What is Karma? How does it work?

What is Karma? How does it work?

I searched back a year and found a number of Karma threads, but they all seem to start with the assumption of what Karma means, and then want to discuss the hows of how to manipulate it, raise it, lower it, resolve it, etc.

It seems to me some tend to view Karma as a sort of automated cosmic department of corrections where crimes are recorded and punishment extracted sooner or later, even if it takes a few reincarnations to catch up to one. This is the crime and punishment sort of Karmic interpretation.

Others seem to view it as more of a cosmic university where you just keep taking the same classes over and over until you pass and move on to another. Perhaps one day you graduate from the school of Samsara, and move on to Nirvana. This is the ignorance and learning sort of Karmic interpretation.

What do you think? What is Karma supposed to mean? What does it mean to you?
Do you think you can detect Karma working in your life?
Are there any particular Karmas that you have resolved, either through punishment or learning?

Here's an explanation from the Hindu perspective bookmarked at the pertinent point of the lecture. https://youtu.be/-rgNWIeF9Qo?t=1010

Swami Sarvapriyananda speaks on Karma Yoga at a retreat on the Four Yogas. This is part 1 of the lecture on Karma Yoga.

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

Here's an explanation from the Hindu perspective bookmarked at the pertinent point of the lecture. https://youtu.be/-rgNWIeF9Qo?t=1010

Swami Sarvapriyananda speaks on Karma Yoga at a retreat on the Four Yogas. This is part 1 of the lecture on Karma Yoga.

What is the purpose of the Karma described by the Swami?

How would one be forced to do something bad and therefor escape the moral implications and resulting Karma? That is to say, when is there truly no choice involved for the conscious moral actor?

If I built up a deficit of bad Karma in past lives though evil deeds, must I pay it all off, or is there a way in which such debt would be forgiven?

[Busby]

For me karma doesn't exist.
How could it.
Where and what is the 'mechanism' that oversees or manages the extremely complicated links, processes and procedures that form a result?
If you accept karma then you'll will have to agree to a number of exclusively karmic (as opposed to accidents, which apparently don't exist if karma does) small to large events in the world, say the sinking of the Titanic.
If you are going to use the Titanic as a result of karma and then investigate what it needs to fulfil any karmic happening involving the Titanic then you'll be faced with a whole series of impossible to explain presumptions, conjectures and hypothesis.
In other words to complete the karmic repercussions gathered or earned by those people (whether afterwards dead or alive) on that ship the karmic master or planner - whoever that might be would have to start planning very early.
'His' first step would have to be to get someone to decide to build a suitable ship, then he'd have to think about getting a maybe not even existing ice-mass to calve an iceberg at the right time to be in the right place at the right time with all those individuals who 'he' has decided should live out the results of their actions. 'He'd' also have to ensure that all those 'called' booked their passages and that their cabins (for instance) were in the right position for the karmic outcome.

It never ends.

It would also mean that there is such a thing as destiny - and that is the last thing we want when we talk of freedom - especially when we talk of free will. Free will has to be open-ended otherwise it isn't free will.

No, the world is full of co-incidences and accidents, always was and always will be.

The real actions (as acknowledged as being intrinsic to karma) are those actions which take place in the process of evolution and are so carried over as part of the universal mind.

Originally Posted by ketzer

What is the purpose of the Karma described by the Swami?

How would one be forced to do something bad and therefor escape the moral implications and resulting Karma? That is to say, when is there truly no choice involved for the conscious moral actor?

If I built up a deficit of bad Karma in past lives though evil deeds, must I pay it all off, or is there a way in which such debt would be forgiven?

In essence the only way to escape Karma is through Enlightenment, at which point it's fully realized as part of Maya, part of the illusion.

The approach I take is that of a Jnani (I Am Self / Witness Consciousness) and therefore I practice Karma Yoga as Witness of action and not doer of action. Mind acts and body acts and I am Awareness simply witnessing said action.That's not to say I'm at a point where I'm resting in that state of Awareness 24x7, however I practice as often as I remember and it also dovetails nicely with my two other main practices of Jnana (knowledge) and Raja (resting in awareness/do nothing meditation).

All three practices leverage and build on what I already realized. It's a work in progress.

[Miss Hepburn]

I always say make it simple ---steal a couple things in a week...see what happens.
Be mean to many strangers ---see what happens.
Leave a lit cigar on a wood counter like George Kastanza ...see what happens.
Go out wet, in a cold wind with a thin tee shirt only...see what happens.
Then, smile, be super kind to strangers for a solid week, everyday...see what happens.
Don't murder someone, just to see, tho.

[Johnathanrs]

Every reality is governed by different laws. The lower realms that rules what we would label as the place of destiny are governed by concepts like karma. A simple way to look at this is if you were to go into a card game arena and play with other people you would see multiple factions that follow different rules that the collective is abiding by. Depending upon which group you tend to play with, you would have to follow their rules, or you would have to become a higher role, what we would label in the spiritual community as being a deity, sage, and so on, and orchestrate everything yourself. When you reach the greater realities, it becomes more about creating the greatest reality/omni-verse, like you are in charge of a video game server, and are trying to keep your game entertaining for others to enjoy - while at the same time, being a player at other peoples games, and keeping everyone from being bored. Concepts like good and evil don't really exist - if you are in heaven, you literally have everything provided to you, so why would you ever leave? Boredom is the sin of greater realities. You escape god for this reason. When you play a video game, start reading a fantasy book, it isn't to experience bliss or nirvana - it is to experience sin.

People who don't believe in Karma are usually, if forthright, vibrating higher than what the lower realms dictate. As many suggested, at the higher realities/realms, karma doesn't really exist. This is because beings at this level are at minimum a deity and a new life form. Any wrongful deed that you think you might have had would have been pre-programmed as a experience for a lifetime. A hamster cannot commit sin to a humans perspective - they are what they were intended to be. Neither can humans. From a greater perspective, most are like fish and aren't even real. The universe wastes nothing. If you were a serial murderer, then you are labeled no differently then being apart of the Krishna branch and experienced what it is like to be a predator for a lifetime. There are no exceptions - only the illusion of it. That being said, there are rewards for accomplishing events within a lifetime, or more importantly - multiple lifetimes - and the concept of karma is important to this.

You cannot get to the more sinful playgrounds, beyond the lower and higher realms which now makeup a universe, until you have gotten through tutorial levels of life and understand fundamentally how things work. Like being in school, you have to graduate to the chaotic realms, where the laws of physics slowly break down and wonders exist that will be beyond your greatest desires, while terrors as well that will freeze your soul. It might sound strange, but every universe exists for a few billion years, and are constantly popping in and out of existence. Even after you go through a tragedy lifetime, it isn't hard to imagine that after hanging out in the heavenly realms for a few million years to heal, you would eventually get bored and start playing a video game/rejoin a matrix again in order to take on greater challenges. The lower realms can, at the higher realms, fit in the palm of your hand and are what power the higher realms - equivalent to what we would call electricity. A entire universe of fate is like a cell in a body and would metaphorically be just one battery of several thousands that exist in a single multi-verse of the greater realms.

A example going over this is taken from the cartoon below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sEbe9gveN4

Finally one last thing. There exists a concept known as anti-karma as well. It is what we call in the spiritual community as being the shadow. Just as cause creates effects, the shadow goes by the rule of effect creating cause. You would create events from the future, by our standards, and would experience them in the past, or go backwards in time and fix events and prevent any timeline tragedies that you were not looking to experience or to fix karma. Black holes exist in every universe as they are apart of cleaning everything up at the end. Interesting enough, the laws of physics breakdown within the event horizon of a singularity - meaning they are objects that we are aware of that are not bound by universal law - and yet are apart of the universe. A perfect gateway if I do say so myself.

Originally Posted by Busby

For me karma doesn't exist.
How could it.
Where and what is the 'mechanism' that oversees or manages the extremely complicated links, processes and procedures that form a result?
If you accept karma then you'll will have to agree to a number of exclusively karmic (as opposed to accidents, which apparently don't exist if karma does) small to large events in the world, say the sinking of the Titanic.
If you are going to use the Titanic as a result of karma and then investigate what it needs to fulfil any karmic happening involving the Titanic then you'll be faced with a whole series of impossible to explain presumptions, conjectures and hypothesis.
In other words to complete the karmic repercussions gathered or earned by those people (whether afterwards dead or alive) on that ship the karmic master or planner - whoever that might be would have to start planning very early.
'His' first step would have to be to get someone to decide to build a suitable ship, then he'd have to think about getting a maybe not even existing ice-mass to calve an iceberg at the right time to be in the right place at the right time with all those individuals who 'he' has decided should live out the results of their actions. 'He'd' also have to ensure that all those 'called' booked their passages and that their cabins (for instance) were in the right position for the karmic outcome.

It never ends.

It would also mean that there is such a thing as destiny - and that is the last thing we want when we talk of freedom - especially when we talk of free will. Free will has to be open-ended otherwise it isn't free will.

No, the world is full of co-incidences and accidents, always was and always will be.

The real actions (as acknowledged as being intrinsic to karma) are those actions which take place in the process of evolution and are so carried over as part of the universal mind.

I view it in a more general sense as in if one believes the game is real and plays it accordingly then one is trapped in the game and will experience its consequences, both good and bad. It's not necessarily a tit for tat cause and effect but a cause and effect in a more general sense. Let's not forget the ultimate outcome of any round of the game is death and no amount of good karma can circumvent that outcome just like no amount of bad karma will deny re-entry into the next round of the game, however I suppose it's possible previous karma can dictate in a general sense the trajectory of one's experiences in any given round of the game.

In any case it's just a model and its prescriptions are meant to get one out of the game, to transcend the game.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

In any case it's just a model and its prescriptions are meant
to get one out of the game, to transcend the game.

Yup.

Johnathanrs - you said some great stuff... I'm letting you all do the work I sit back and agree.

[lemex]

Originally Posted by ketzer

What is Karma? How does it work?

I searched back a year and found a number of Karma threads, but they all seem to start with the assumption of what Karma means, and then want to discuss the hows of how to manipulate it, raise it, lower it, resolve it, etc.

It seems to me some tend to view Karma as a sort of automated cosmic department of corrections where crimes are recorded and punishment extracted sooner or later, even if it takes a few reincarnations to catch up to one. This is the crime and punishment sort of Karmic interpretation.

Others seem to view it as more of a cosmic university where you just keep taking the same classes over and over until you pass and move on to another. Perhaps one day you graduate from the school of Samsara, and move on to Nirvana. This is the ignorance and learning sort of Karmic interpretation.

What do you think? What is Karma supposed to mean? What does it mean to you?
Do you think you can detect Karma working in your life?
Are there any particular Karmas that you have resolved, either through punishment or learning?

How does one determine in advance of the next life, it would be asking what did I learn from the last one. Even now we can't (or won't) say. The wording is incorrect maybe, and should be what are you resolving. It is a mistake to think in terms of completed, without effort I only know I have not completed it but in one simple term, karma may provide choice and opportunity. It is even larger then we thought.


If you are asking what I am learning, then I could tell you.