Karma

In a discussion with a friend on Facebook, who’s name I won’t say here, I was just recently asked the following question. 

“I wanted to pick your brain too. I've been having this conversation online with Christians. They use the bible to explain everything. I'm not a bible person, so I see things a little differently. I know you are well versed on the bible, but you are open minded and also able to see things rationally. So, here is my question. Do you believe in "Karma"?”

After writing my friend a personal note I replied to her question here, for her to read this way, because I like to post things in my blog.

The question Do I believe in karma and your observation that I am well versed in the Bible and also an open minded person I thank you for suggesting. I find your question very interesting material for thought. I don’t think I have a great amount of knowledge to share so whatever I say of course I don’t believe is law. I simply like to weigh in on these subjects and try and understand these subjective questions. I know I answer like an authority, which I’m not, it’s how I approach philosophical questions.

The way I understand karma is that if you do something wrong, if you hurt someone, cause someone pain, the pain you cause to someone else will come back to you again. Maybe this is true somehow, maybe it isn’t.

I think everyone is prone to experience error in their judgment and behavior. A judgment that is made however I don’t think is always made thinking with total clarity. Even most of the time the thoughts involved in people making a decision are thoughts they don’t see the complete facts entirely or accurately for or the full implications of what acting on them will do with total insight. People don’t always see their thoughts or actions accurately. That resulting judgment and course of action is rarely made with 100% clarity. The way the human mind seems to work is ones clarity of mind and moral responsibility can be as low as 33% or even less where some minds live obliviously in a total fog. 

When we get angry we expect and demand that those who do the wrong we now judge should have seen right and wrong in their minds. Through our anger at them we think they should have known at that particular deciding moment in life, however much they were surrounded by negative influences, that they should have known how to make the right moral judgment in that situation.

Our anger in judging human error is often high-minded and unfair however. We delight through that judgment in our exceptional status. There on our moral high ground we rage with self-righteousness judging what we see elsewhere in the human condition. Our judgment adds fuels to our feel good about ourselves gossip circle. There in our contagious gossip networks we feel good about ourselves while resenting others outside of the pack. For the person that’s being judged, I think, often enough for them, that that particular experience at that particular time was a choice for that person that seemed logical enough given their percentage of moral insight that they had at the time.

In that course of wrong action, through the fog of immorality, probably because of subcultural role models shaping their norm, there they act. Likely they have no ethical direction, no conditioning of their thoughts in a healthy way. They simply have thoughts that are left to wonder off course while having no way to counter evil itself. They have no direction where right is even to be found. They are in a dark place where they don’t believe right is even relevant. The right path forward Is totally unrecognizable for them where they are.

I think there are literally billions of people on earth who are victims of evil. It’s human nature to despise other groups of human beings who really have no clear way to reason or understand how to reach thinking that is fairer and more inclusive. They have no perspective that loves all of the human condition. There is not a councilor nearby them to hear or to help them through their struggles.

Jesus speaks in the New Testament through several parables about forgiveness. I don’t read the Bible much anymore but one parable from vague memory that Jesus taught I think was basically about a judge. I think the judge is meant to be God. The judge forgives a man with an enormous debt everything he owes. The man in return was asked to forgive other people the little debt they owed him. Owed then a small debt by someone else the man who was forgiven by the judge then refused to forgive that debt even after God forgave him so much more. So the man was sentenced to prison by the judge.

I should read the story again to know if I have it right. It makes sense to me that God forgives like this however. Some of us have bigger debts then others but God says that He is the one who really substantially forgives everything. He is really forgiving so much more then what we are. Through our anger and resentments we are not willing to do for others the things God does for us even when it’s very important to God that we learn to do this. I think that we are asked to forgive because forgiveness is real with God.

What I know of Karma is it is about doing something wrong and then being repaid the unkindness down the road. I think it’s also how people wish the injustice they feel and direct their anger toward should to be handled. Its that we wish the wrong doer to suffer for those wrongs.

I think that there is a God however and that He is forgiving. I think if we do something wrong, and know God, that the more we know Him better the more He will have us revisit those errors from our past in our minds. We will revisit those wrongs many times as we grow in compassion and in love. Going over those pains we have caused I think gradually will lead us to greater spiritual maturity. Injustice, cruelty, hurtfulness, violence, and all wrongs like these will be things we oppose happening to anyone. So we will be deeply sorry for those wrongs thinking much about them a thousand times in a year. I think eventually that our minds will grow clearer, our moral judgment will become sharper, while we come out of the fog the closer to God we get.

I think what I believe is that I don’t think we will be punished forever but that Gods nature is ultimately one of forgiveness. However Karma I think may happen in our journey with God. You can’t draw near to love without evaluating yourself. As you grow yourself you reflect on your past and the person you are. You draw nearer to love and you can’t help have deep regrets about who you’ve hurt. Drawing near to God then I think is like experiencing karma because you do have to come to terms with your wrongs and you do experience things in your growing conscience which is a kind of pay back.