Thoughts on Karma

highnoon Wed 14 Aug 2013, 20:23

I have a new restaurant job now.

I was mopping the floor and a waiter came into the kitchen, a very witty impertinent kindof dude. Hes telling me how much the drivers owe the register. As he is saying this, I slip and fall.

he laughs and says. "Why does everything with you have to be a struggle?"

I finish the floor and go to him and cash out. But I'm short. As I had slipped earlier, he had said one more thing that the money I owed was less than what was written down, but I didn't catch that part. So we got into an argument over listening skills and that sort of thing.

I tried to say that it was because of karma that I slipped and didn't fully hear him. And he said to me. Do you even know what karma is? I tried to explain how I thought karma played a role in how I slipped.

And he cut me short saying. "nonono, you're making it too complicated". "Karma is simple". "Karma IS your actions."

...but what I was trying to tell him was. That his karma in the workplace influenced when I slipped on the wet floor.

Every time this guy enters our area, everybody tenses up because they have to hear a cutting remark from him. Verbal or physical is irrelevant. With me, my muscles tense, and on a wet floor, the sudden adjustment and misallocation of weight distribution probably was the main factor why as to why I slipped.

He probably knew this and thought that by cutting me short and interjecting his own to-the-point explanation on what karma was, was preventing himself from having hear me come up with a rationalization that included him into being blamed partially.

This next thing has nothing to do with the story. But I've always wanted to know if my sub conscious mind could pick up on him entering a room, versus, someone else entering a room I was in. Like if my back is turned, do my muscles tense up even though I don't have any cue that it's actually a particular person that has entered my space?

Flames Sat 17 Aug 2013, 03:39

Karma from the Hindu perspective:

Until recently, the scholarly consensus was that reincarnation is absent from the earliest strata of Brahminical literature. However, a new translation of two stanzas of the Rig Veda indicate that the Brahmins may have had the idea, common among small-scale societies around the world, that an individual cycles back and forth between the earth and a heavenly realm of ancestors. In this worldview, moral behavior has no influence on rebirth. The idea that the moral quality of one's actions influences one's rebirth is absent from India until the period of the shramana religions, and the Brahmins appear to have adopted this idea from other religious groups.

Theistic schools of Hinduism such as Vedanta thus disagree with the Buddhist and Jain views and other Hindu views that karma is merely a law of cause and effect but rather is also dependent on the will of a personal supreme God. A summary of this theistic view of karma is expressed by the following: "God does not make one suffer for no reason nor does He make one happy for no reason. God is very fair and gives you exactly what you deserve."

Karma is not punishment or retribution but simply an extended expression or consequence of natural acts. Karma means "deed" or "act" and more broadly names the universal principle of cause and effect, action and reaction, that governs all life. The effects experienced are also able to be mitigated by actions and are not necessarily fated. That is to say, a particular action now is not binding to some particular, pre-determined future experience or reaction; it is not a simple, one-to-one correspondence of reward or punishment.

Karma is not fate, for humans act with free will creating their own destiny. According to the Vedas, if one sows goodness, one will reap goodness; if one sows evil, one will reap evil. Karma refers to the totality of our actions and their concomitant reactions in this and previous lives, all of which determines our future. The conquest of karma lies in intelligent action and dispassionate response.

One of the first and most dramatic illustrations of Karma can be found in the Bhagavad Gita. In this poem, Arjuna the protagonist is preparing for battle when he realizes that the enemy consists of members of his own family and decides not to fight. His charioteer, Krishna (an avatar of god), explains to Arjuna the concept of dharma (duty) among other things and makes him see that it is his duty to fight. The original Hindu concept of karma was later enhanced by several other movements within the religion, most notably Vedanta, and Tantra.

Link

I think about karma sometimes, and consider the possibility of a moral cycle of generation and degeneration through reincarnation, though I am not convinced of this, in any dogmatic sense. I'll explain that in my last paragraph.

The reason I am not convinced is, is because there could be other explanations for what people consider to be reincarnation that may have something to do with our DNA. In other words, there could be a more rational explanation. What are we really, other than the continuation of the information from our GENES?

It is well known, that genetic predispositions exists, and perhaps each individual is a unique expression of that particular genetic code. Whenever I hear people talk about a so called "past life," I wonder if they are referring to some time of genetic memory, that isn't entirely their own.

The other problem I have with the reincarnation crowd is the fact that none of these people seem to be a reincarnated BORING person. It's never the person who remembers being the janitor in a past life, but rather some grand/important figure. So there are psychological problems that go along with the concept of reincarnation as well.

Another problem I have with the idea of reincarnation is a philosophical one. Like all dogmas, the God is the debtor/creditor and we are the ones who owe an eternal debt that can't be payed. This is the same problem I have with the Yahwehist religions. In my opinion, they disempower the self, and open the door for an elite to rule with an apocalyptic fist.

highnoon Sat 17 Aug 2013, 08:49

Thats pretty interesting that you mentioned past life dna. It could be that some of our dreams are past life dna memories. or just like...small bits of data that get extrapolated with lots of fantasy filler.

like your great great grandma had a mission to take a horse carriage from A to B. and you have this recurring dream about carriages. you cannot fulfill her idea in your current time period, but the dream persists because thats the only way her idea can express itself anymore. it could be like an unnecessary haunting of your own descendants, which is a karmic concept.

or wow..that great great grandma of yours has a carriage thing that didnt transpire, but your great great great great grandpa on another ancestry tree had like a purpose to something related to cooking for a king. and that didn't work out the way he wanted. but both forces of will are in your dna, and they mix together to make a mishmash of carriages and cooking for kings.

and then you 200 and 350 years later from both points in time have these dreams about both, and you can't understand it and can only hold it in your mind for a few moments after waking anyways.

I am just speculating from out of my ass.

Flames Sat 17 Aug 2013, 11:59

There is absolutely nothing wrong with arguing a speculative case, highnoon. For it is the admittance of the absence of knowledge that drives the conversation forward in an honest way. This is a key philosophical concept. The problem right now in society, is that there is no philosophical conversation what so ever.

**KapitanScarlet** Sat 17 Aug 2013, 14:07

flames wrote:The problem right now in society, is that there is no philosophical conversation what so ever

This is a major problem as it nourishes the creation of hypnotic tranced plebian footsoldiers that will kill as they told to kill for the good of whatever their told its good for = without question

My past , current and ongoing reflections on this karma jive is that there is a phenomena identified in human psyche called conscience which in effect can be loosely defined as in conversation with ones hidden higher inner guide
But this conscience connection can be broken, manipulated , imitated , infested by the introduction of chemicals, religious beliefs , philosophys, excessive violent aversion therapy, entity possesion etc into the human subjects psyche , after which these humans are slaves / victims to malevolent influences which will not favour their life experience nor others they encounter
but this does not directly explain my thoughts on karma which is i believe some form of cosmic balancing force that acts its gameplan out in a completly and utterly unpredictable manner of manifestation , it may even succumb to a mathematical formula in the future
Its very probable that it transcends existing life cycle as this would explain how some people appear better off than others in certain judgemental concepts of inherent qualities of being both external and psyche-wise which requires the belief of reincarnation

Its also probable that humans are connected through invisible energy regarding their nervous systems and its a ceertainty that one can feel certain things going on when in the presence of different beings which then stimulate judgements

My own observations on my behaviour in existence is that certain actions taken by me in present tense . do for sure stimulate other actions that will then visit me in the future , but if i were to dare taking an action in present tense with the conscious idea of expecting a return in future tense, then i can be sure that my expectation will never be met in the manner i had thought definite , the proportional probability of that defititiveness affecting the expected outcome inversely, however, if this conscious expectation can be defused into subconscious maybe expectation, then the odds appear to increase of the present investment paying off in the cosmic investment sense of understandings

To fully describe the interpretation of karma, i think people have to have almost lived their full life and look back for patterns , then one might have something much more emphatic to say on the matter that will be more articulatable for others

But specualton is very important in reaching that state of understanding the self in order to transmit to others

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