Do You Believe in Karma?

This week's Long And Short Reviews question is whether reviewers believe in karma. 

I do and I don't; it depends on how the word is used.

There are two ways the word "karma" is used, and since I've heard even people from India use it in the nondenominational sense, I think it may be the best word we now have for what Americans usually seem to use it to mean.

In the strict or denominational sense, "karma" is a Hindu religious doctrine that Buddhists have adopted and other religious groups have generally rejected. Based in a belief in reincarnation, the Hindu understanding of karma is that we start out in this life suffering the punishments (and enjoying the rewards) for what we did in our past lives. 

At least Hindus don't dodge the terrible question, "If there is a benevolent God, why do animals and little children have to suffer?" There's a Christian answer to that question, but Christians have been squeamish about saying it out loud. Hindus affirm that animals and children suffer because, in some past life, they jollywell deserved it. Probably they deserved it in some very specific, eye-for-eye sort of way. A mother animal dies, and her litle ones then starve, because they were mean, greedy people in another life. A child is born with cystic fibrosis because he didn't take care of his parents when they were old and ill. Ir's a very logical and satisfactory doctrine until you think about it for a while. Then it becomes appalling. 

Christians, by definition, reject this belief in karma because we believe that each living soul is unique and is subject to God's judgment on per behavior in per one and only life. This does not explain the unequal conditions into which we are born, and this idea too can be seen as appalling. There are some Christians who do believe in reincarnation, and may always have been, but they seem always to have been considered an heretical minority. 

Which idea seems more believable to you probably depends on what you started to believe as a child,  and is probably not subject to rational debate. How can people debate rationally about religious beliefs we accept because some wise and good person, who was a visionary, had a vision that supported on belief or the other. Noody's had the opportunity to know how souls are made or how many lives we may get.

In any case I am a Christian; therefore, to the extent that I believe I can believe either doctrine, I'm closer to believing the Christian one. I'm not dogmatic about it. I am pretty sure that our brains are not built to be able to understand anything about the afterlife but, subject to correction when I get there, I work with the Christian set of beliefs about the afterlife.

I think it's entirely possible that when we get to the afterlife we'll discover that all of our beliefs about the afterlife, and God and Life and Death and Salvation and who knows what else, were all "wrong"--in the way a child's ideas about cars really being animals that drink gasoline, or little people living inside the TV set are "wrong." Our mortal brains aren't built to imagine what lies ahead. 

But on a more mundane, secular level I've also heard Indian Muslims and Christians use "karma," as Americans do, to refer to a simple belief that "what goes around, comes around." What you knowngly do to someone else, and don't repent of doing, is likely to be something into which you rown mind subconsciously steers you. "Karma" in this sense operates in this present life, usually within the week.

"Coronavirus is just a hoax. All that talk about quarantine was only done to scare people."

"Sensitivity to electromagnetic emissions is a real disorder, all right...a real mental disorder! Tell those people to wrap their heads in tinfoil and leave you alone!"

"Colds, flu, mononucleosis, scarlet fever, salmonella poisoning, and whatever else I personally happen to be immune to, are all in people's minds. At least, the microbes may exist, but if people had faith they could just live with the microbes, as I do."

"He said he had the flu. I don't know. He wasn't coughing or vomiting; he was stumbling around like a drunk." 

"She may say she's never been married but I've seen her with a half-dozen children that all looked exactly like her!" (Fact; baby-free women often baby-sit nieces, nephews, and cousins.)

People say this kind of thing carelessly, but their consciences are leading them to experiences that will help them develop humility and compassion. This is not quite the same thing as the Hindu doctrine of karma, but people who use the word "karma" use it to describe this phenomenon where the conscience catches up with people who have sneered at other people's suffering. I remember the man who told my father that he didn't believe in colds, and then, when he met that year's cold virus, that he believed in colds now because he had the granddaddy of them all. That was a bit of a joke--the strong, healthy young man was back on the job the next day--but then there was a co-worker, an active healthy sixty-something who was beginning to feel a bit middle-aged. "An old cripple like me," he said, referring to an injury, and two days later he broke his "good" arm. Some time later, being impatient with the need for new glasses, he referred to himself as "blind."

"No you're not!" I yipped. "Don't say that! Your conscience will get you! You have very good long-distance vision--I want you to thank God for it!"

Conscience "karma" can affect people of any religious tradition or none, and in the sense of "biting hard and fighting dirty" it is indeed the kind of canine it's so widely rumored to be. It often affects people who show the wrong attitudes about personal relationships, positions, promotions, money, and possessions, as well as health. It is especially entertaining when people who act as if being married made them "better" than those who are waiting longer find themselves divorced. 

I take conscience "karma" very seriously.