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KARMA-universal principle or just another dogmatic neurosis?

HigherAwareness

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KARMA, You constantly hear about it. I often overhear people discusiing why they wouldn't do certain things because it would be "bad Karma".From what I understand Karma is basically a far eastern belief that simply put translates to"what goes around comes around".

Some of you know from my posts that I truly believe that reality is completely and I mean completely random. So I have been giving this a lot of thought and honestly I have to dismiss this karma thing as bullshit. I do not declare to know everything but one thing I do know is that there are no absolutes in life.

If you have witnessed karma or what you feel is karma. I must say I think believing in karma is sort of a self fulfilling kinda thing. When something bad happens to you, It is easy to chalk it up to some misdeed you feel guilty about. When something good happens you believe it is karma catching up with you for some thoughtful deed.

The only way I see karma as being of any real substance is this. Positive people attract positive things through their positive actions. Meanwhile mean and negative people's problems often multiply exponentially due to the consequences of their actions and bad choices catching up to them. This is often observed or witnessed as karma in action. Is this so (not likely) or is the universe completely random and if your out there doing people wrong odds are you will be hurting pretty soon due to legal problems, alienation or just having a fucked up conscience.

So what do you guys think? Is karma real or not? Is it more of a metaphor or prediction based on the probable outcome of one's actions? Or universal law enforced by some deity
 
First of all, if reality was completely random, there would be no way for you to type this message. Unless you believe that persistent order can be an outcome of total randomness. -__-

Karma is interpreted in all kinds of different ways, but what I believe to be the original meaning of it, is the following: positive actions (which can most easily come from seeing things as they really are) give rise to more positive events and the other way around.
For example one can either smile to other people or look grumpy and cry about stuff they think are wrong. Obviously the first one is much more likely to give rise for positive feelings in other people, than the second one and thus give rise to more positive events in this world.
A metaphorical example by S.N. Goenka: "On the same soil one sows two seeds, one of sugarcane, the other of neem - a very bitter tropical tree. From the seed of sugarcane develops a plant that is sweet in every fiber, from the seed of neem, a plant that is bitter in every fiber. One may ask why nature is kind to one plant and cruel to the other. In fact nature is neither kind nor cruel; it works according to set rules. Nature merely helps the quality of each seed to manifest. If one sows seeds of sweetness, the harvest will be sweetness. If one sows seeds of bitterness, the harvest will be bitterness. As the seed is, so the fruit will be; as the action is, so the result will be."

Now I'm not saying there's something wrong with looking grumpy and crying. It's just a way of sharing and expressing ones own suffering, which has risen out of ignorance. But with practicing awareness one can let go of suffering step by step (by giving up ignorance and becoming aware of reality as it really is).
 
One of the most logical examples of Karma is if you look at the economic idea of opportunity cost. Which is the cost any activity ultimately takes in terms of money, time, and opportunities you had to sacrifice in order choose the opportunity that you ended up choosing.
If you look at karma in this way it's not even about what you do that matters, but what you don't do because of what you did, if you know what I'm saying. In that way it can shape your life in subtle ways, which I believe karma is all about subtleness.
Time and cause and effect are both integral parts of karma.

I think the idea of karma as a "supernatural force" that actively judges everything in terms of an objective "right and wrong" is dogmatic and doesn't do justice to the true idea of karma.

And yeah, total randomness can't possibly account for all of what we see (IMO) because while there is a possibility the 99% empty space of my atoms will fall through the 99% empty space of the atoms of my chair it's so highly unlikely that all the atoms in the ass/chair system will act in such a way that it's gonna take longer than the lifespan of the Solar System for it to likely ever happen.
 
I think that karma has an element of likelihood in it. The more helpful and generative a man is toward other living (especially sentient) beings, the more likely it is that his actions will bring him results that he finds favorable. Likewise, the more harmful and obstructive one is toward others, the greater the likelihood that he'll become the target of harmful efforts from others. Either way, there's no guarantee. Can one be a very bad person and live an idyllic life, free from worries or the need to be extra vigilant? Sure. Can one be an absolute saint and nevertheless be brutally taken down? Yeah, it happens. Both types of stories tend to get sensationalized. But neither are very likely or common. I think that for most people, the love they receive has some connection to the love they give.
 
karma from the Sanskrit literally means "doing"

so your karma is your doing, there is no cause and effect, just what you are doing in the now moment, so if you are feeling happy right now, that is your current karma, or doing, because what you are doing is feeling happy.
 
In my humble/experienced opinion...I firmly believe it's shit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a negative-nelly. I've bent over backwards for years and years, helping people out when I can, in any way I can. And I've never received anything but shit, time after time from life. Not from the people I've hooked up mind you. From life in general. I don't help people out in the hopes that I will be re-payed in some way. I do what I do, because it's the way I was brought up and it's just the right thing to do.
Family turning their back on me, so-called friends burning me....I've found out the hard way that, nice guys do in fact finish last. I'm not trying to lay a whole, "oh woe is me" speech, it's just been my experience in life. I've found that the majority of people that I've come across in my life that make the comments such as,"you get what you give...positive attracts positive...what goes around comes around..."...they haven't lived in the real world. They've had everything handed to them on a silver platter.
Case in point, last winter when I got my first disability check, this 'buddy' of mine, asked if he could borrow a $1000 so he could get his van on the road for his contracting business. Mind you, this was the first time I've ever lent any amount of money over $20 to anybody...ever. For the very reason that I knew I would never get it back. I had reservations but his pitch was good. I lent it to him, not expecting to ever get it back. There was no van. There was no contracting business. He did work under-the-table for a shady guy. Well, about 2 weeks ago, he comes to my place telling me I owed him for an eighth of bud...which I didn't. He gets in my face telling me to give him 'his' $40. So, out of my mouth comes,"you got that grand you owe from last year?" His answer..."no, and I'm not going to give it to you, I don't owe you shit."
Karma? Yeah, what-the-fuck-ever. I can't wait for the day when I can say to him, "ain't karma a bitch!"
 
I'm sure others have said it, but I'm not in the mood for reading:

Karma isn't a cause and effect thing. Instead, it is more of a 'storehouse' of all the shit you do in your life: if you believe in reincarnation, doing bad things creates a sort-of stockpile of karma. The goal is to stop stockpiling karma in an effort to prevent karmic-rebirth-- eventually leading to nirvana.

karma, fuck yeah.


edit: since you guys are still arguing about cause and effect, I take it you aren't reading my post. :)
 
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First of all, if reality was completely random, there would be no way for you to type this message. Unless you believe that persistent order can be an outcome of total randomness. -__-

Karma is interpreted in all kinds of different ways, but what I believe to be the original meaning of it, is the following: positive actions (which can most easily come from seeing things as they really are) give rise to more positive events and the other way around.
For example one can either smile to other people or look grumpy and cry about stuff they think are wrong. Obviously the first one is much more likely to give rise for positive feelings in other people, than the second one and thus give rise to more positive events in this world.
A metaphorical example by S.N. Goenka: "On the same soil one sows two seeds, one of sugarcane, the other of neem - a very bitter tropical tree. From the seed of sugarcane develops a plant that is sweet in every fiber, from the seed of neem, a plant that is bitter in every fiber. One may ask why nature is kind to one plant and cruel to the other. In fact nature is neither kind nor cruel; it works according to set rules. Nature merely helps the quality of each seed to manifest. If one sows seeds of sweetness, the harvest will be sweetness. If one sows seeds of bitterness, the harvest will be bitterness. As the seed is, so the fruit will be; as the action is, so the result will be."

Now I'm not saying there's something wrong with looking grumpy and crying. It's just a way of sharing and expressing ones own suffering, which has risen out of ignorance. But with practicing awareness one can let go of suffering step by step (by giving up ignorance and becoming aware of reality as it really is).

but the universe is fundamentally random, as per our current undrestanding of the physical world. there is nothing logically paradoxical with coupling chaos and order; or, if it is, it is an example of paradox that somehow holds true.

there are probabilities concerned with every event, and some are more likely than others; this is "order" as you know it. but there is still an element of chaos in determining which of several possible outcomes can occur, even if one is more likely than the other. consider this; we have outcome a and outcome b of a certain input. a has a 70% chance of occurring and b has a 30% chance. assume we've already broken down the complex chain of processes to the basic/first binary scenario (i'm using binary as an example because it's simpler to demonstrate) - what causes either a or b to occur? just because a is more probable than b doesn't mean it will occur, or else there would be a 100% chance of a occurring and a 0% chance o b occurring. then, what determines whether or not a or b will occur is essentially randomness - until we have a better way of qualifying this phenomenon.

i understand its tempting to simply peg "order out of chaos" as a contradiction but when you actually dissect it you start to realize that the coupling isn't so contradictory.

edit: this point of this is that karma can serve as an inferential model at best (and not a particularly good one - positivity and negativity, in the sense that karma concerns, are fairly nebulous concepts and have no real effect on the order of things, aside from in a very abstract way) , but it is no way valid to ascribe it as a universal truth.
 
Karma, in my humble opinion, is a Universal, Natural Law of physics. I find it impossible to believe that existence is purely random. This is not because I proscribe to any doctrine, but ,to me, Simple Fact. We are all interconnected, as is the whole of existence. Karma to me means "For every action, a reaction" so if we exist in the moment positively, surely it stands to reason that Positive vibes will be the consequence. Negativity will attract negative consequences.
Iamof the belief that we are all Spirit living in a material world. (Yes...I know...Sting etc)and that this existence is one mass of vibrations.Hence, positive vibes create a positive life.
Now, I am a spoilt Westerner who has never experienced famine, genocide, nor war at first hand, but if Spirit is Eternal -and I can`t see how it could not be- then the experiences of the Souls trapped in these Regions of Hell,are merely that...And is there not a saying that "To hold all knowledge of Heaven, one must First grasp Hellish gates"??(Or is that one of mine?)
Are we all part of one Universal Mind and are time and space mere concepts, that we need to Experience this Existence? Experiment with Karma. step outside your door, pickup a brick and throw it through your neighbours window! Now when he storms out, fists clenched,cursing you out. just explain to him that he is a figment of your imagination. If he disappears you will have proven the theory. But.... if he starts foaming at the mouth..weeelll....Run like Hell and be content that you have proven the original theory. For every action, a reaction.
 

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Karma, in my humble opinion, is a Universal, Natural Law of physics. I find it impossible to believe that existence is purely random. This is not because I proscribe to any doctrine, but ,to me, Simple Fact. We are all interconnected, as is the whole of existence. Karma to me means "For every action, a reaction" so if we exist in the moment positively, surely it stands to reason that Positive vibes will be the consequence. Negativity will attract negative consequences.
Iamof the belief that we are all Spirit living in a material world. (Yes...I know...Sting etc)and that this existence is one mass of vibrations.Hence, positive vibes create a positive life.
Now, I am a spoilt Westerner who has never experienced famine, genocide, nor war at first hand, but if Spirit is Eternal -and I can`t see how it could not be- then the experiences of the Souls trapped in these Regions of Hell,are merely that...And is there not a saying that "To hold all knowledge of Heaven, one must First grasp Hellish gates"??(Or is that one of mine?)
Are we all part of one Universal Mind and are time and space mere concepts, that we need to Experience this Existence? Experiment with Karma. step outside your door, pickup a brick and throw it through your neighbours window! Now when he storms out, fists clenched,cursing you out. just explain to him that he is a figment of your imagination. If he disappears you will have proven the theory. But.... if he starts foaming at the mouth..weeelll....Run like Hell and be content that you have proven the original theory. For every action, a reaction.

yes, every reaction will necessitate a reaction (although whether or not this is attributable to the universe our the way we perceive it is another - and relevant- issue), but that doesn't change the fact that which reaction that occurs from an action is going to be determined by a randomness.

this is precisely why karma cannot function as a universal truth, but only a model of inference; it does not stand to reason that "living positively will result in a positive reaction," but rather only that (and I believe this is shaky in itself) "living positively will tend to promote a positive reaction."

there is no way for you to definitively show me that karma can be applicable as a universal law, unless you define karma as a tendency, rather than a concrete phenomenon. given the way the physical universe operates, you simply cannot tell me that a positive reaction will occur as the result of a positive action, if there is at all the logical possibility that a negative or neutral reaction could occur as the result of a positive action instead - and this is undeniably true.
 
the article contains the same problem, which is that nowhere does it gap the distance between model of inference and absolute[/i[]. i need to read it more carefully, but as far as i could see it simply started off with the presumptive assertion that law and order "is an absolute."
 
edit: this point of this is that karma can serve as an inferential model at best (and not a particularly good one - positivity and negativity, in the sense that karma concerns, are fairly nebulous concepts and have no real effect on the order of things, aside from in a very abstract way) , but it is no way valid to ascribe it as a universal truth.
Of course. I agree. And this is what I think karma really means.
Wholesome actions are much more likely to generate 'positive' events and the other way around. I never claimed, that it's a 100% rule.
But even seeing this as truth, one can understand the meaningfulness of trying to act as wholesome as one can. :)
 
Well, considering 'good' and 'bad' don't exist, how could karma?

Good point. I don't thing good or bad exist. Just peoples views on whether a act or object is right or wrong. In reality morals are subjective. Whats Right or wrong is personal and not to be determined (accurately) by others. You have raised an interesting point I think.

If you are doing things that make you happy and bring you joy or fullfilment then I think it would be safe to call that good. If something makes you miserable then it is ok to deem it bad. Good and bad are good to use as personal references but may not mean much in the end.
 
Yes but Karma isn't dependent on what anyone considers good or bad, it's just what any given result of any action is. It's up to the people experiencing the results and doing the actions to decide if it's good or bad, but the karmic results will be the same no matter what. At least according to my neutral "cause and effect" view of Karma.
 
HigherAwareness, I don't get the logical jump you've made from 'good and bad are relative' to 'good and bad don't exist'.
 
Seeing things as being "good and bad" are relative to the person you're talking to. For someone who only believes in choices and consequences (or risks), "good and bad" do not exist. I believe there is a positive and a negative risk for every action we take in life. Therefore, I do not believe that "good" choices and "bad" choices can be made. To someone else who believes things are either "good" or "bad", they would think differently to how I think.
 
you still haven't answered his question, which is how to gap the distance from relativity to nonexistence. i don't believe you can say something that is relative is nonexistent; a nonexistence would preclude the possibility of something being relative because it simply wouldn't exist in any form
 
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