Do you think there is Karma? For those who do not understand the term Karma, let me explain in a simple way. Karma is a Sanskrit word. The meaning is that you are responsible for your actions and you will have to bear the consequences. Till this point this theory sounds good.
Now its implication: You will pay for your actions if not in this life, may be in your next life. This means you are what you are, because of your past actions. For example: The karma theory says you are poor because of your bad actions in your previous birth. Similarly, you are rich due to your past good actions. If you do harm / good to others the karma will catch on with you. I do hope you got a basic idea of Karma now. Too much is written on the concept of Karma and all that is irrelevant here.
I do not agree with this Karma concept. This concept is not making you responsible for your actions, but giving a way to escape. The effect of bad actions in previous life is catching up in this life is plain stupid. Previous life & Next life are addictively engaging fiction. And assuming that there is next life, Karma catching up here is not justice. It is justice delayed by a life time. Delayed justice is no justice. It is injustice.
It is often said ‘the life will give the same situation you faced earlier’. For example some children will give hard time for parents. So, it is said the same situation will come in your life too, where your children will give hard time to you’. Recently somebody asked “Don’t you think, your life is standing before you once again”?
I immediately denied that statement. My interpretation is as follows: Every moment of life is new. I am sorry to bring the element of time in the phrase ‘every moment’. In fact, the ‘life is new’. Newness is the prime characteristic of life. Without the newness life will be a routine affair. Having said life is new, I must say every life is new. Everybody has a different life and it means every life is new. If every life is new then no circumstance, no event, in fact nothing repeats. If the life cannot repeat by the very definition, yet we will find life to be repetitive.
Life appears to be repetitive, because of the systems we have created. For example, the Samskaras we have created for every Hindu! We have successfully created a common repetitive system for all. We made every samskara in life to repeat in everyone’s life! We all have same education; we all eat the same food; we all worship the same god; we all have the same value systems; we all consume the same medicine; we all see the same movie and so on.
It is because of this we are made to feel and believe that the same events are repeating in our lives! We need to come out of this system! Once you consider this fact you shall automatically observe the uniqueness of life. Nothing repeats and nothing can ever repeat. There are no carry forwards – neither in this life or to the next life. We can never know of next life or Karma. All we can do is to speculate, and theorize.
Consequently, there is no Karma to carry the good / ill effects of our actions to next life. Karma is such an empty vessel and all empty vessels make huge noise! What we do or not do is a preferred action. When you do what you liked, how can there be Karma? As I said earlier: Karma, Previous life & Next life are addictively engaging fiction.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
