Just how does a particular religious system influence people's behavior? Are Christians better than others? more moral, more ethical, somehow more virtuous? Are they the salt of the earth? You'd think so but to give a perfectly honest answer in my long experience......NO, uh-uh. For example to put it in the work context again I've had my share of Christian bosses, some Catholic bosses. Many were underhanded, screwed the worker, weren't fair and as for other Christians they gossip, backstab, throw others under the bus with the best of them. Not an indictment of Christianity btw since I'm a Christian myself but why this contradiction? I'm going to heavily paraphrase from a point made over at Lista's, gonna do some major-league spinning myself here but the idea of you can keep on sinning and just keep going to Christ who will forgive you over and over and over again...I think the average Christian feeling liberated from the whole karmic cycle feels he or she can do what they want and get forgiven later. OK maybe that's an oversimplication but to paraphrase from St. Augustine "make me not gossip Lord or throw other people under the bus but not yet." Many Christians behave like the rest of the lot and then take their Souls to the cleaners on Sunday as my brother likes to say. The Christian/Catholic running the department now, doesn't strike me as being overly ethical, maybe the Church is more a social watering-hole......Perhaps the karmic believers are better people, live better lives because karma is so much more demanding and unforgiving and yes fear-inspiring. Pope Benedict would do well to address the issue again as he's addressed karma in the past and is well familiar with the topic. I believe it was when he was Cardinal he made the point that the beauty of Christianity is that Christ enables you to break free from the harsh and never-ending cycle of karma, that's the positive aspect but on the downside imo is the general character of today's Christian. The Pope would do well to talk up the issue again this time in the context of you people are misapplying Christ's Message and the Gospel if you think you can just go on sinning and......but is karma real? does it actually operate in this life in the here and now and not just in lives to come? A stronger variation of the biblical you reap what you sow I've seen some evidence. I'd love to hear examples here from the resident bloggers who are big on karma. As a rule I generally don't blog about presidential vacations, God knows they all take them so I just wanted to go with a karmic thrust today:)
I will love to address this but it's Janmastami weekend and I'm cooking like a fiend..
ReplyDeleteBut I will get to this, I promise.
Karma doesn't seem to be consistent, in my opinion, so I find it hard to believe in it. As for Christians thinking God's neverending forgiveness means they can do whatever they want, I think there are some who feel that way, but I don't think all do. There are a lot of good people of all religions in this world, they just don't have PR Dept. giving them props.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe in mysticism. I don't do bad things out of some concern that something bad will come to me. I just don't do bad things because that is not who I want to be as a person. I guess I'm selfish like that. ;-)
ReplyDeletePondering your response soapie I was thinking of your own admission that you've done a fair amount of LSD in the past. Researching this topic one of the things I came away with is many users reported mystical experiences, becoming more spiritual as a result and seeing Life and the Universe in a whole new dimension. Some Indians have used peyote in religious rituals for just this reason so besides watching tennis balls with tracers for what seemed like 5 hours your basic overall philosophy just stayed the same?
ReplyDeleteI'm a rational being. LSD and hallucinogens have an uncanny ability to make you better see and understand the complexities of the energies that are around you. It takes the most mundane of objects and magnifies it to an almost microscopic/atomic level.
ReplyDeleteIt's that simple. Native Americans and other ancient tribes have always known of the energies of nature and it is a large part of their culture. Hallucinogens help them quantify it.
My overall philosophy never changed in so much as it became further vindicated and understood.
First of all karma is a complicated thing to actually understand and I could point you to places that explain it better than I will.
ReplyDeleteBriefly it's the same as Newton's law that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.
Karma is a law that operates independently of anyone's belief or disbelief, just like Newton's law or the law of gravity. That's number one.
Also understand before I get into this that 'you' and 'your body' are two completely different things. The real 'you', the jiva, spirit soul, is eternal and has nothing to do with the material body. Think of the body like a car; you drive it, but you're not it. It might blow a gasket, but you haven't. It's just a vehicle, can be replaced with something totally different when it's all beat up and as we say here, no more good.
All things have a cause. Why you are what you are; in what body, country, sex, situation are all determined by the consciousness and desires you had in a previous life. You're given (for good or bad) the situation that's most appropriate for you and the lessons you need to learn.
Okay, so you can accrue either good or bad karma, based on selfish/sinful/wrong actions or based on unselfish/pious/good actions, and those actions, either way, besides carrying their own reactions, also contribute to the consciousness you develop (which determines where you'll be headed like explained above).
Now, the whole thing with the cycle of birth and death is that no matter how much good karma you accrue, no matter how great a situation you get born into (wealthy, gorgeous, famous, so on), there's still four things, four sufferings you can't get away from: birth, old age, disease and death. Doesn't matter how good your karma is, how much money you have, how beautiful you are. Either good or bad karma keep you in this cycle, and so you're going to have to endure these things regardless. Either good or bad karma keep you tied to the material world and all the innate suffering (regardless of money, beauty, etc) that having a material body brings. Just like no matter whether you buy a Pinto or a Maybach, it's going to break down, give you problems, and like I said, be no more good. That body is just a temporary vehicle.
So the question becomes how do I get out of this cycle, because it's temporary, and it brings all this material suffering? This is a bigger thought than being afraid of bad reactions or doing good things because of wanting good reactions. It's the desire to understand higher truth, and understanding that you're not the body and not meant for this cycle of birth and death.
So the Vedas explain that to get out of this cycle and back where you belong, your activities have to change from those activities you perform out of desires for good or bad (thus carrying karma) and learn to do them solely for the purpose of serving the Absolute Truth (God), and NOT for yourself. At that point your activities don't carry karma, and at that point you're on your way out of it. You'll still have to pay off your account (good or bad), but you're working your way out.
Can it be done in one lifetime? Sure, but I wouldn't be betting on it; after however many lifetimes being immersed in the material it's not the easiest thing to jump out of. It takes a little work, which is a different take than Christianity, which basically hands all that work over to Jesus; let Him do this for me, and I'll just enjoy the rewards. It strikes me as particularly unusual to hear people describe 'heaven' with purely material benefits; I heard someone say one time that Mama was up in heaven frying chicken. Like God's going to let chickens get killed in heaven. It's still this material consciousness; people are looking for rewards. That's not the idea that we're talking about.
I told you this was complicated. It can be explained so much better than this by people who are more knowledgable than me, but if nothing else, please don't think that we approach this as 'I do good things so I can get ABCD good things, or I don't do bad things because I'm afraid of ABCD bad things'. Sure, you CAN work it that way, because it's a law and it operates independently, but that's a material approach to it. There's even a type of yoga called karma-yoga. But that's not the higher understanding of it.
ReplyDeleteLike Soap, I'm not much of a mystic. In fact, regarding karma "Briefly it's the same as Newton's law that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction."
ReplyDelete..my simple and pragmatic reaction is that good v evil in terms of the
'scale of justice' is a lot like
calories and dieting. Calories on
the bad side of the balance scale,
exercise and diet on the good side.
..equal and opposite reaction', as
Saty observes....
Here's another thought that came to me on the way home from Walmart. A question that gets asked a lot by Christians is 'why do bad things happen to good people' and conversely 'why do good things happen to bad people'. These things can be easily explained by understanding the workings of karma. For example, the baby I took care of was born sick and got sicker. That was some serious karma he was working out. Now, this doesn't mean that we just say 'oh, it's your karma' and have no compassion. Of course you do and you do what you can to help and make it easier and also try to help in terms of future lives. We used to sing and dance together and he loved it and that was something that is certainly going to help. So you do what you can to make it easier. Now why would good things happen to bad people? Same thing, working out karma. So there's a very simple explanation here. God, Krsna, hasn't got anything to do with it; you've done it to yourself. He's just watching you make a mess. Now, can He mitigate it or wipe it out completely? Sure, if He wants to, but why? All this is your own fault, your own decisions, your own responsibility. A father watches his child make bad choices and make a mess and even though he's sorry about it, he says, I can't live your life for you, you have to make your own decisions, make your bed and sleep in it as my father used to say. A father makes the child assume some responsibility for their actions and learn that if you play you have to pay. If the child breaks the law the child goes to jail. Right? And the father's real sorry about that, but the child still has to pay that debt for breaking the law. It comes down to some real simple concepts in this sense.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, today is Srila Prabhupada's appearance day. He was the one who brought all this knowledge to the West, and he's my guru's guru. We have a big celebration today, yet another feast! (As my husband says we're the eatinest folks there are) and so I'm cooking again today.. it's a lot of fun. Janmastami pictures are here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2114946006839.112078.1641379183&l=3471b5c9a6&type=1
Someday I'll learn how to do the linky thing.
I'll still stuck on soapie. So you saw atoms and molecules like the Incredible Shrinking Man and the spider coming at him?
ReplyDeleteProbably everyone's been betrayed at some point in their lives. I was many years ago and the people involved were Christian (hearkens back to my original point) so how does karma work this out?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure what you mean.. do you mean because they're Christian? If that's your question, then the answer is that it doesn't matter what religion you are or what philosophy you subscribe to. The law of gravity affects everyone whether you believe in it or not. Same thing with karma.
ReplyDeleteI guess that you've explained the inconsistent part to me, Saty, thanks.
ReplyDeleteWell my point was that the couple people who betrayed me were avowedly Christian and that they were obviously not employing a Christian principle in their behavior but acting on their own behalf. Just one example of many I could come up with that in my travels Christians are not necessarily better than the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, I don't think there are really any groups of people (religions, nationalities, etc) that are 'better' than any other.. there are plenty of religious folk who think that because they're a certain religion (James Dobson, Michelle Bachmann, the Dominionists) that makes them inherently better, or people of certain nationalities ('American Exceptionalism') or people of certain races (white power!) who think they're inherently better because of those things, but when you look at it through this karmic kind of long-angle lens you can see that all those things, designations, are actually material and therefore temporary.
ReplyDeleteNow there are some schools of thought that say all material things are unreal.. we don't accept that because how can the tangible be 'unreal'.. but they ARE temporary designations and nothing you can really attach any kind of value to.
So the whole concept is a mistaken one.
In the end, no one living being (this includes all species) is 'better' than any other and all have the same value.
And before anyone pops a gasket, I could have used plenty of other examples of religions (no one expects the Spanish Inquisition!) and nationalities (das Ubermensch) to use. Let's be honest, race is a bit harder here but I can stretch the Ubermensch to cover that too.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, those first examples I used were the first ones that popped into my head, that's all.. not that there aren't any other examples out there.
In re all this here is a bit of relevant scripture:
"The humble sage, by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste]."
PURPORT:
A Krsna conscious person does not make any distinction between species or castes. The brahmana and the outcaste may be different from the social point of view, or a dog, a cow, or an elephant may be different from the point of view of species, but these differences of body are meaningless from the viewpoint of a learned transcendentalist. This is due to their relationship to the Supreme, for the Supreme Lord, by His plenary portion as Paramatma, is present in everyone's heart. Such an understanding of the Supreme is real knowledge. As far as the bodies are concerned in different castes or different species of life, the Lord is equally kind to everyone because He treats every living being as a friend yet maintains Himself as Paramatma regardless of the circumstances of the living entities. The Lord as Paramatma is present both in the outcaste and in the brahmana, although the body of a brahmana and that of an outcaste are not the same.
Bhagavad Gita As It Is 5:18 (www.asitis.com)