Whenever someone is appalled at the actions of others, they seem to make posts pertaining to the idea of Karma sorting this person out.
It's as if Karma is some kind of bigger brother who's always on the look out for anyone being a shit.
What's funny to me is that if these same people changed the word Karma for the word God, they'd probably feel very foolish. Or rather, if i started using the word God instead of Karma, they'd make fun of me and claim to be intellectually superior. In fact the Hindus believe God is behind Karma.
Karma certainly feels like the new lord. The omniscient, ever watchful master that makes everything all right. People will get their just desserts because Karma is on the Kase. Just like the Christian Deity, Karma has its roots in a religion and cannot be proved or disproved.
Many people understand a very simplistic idea of Karma. Namely, that if you wrong someone, you'll get yours. Not necessarily from them, but some other aspect of your life that will teach you the lesson you sorely need. Karma is more involved than that, but i feel that this Sainsbury's Basics idea of Karma is the one people allude to.
Here's my beef with Karma: it's a complete cop-out. It basically means you get to leave the entire situation alone and depend on some other-worldy form of justice to sort everyone out for you. Karma is the universal police force. Not only that, Karma transcends lives - in Buddhism at least - so you could get punished in your 'next life' for something you did in this one. This makes it completely impossible to prove. How fortunate for Buddhists everywhere.
Picture the scene; it's Christmas Day. You've got all the family round, all wearing nice clobber. All wearing silly Xmas hats but what the hey? Tis the season. There's roast turkey plus all those trimmings you hear so much about. You've exchanged gifts and all been happy with the results. You just raise a glass to toast family, friends, and the end of a hard year and what happens?
A big, sweaty, skin headed biker barges in the door. He's wearing dirty leather. His tattoos are so old they're just blue blobs, the arms they sit in could suffocate a grizzly bear. He grabs your Mother, slaps her round the face - her wine goes everywhere - and then bends her over the table. He proceeds to violate her, anally, then uses your serviette to wipe the blood from his cock, before leaving the room.
There is silence.
You lean back and say "Boy, I would NOT like to be him when Karma gets hold of him."
Or, you make every effort you can to take the brute down before he has a chance to even grab your favourite relative.
You wouldn't leave some things to a supernatural source, so why leave others if they peeve you so?
It's the same with medicine, when people claim to use Echinacea to both stave off and fight colds, or when they use any other herbal, 'alternative' medicine to help them with ailments.
Would these same people choose a herbal alternative to morphine when they're laid up with cancerous tumours? What about if they get run over and suffer massive internal injuries? Or hey, what about a routine kidney stone operation?
When you're in the kind of pain that makes you want to pass out, i somehow doubt you'll be asking what the herbal alternative to morphine is. I imagine you'd be begging the nurses to take the pain away by whatever means possible.
It's the same with Karma. There's certain things you shouldn't leave to some wishy-washy, completely unproven - and unprovable - bullshit to sort out.
Gandhi said something like the problem with an eye for an eye is that it makes the whole world blind. Karma is your eye for an eye. It just takes you out of the equation. When people bring up Karmic consequences, i have no doubt they do it with a vicious streak about them. They want to do the punishing, but it's against their character to do so. Or at least, it's against the kind of character they aspire to be.
So, they leave it to a mythical force to sort out.
The other thing with Karma is, for those that buy into it, to what extent are your actions good because you're a good person? Or, being good for good's sake?
If you act in an altruistic manner thinking "I'll do this, then buy a lottery ticket....if Karma's on my side i should win something", then apparently Karma doesn't work. It only works if its a natural action.
What garbage. How the hell does Karma know what you're thinking? The known universe is billions and billions of light years across. And i'm supposed to believe that it's bothered with the action of an insignificant human down here on a tiny planet in the Milky Way called Earth?
I doubt it. I really do.
Karma then. For those that expect rewards for good behaviour, those too gutless to sort out the bad guys, and those too intelligent to believe in God....yet not smart enough to see how Karma is a form of God.
An odd concept. And one that should be saved for TV programmes about blokes called Earl.
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