their stall at their owner's house.

This comes from the days of sending cattle out into common fields for common grazing.

And yet at the end of their day,

They come back to their stall at their owner's house.

People get their own karma back to them.

The word karma comes from the Sanskrit root.

It's spelled K-R,

How you pronounce that effectively,

I'm not quite sure.

But essentially from the ancient Indian root of Sanskrit,

Which has to do with creative movement,

Which has consequences.

In other words,

It has to do with effective action.

Usually this includes intent.

So what we're looking at here is intentional effective action in one's life.

Let me drop that into the chat here.

Intentional effective action in one's life.

It's a bridge between cause and effect,

Separated by time.

Something happens here,

Time delays the result,

But it comes back to us.

So it's cause here,

Effect here,

With the separation of time between the two.

That second one coming from the Encyclopædia Britannica.

So looking at three themes of karma,

It's karma,

Casualty,

Eschatization,

And rebirth.

Causality,

Eschatization,

And rebirth.

From a causality perspective,

Karma is an action and reaction.

If we show goodness,

We will reap goodness.

Same spirit is throwing a ball at a wall.

The angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence.

If I throw the ball at this angle,

It will bounce off in that angle.

Similarly with karma,

Action and reaction.

If we show goodness,

We will reap goodness.

From the purpose of eschatization,

All actions and intent,

Good or bad,

Have consequences,

Either in this life or a future life.

All actions and intent,

Good or bad,

Have consequences either in this life or a future life.

And then the third aspect of karma being rebirth.

The present circumstances with reference to actions in past.

Actions may be from the current life or from past lives.

Consequences may occur in the current life or in future lives.

It's because we have this gap between we instill karma here and we reap karma back there,

That there is a time gap.

And so when Nina,

You ask,

Why does it seem at times we give out good and continue to reap bad?

It's because,

Pick a moment in time,

A,

We perform good at A,

There is still a time lapse before we receive A back.

And if that moment of A was preceded by doing bad things,

We may well receive those bad things back before we get the goodness back from A.

So in other words,

We can perform goodness,

But it seems like we don't get anything back because we continue to receive bad back.

That is because of the bad things that we have done ahead of the good things.

Essentially,

We cannot judge the good things on the basis of what we receive back immediately afterwards.

Sometimes we're lucky enough to receive good back,

Sometimes we don't.

Essentially,

We can't judge what we receive back immediately because we don't know the time frame that's involved.

It's actually very similar to throwing a ball at a wall.

We throw the ball at the wall,

We know that eventually that ball is going to hit the wall and bounce back to us.

The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.

It will bounce back to us at a similar angle to the angle that we threw it at the wall.

What we don't know is the gap between throwing the ball at the wall and that ball bouncing back to us.

That's the delay in time.

That is the delay where we don't know when it's coming back to us.

So I use as an example here that the ancient Greeks had nine different words of love.

They talked about romantic,

Passionate love.

They talked about affectionate love,

Selfless,

Universal love,

Agape,

Familiar love,

Storga,

Obsessive love,

Which the English speakers will recognize as mania,

Ludus,

Playful love,

Pragma,

Enduring love,

Felucia,

Self-love,

Or meraki,

Love for creative endeavors.

There are nine different Greek words for love which shows us how the Greeks incorporated love into their life.

They had nine different words for love there.

Similarly,

If we go to how many words do we have for four-wheeled motorized vehicles,

We have the makers.

We have Ford,

We have Tesla,

We have Jeep,

We have Rolls-Royce,

We have Lamborghini,

We have Toyota,

We have Honda,

We have Chevrolet,

Etc.

,

Etc.

,

Etc.

That's just the makers.

Then you've got each particular model and each particular sub-model.

And so all of those different makes,

Models,

Types break down into all of the words that we have for four-wheeled motorized vehicles.

And all of those words emphasize what's important to the culture.

So Iris,

Reading yours,

That sounds like implications also for our trying to push,

Having abundance.

Well,

It may not be the right time for us.

Essentially,

What comes back to us is ours,

Whether we like it or whether we don't like it.

It's coming back to us because it's ours.

We recognize it as being ours because it's ours.

It's not for us to judge whether it's right or wrong.

It's coming back to us because it's ours.

And the law of karma is,

If we do good,

Goodness will come back.

If we do not so good,

Not so good will come back.

So yes,

Iris,

I'm essentially agreeing with you there.

So in the Vedas,

The ancient Indian texts,

There are four types of karma that are discussed.

Sanchita karma,

Prahrabdha karma,

Agami karma,

And Vartamana karma.

Sanchita karma,

Stored karma,

The sum of one's past karmas.

This is everything I've done in the past.

All of that past stored together is at my stored karma,

Sanchita karma.

Prahrabdha karma,

Matured karma,

That part of Sanchita karma which is experienced through the present body.

I may have vast karma from my past.

What I experience in this body today,

In this lifetime,

Is the matured karma that I experience through the present body.

Agami karma is the forthcoming karma,

The result of current decision and action.

So it's something that I've done now,

Through my decisions and actions.

This is karma that will come back to me in the future.

And Vartamana karma,

The present karma,

The karma that is being experienced right now.

Sometimes it's good karma,

Sometimes it's not so good karma.

Whatever it is,

If it's being experienced right now,

That is present karma,

Vartamana karma.

So let me come specifically to the Encyclopædia Britannica,

The warehouse of knowledge stored in the volumes of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Derived from the Sanskrit word karman,

Meaning act,

The term karma carried no ethical significance in its earlier specialized usage.

Similarly,

When we throw a ball at a wall,

There's no ethical significance behind the direction that the ball bounces back off the wall.

All we know from a physical standpoint is the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.

If I throw the ball at that angle,

Then the ball is going to come back to me from a similar angle.

In the ancient texts,

And we're talking about somewhere between a thousand to seven hundred years before Christ,

Before the common era,

In the ancient texts of the Vedic region,

Karma referred simply to ritual and sacrificial action.

Karma meant that I threw the ball at one angle,

It bounced back at a similar angle.

As the priestly theology of sacrifice is articulated by Brahman priests over the following centuries,

However,

Ritual action came to be regarded as effective by itself,

Independent of the gods.

Karma as ritual functioned autonomously and according to a cosmic ritual law.

So essentially,

In its oldest tradition,

The meaning of karma was you throw a ball at a wall,

It bounces back at a similar angle.

If I throw it directly at the wall,

It bounces directly back to me.

If I throw it at an angle,

It's going to bounce off the wall at a similar angle.

It was only later,

As it became articulated by the Brahman priests,

That the ritual of the action became to be regarded as effective by itself,

Independent of the gods.

So if we go to the 7th century before the common era,

Going back to 7th century BC,

One of the Upanishads read,

Now as a man is like this or like that,

According as he acts and according as he behaves,

So will he be.

A man of good acts becomes good,

A man of bad acts,

Bad.

He becomes pure by pure deeds,

Bad by bad deeds.

And here they say that a person consists of desires.

As is his desire,

So is his will.

And as is his will,

So is his deed.

And whatever deed he does,

That he will reap.

So two particular lines out of those two verses.

According as he acts,

And according as he behaves,

So will he be.

And whatever deed he does,

That he will reap.

So here we've got the laws of karma being laid down 7th centuries before the Christian era.

Karma first appears in the oldest Hindu text,

The Rig Veda,

Which puts it at about 1500 years before the Christian era,

With a limited meaning of ritual action.

Its philosophical scope is extended in the later Upanishads,

Which still puts it 800 to 300 years before the Christian era.

When the consequences of actions are attached to it,

Thus karma gains a moral or ethical dimension.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica continues,

The Abrahamic religions place reward and punishment for human actions in the hands of a divine lawgiver.

When I say the Abrahamic religions,

We're talking essentially as Islam,

Christianity and Judaism.

The religions trace their roots back to Abraham.

The Abrahamic religions place reward and punishment for human actions in the hands of a divine lawgiver.

In contrast,

The classical traditions of India,

Hinduism,

Buddhism and Jainism,

Much like the Vedic sacrificial theologies that preceded them,

View karma as operating according to an autonomous causal law.

No divine will or external agent intervenes in the relationship of the moral act to its inevitable result.

The law of karma is thus markedly non-theistic.

This concept of karma provides a bridge between cause and effect separated by time.

Let me repeat that again.

This concept of karma provides a bridge of cause and effect separated by time.

So the consequences in the physical world consist of an angle of incidence usually equals the angle of reflection.

If you throw a ball at a wall,

It bounces off according to the angle that you threw the ball at the wall.

Except that it's not just one ball and one wall,

It's eight billion balls and eight billion walls plus the wind plus whatever else is involved in throwing a ball at a wall.

The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.

And if you kick the ball hard enough,

Sooner or later it's going to fly through the wall.

The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection,

Except if you kick the ball hard enough it's going to fly through the wall and come out the other side.

Similarly,

There are three ways down from a tall building.

You can take the stairs,

You can take the elevator,

Or you can jump.

They all have their own consequences.

If you take the stairs,

You can walk down the stairs one step at a time,

And you can reach the bottom of the building.

It may take you longer,

But gravity will allow you to move down one step at a time,

And you can take the stairs that way.

Alternatively,

You can take the elevator lift,

For those of you in England.

You can take the elevator or the lift,

And you can travel down 20 floors much faster than you can travel down stairs for 20 floors.

It's a much faster way of coming down.

If there happens to be a power outage for whatever reason,

It may take a lot longer doing it that way,

But during the normal course of events,

You can reckon that the elevator or lift is going to get you from A to B much faster.

Now,

If you want to come down faster still,

You can actually jump from the top of the building.

You will get down a lot faster,

But unless you've got somebody at the ground level with a large safety net,

Or unless you're jumping with a parachute on your back,

Those would both help you slow the jump down,

So that you can jump from the top of the building down to the bottom even faster than the elevator.

Again,

Three ways down from a tall building is one of them better than the other.

Well,

It depends exactly on what the circumstances are according to which is the better way to come down from the top of a tall building.

Under some circumstances,

Taking the stairs may be better.

Under other circumstances,

The elevator or lift may be better,

And under other exceptional circumstances,

You may want to jump.

But the more you know about the outside circumstances in which you're operating,

The more you're going to know that the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.

As you perform good in the outside world,

So you will receive good back,

And good changes according to the outside circumstances that you're using before you decide to use the stairs,

The elevator,

Or to jump.

Effectively,

It's a whole system.

The adage is that a butterfly stamping its foot in Australia can cause a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean.

That the actions on one side of the world can impact the weather on the other side of the world.

It has to be seen as a complete system.

It is a complete system.

It's a whole system,

But it's not simplistic.

A grave robber performing his job well could incur good karma because he's doing his job on the planet the way he's supposed to be in his job.

But if someone chooses not to fulfill their role as a grave robber and chooses to live their life another way,

Then they could incur consequences of effectively doing a bad job with their life because they're not performing their role as a grave robber.

So it depends,

Who are you in this life?

What is good for you in this life?

And performing what is good for you is going to support the whole of the environment around you.

At the very local level,

That's going to be your friends and family.

At the much more macro level,

It's the whole consequences of you and the other billion people on the planet.

So we learn from our mistakes rather than paying for our mistakes.

It's not that we really pay for our mistakes,

It's that we learn from our mistakes because in the process of making mistakes and getting information back from our mistakes,

We get to learn the implication of,

If I do this,

Then that results.

And if I do something else,

Something different results.

There are essentially no mistakes,

There are only learning opportunities.

And so because we have this inherent understanding that karma is involved with mistakes,

We have a series of understandings about karma,

About what karma is and what karma isn't.

So let me share some aspects of what karma isn't.

Karma can include,

I'm wealthy and healthy so I must have done something good in my past.

If that's true then you're poor and sickly so you must have done something bad in your past.

Therefore you deserve it and I don't have to help you.

The fact that I'm wealthy and healthy must mean I've done something good in my past.

The fact that you're poor and sickly must mean that you've done something bad in your past.

Therefore you deserve it and I don't have to help you.

That would be taking A through B and instead of ending up at C or D,

Ending up at X,

Y or Z,

Coming to conclusions that do not apply.

Secondly,

And if I did help you,

You would be indebted to me for life and beyond.

So if I'm wealthy and healthy,

You're poor and sickly,

Then if I did help you,

You would be indebted to me for life and beyond.

No,

Karma doesn't operate that way.

Thirdly,

A reason for maintaining power over other people.

If I'm wealthy and healthy,

I must have done something good in my past and therefore I can use that something good that I did in my past as a reason for maintaining power over other people.

And what we're saying here is no,

Karma isn't that way inclined.

It is not a reason for maintaining power over other people.

And particularly in my time in my corporate work,

Somebody may have hurt me,

So I can interpret this as their bad karma.

They're hurting me,

They must be doing something bad.

But behind that,

It may be that their karma is actually fine.

It may well be that my karma is coming back to me because of past wrongs that I've done in my past,

And that other person that I see is performing bad karma is actually doing a wonderful job of delivering my bad karma back to me,

Because the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.

The angle I throw the ball at the wall is going to determine the angle that the ball comes back to me.

So if I did something bad in my past,

It's going to come back to me and I'm going to receive it as something bad in the process.

However,

There are consequences in the physical world.

Usually the ball can't go through the wall.

If I kick the ball at a wall,

Usually it's going to bounce back with the angle of incidence equaling the angle of reflection.

It's not usually going to bounce back at unexplained angles.

And so the Encyclopedia Britannica continues that while karma is in theory specific to each individual,

Many aspects of Indian religions reflect the widely held belief that karma may be shared.

For example,

The doctrine of the transfer of merit,

Whereby one person can transfer his good karma to another,

Is found in both Buddhism and Hinduism.

Ancestral offerings and other rituals for the departed show that acts done by the living are believed to influence the well-being of the dead.

And finally,

Pious activities,

Which include pilgrimages,

Are often performed for the benefit of living or for deceased relatives.

Essentially,

The more we do good into the world,

The more we receive good back.

The more other people do good for us,

The more we receive the good that they're doing for us.

Essentially,

All of the above may be useful.

The idea of all of the above may be useful comes from the saying from George Box,

With an English statistician,

Quoted for saying,

All models are wrong,

Some are useful.

I believe that was primarily meant in the statistical model sense of,

All statistical models are wrong,

Some are useful.

A statistical model is not meant to be reality,

It's meant to model reality.

And so,

All statistical models are wrong,

Some are useful.

And the essence is,

Which statistical models are useful,

We'll use those statistical models before we use the ones that aren't useful.

I don't know that George Box actually meant,

All models are wrong,

Some are useful,

To be a metaphysical concept.

But being very metaphysical myself,

I treat it as a metaphysical concept,

From the idea of,

All models are wrong,

Some are useful.

Everything I say is wrong.

The question is,

Which ones are more useful than others?

So,

When I talk about models of the universe,

And karma is definitely a model of the universe.

Do good,

You receive good back.

Do something less good,

You receive less good back.

It's true of the entire planet.

All models are wrong,

Some are useful.

The idea is,

Which models are useful,

And use those models.

The exception here would be in quantum physics,

Where in quantum physics,

Anything is possible.

Quantum physics operates with very refined laws of nature,

And the more refined those laws of nature are,

The more anything is possible.

So everything I've said up to now about the laws of karma may be useful,

But in quantum physics,

Anything is possible.

And because anything is possible,

Anything may happen.

And especially in metaphysics,

Operating at higher frequencies changes everything.

So the more we operate in metaphysics,

The higher the frequency at which we operate,

The more those higher frequencies can change everything that would otherwise occur.

So all models are wrong,

Some are useful.

But in quantum physics,

Anything is possible.

And in metaphysics,

Operating at higher frequencies changes everything.

So the more enlightened we are,

The more enlightened our teachers are,

The more our enlightened teachers can perform good for us,

That is going to benefit the teacher,

Benefit the world in general,

And benefit those of us that they are performing those rituals for.

Because operating at higher frequencies changes everything.

So everything I've said about karma may be useful,

Except,

If I can only understand my karma in the context of the whole system in which I live,

Can I ever fully understand my karma?

Can I ever fully understand my karma?

Least of all,

Can I understand anybody else's karma?

It's hard enough to understand my own karma,

Never mind understand anybody else's karma.

Which leaves us with the understanding that Buddha would not engage in karma.

Buddha would not engage in karma from the perspective of,

If you really want to engage in karma,

You've got to understand the complete picture.

We are operating in a learning universe,

Not in a blaming universe.

Let me say that again,

We are in a learning universe,

Not a blaming universe.

The idea of using karma to understand,

As you do good,

So you will reap good.

As you do bad,

You will reap bad.

That would be the idea of a blaming universe.

We are operating in a learning universe,

Where although the same laws apply,

They are applying to us from a perspective of,

Do this,

And you can expect that.

If you do something else,

You can expect something different.

We are in a learning universe where,

If we do such and such,

We will expect something different.

From if we do something else.

And it is from this aspect that I find it hard to believe that I can only do this and expect that.

I can only do the other and expect something else.

All I know is that if I aim towards doing good,

I can expect more good to come back to me.

If I only do something bad,

I can expect primarily only bad to come back to me.

But this is not about blaming me for the rights and wrongs.

This is about understanding the laws of karma in an engaging universe that gives us our karma back to us in the way that we put karma out into the world.

It allows us to receive karma with the same intent,

The same understanding,

And the same laws of nature that give us karma back in the same way as we put karma out into the world.

And so it is from that perspective that I talk about karma not as a rigid law of do this,

Expect that,

But rather from a learning universe where yes,

If I do this,

I can expect that back.

But it's a learning universe and the more I learn,

The more I can control what comes back to me.

Because we are in a learning universe.

It's about going out into the world with the intent to do good and going out into the universe with the intent to do good.

Hopefully we will receive more good back.

Again,

It's a learning universe so we can receive more and more back.