Karma

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Most people would have heard of 'Karma'. It is a part of many Hindu spiritual philosophies and is also an important part of off shoot philosophies in Jainism and Buddhism. Since spiritual philosophy forms the base of Hindu religion, Karma is an important part of day to day Hindu religious beliefs and social life.

Karma is basically about 'what goes around comes around'....'what you do will come back to you'. This is the reason spiritual leaders often teach people to be good, charitable and forgiving.

Karma s not really about tit for tat, as many believe. It is really about accumulation of negative  energies and imbalance....and the eventual correction.

If an object acquires some form of energy it becomes more unstable and will tend to eventually move towards equilibrium by losing that energy.  This is Karma.

Another e way of looking at it is...when we  behave in ways that go against  the general smooth flow of energy, it is like swimming against the current. We will eventually be forced to move back and go with the flow. This correction or 'return to equilibrium' is what we normally experience as sorrow or suffering as a result of our karma. 

Karma naturally works over many life times and not just over one life time. So...Karma and reincarnation go hand in hand.  Some karmic corrections could happen immediately while others could take many years or lifetimes.  It depends on ones spiritual level.

For people who are in lower spiritual levels, the correction will take place over many lifetimes because they have lots of accumulated negative energies.   For people in higher spiritual levels, the karmic correction could take place within months or even days because they have less accumulated energy and instability. 
 
Just some thoughts.

Cheers,.

Sriram

[ippy]

Hi everyone,

Most people would have heard of 'Karma'. It is a part of many Hindu spiritual philosophies and is also an important part of off shoot philosophies in Jainism and Buddhism. Since spiritual philosophy forms the base of Hindu religion, Karma is an important part of day to day Hindu religious beliefs and social life.

Karma is basically about 'what goes around comes around'....'what you do will come back to you'. This is the reason spiritual leaders often teach people to be good, charitable and forgiving.

Karma s not really about tit for tat, as many believe. It is really about accumulation of negative  energies and imbalance....and the eventual correction.

If an object acquires some form of energy it becomes more unstable and will tend to eventually move towards equilibrium by losing that energy.  This is Karma.

Another e way of looking at it is...when we  behave in ways that go against  the general smooth flow of energy, it is like swimming against the current. We will eventually be forced to move back and go with the flow. This correction or 'return to equilibrium' is what we normally experience as sorrow or suffering as a result of our karma. 

Karma naturally works over many life times and not just over one life time. So...Karma and reincarnation go hand in hand.  Some karmic corrections could happen immediately while others could take many years or lifetimes.  It depends on ones spiritual level.

For people who are in lower spiritual levels, the correction will take place over many lifetimes because they have lots of accumulated negative energies.   For people in higher spiritual levels, the karmic correction could take place within months or even days because they have less accumulated energy and instability. 
 
Just some thoughts.

Cheers,.

Sriram

I give my dog better tripe than this load of old

ippy

[Harrowby Hall]

That's a bit unfair Ippy.

Do you think that we should have another section on the forum, called "Sriram and Sparky"? It's purpose would be to allow discussion of ideas which do not fit into established scientific discourse. Sassy would bloom there.

[torridon]

Hi everyone,

Most people would have heard of 'Karma'. It is a part of many Hindu spiritual philosophies and is also an important part of off shoot philosophies in Jainism and Buddhism. Since spiritual philosophy forms the base of Hindu religion, Karma is an important part of day to day Hindu religious beliefs and social life.

Karma is basically about 'what goes around comes around'....'what you do will come back to you'. This is the reason spiritual leaders often teach people to be good, charitable and forgiving.

Karma s not really about tit for tat, as many believe. It is really about accumulation of negative  energies and imbalance....and the eventual correction.

If an object acquires some form of energy it becomes more unstable and will tend to eventually move towards equilibrium by losing that energy.  This is Karma.

Another e way of looking at it is...when we  behave in ways that go against  the general smooth flow of energy, it is like swimming against the current. We will eventually be forced to move back and go with the flow. This correction or 'return to equilibrium' is what we normally experience as sorrow or suffering as a result of our karma. 

Karma naturally works over many life times and not just over one life time. So...Karma and reincarnation go hand in hand.  Some karmic corrections could happen immediately while others could take many years or lifetimes.  It depends on ones spiritual level.

For people who are in lower spiritual levels, the correction will take place over many lifetimes because they have lots of accumulated negative energies.   For people in higher spiritual levels, the karmic correction could take place within months or even days because they have less accumulated energy and instability. 
 
Just some thoughts.

Cheers,.

Sriram

All very nice but it is all just woo.  Well at least this part is woo :

Karma naturally works over many life times and not just over one life time

It is woo that does harm. 

In many countries, the people who most need help, disabled people, frequently are barred from the help they need, suffering the additional burden of widespread prejudice, and this prejudice has its roots in a popular belief in karma - people born deformed or disabled are merely getting 'what comes around', it is a consequence of their previous lives.  This is the ugly downside of entertaining superstitious beliefs - a simple homely 'what goes around comes around' becomes a justification for neglect and abuse when it is extrapolated into the woosphere.

[trippymonkey]

So WHY is anyone born with 'disabilities', damaged limbs etc when they supposedly never done anything to warrant it, in YOUR opinion??

[Udayana]

Careful Nick - asking unanswerable questions is bound to cause energy accumulation!

[torridon]

So WHY is anyone born with 'disabilities', damaged limbs etc when they supposedly never done anything to warrant it, in YOUR opinion??

Babies don't intentionally get born with birth defects, nobody chooses what parents to be born to or what the hormonal environment of mothers womb should be.  Birth defects run at around 6% worldwide in humans and as far as I know that is similar to most other mammal species. It is a perverse obsession with apportioning blame that sees these unfortunate individuals being blamed for the own bad luck.

[ippy]

That's a bit unfair Ippy.

Do you think that we should have another section on the forum, called "Sriram and Sparky"? It's purpose would be to allow discussion of ideas which do not fit into established scientific discourse. Sassy would bloom there.

If it's unfair to call a spade a spade Harrow, you must be right.

As for Sparks and Sass, taken in isolation they're not bad people; it's a tendency for them to pass on these crack pot ideas, with vigour, on to the next up and coming lot, this bothers me more than themselves as individuals but not so much as to cause me any loss of sleep.   

Fortunately every time I see the latest figures on the amount of relogioso's we have, at least here in the UK, they are exponentially on their way out.   

Regards ippy

[Udayana]

Obviously we are rapidly approaching the point, technically, where we can detect "birth defects" well before any birth, and so we ourselves could choose whether there are any people with birth defects or not.

hmm... would that be good karma or bad?

[Bramble]

Karma is basically about 'what goes around comes around'....'what you do will come back to you'. This is the reason spiritual leaders often teach people to be good, charitable and forgiving.

A rather obvious problem with this is that it assumes the 'you' of one lifetime is the same in some significant respect as the 'you' of another lifetime within the same karmic stream. It's difficult enough to locate an enduring self within a single lifetime. In what meaningful sense is some long expired blob from planet Zog now Rebecca from Dorking?

[Udayana]

Surely you can just decode and check the block chain encoded in the accumulated karmic energy? This is quantum entangled allowing instant transference from Zog to Dorking. Simple

[Sebastian Toe]

Karma s not really about tit for tat, as many believe. It is really about accumulation of negative  energies and imbalance....and the eventual correction.

Oh good.

Karma is basically about 'what goes around comes around'....'what you do will come back to you'.

That sounds an awful lot like a dressed up tit for tat though!


Just some thoughts.
ST 

[torridon]

Karma s not really about tit for tat, as many believe. It is really about accumulation of negative  energies and imbalance....and the eventual correction.

Straight out of the New Age guide to babblespeak.  Start with an undeniable common truism then use a few sciencey sounding words as cover for its unwarranted extrapolation into something utterly unscientific, hoping no one will notice the sleight of hand.

[wigginhall]

I think it works approximately for the individual.  I mean, plonk some negative stuff on a child, and you will often get consequences later in life, for example, they might treat people badly.   (However, they might not, so it's not predictive).  However, this other stuff is unwarranted, going from life to life.   As Udayana said, it's all quantum entanglement and action at a distance, with a liberal helping of  astral travelling.   I'm free!

[Udayana]

It sort of gets back to the point that a system that is not falsifiable is of little actual use. May be good enough to stop children misbehaving or help you feel better in bad times, but not much more.

[wigginhall]

It sort of gets back to the point that a system that is not falsifiable is of little actual use. May be good enough to stop children misbehaving or help you feel better in bad times, but not much more.

This is interesting in relation to the psychological therapies, which are not predictive.  You can't say, subject person X to such and such negative conditions in early life, and they will become a criminal or millionaire.

This is the basis of many criticisms of Freud, who over-hyped analysis.  However, one can lower one's sights, since therapy is not scientific, but more of an interpretive art.  Well, that is of course, just one view, amongst many.

[ippy]

Isn't this Karma idea supported by that religion that also has a belief in some kind of thing with a blue elephant's head and the body of a human?

ippy

[Sriram]

All very nice but it is all just woo.  Well at least this part is woo :

Karma naturally works over many life times and not just over one life time

It is woo that does harm. 

In many countries, the people who most need help, disabled people, frequently are barred from the help they need, suffering the additional burden of widespread prejudice, and this prejudice has its roots in a popular belief in karma - people born deformed or disabled are merely getting 'what comes around', it is a consequence of their previous lives.  This is the ugly downside of entertaining superstitious beliefs - a simple homely 'what goes around comes around' becomes a justification for neglect and abuse when it is extrapolated into the woosphere.

It is probably as much woo as Dark Energy or Parallel Universes.

It is basically philosophy and an attempt to explain life and its features that we can notice. Its obviously not physics that we can relate one to one and make accurate predictions. 

So...we should stop trying to put everything into the physics (exact science) mold. We must also stop confusing philosophy with religion.

As far as evidence is concerned, Ian Stevenson has done some work on this. ...and there are many observed cases in Lebanon (a muslim country).  People who have NDE's also often talk of reincarnation. 

[torridon]

It is probably as much woo as Dark Energy or Parallel Universes.

Grossly incorrect.

Dark Energy and the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics are products of science, not woo. Sometimes ideas are floated in science that are speculative in nature, that is normal.  But that doesn't make them 'woo', it just means they are speculative currently until some or other evidence is found to either confirm to falsify them.

[torridon]

It is basically philosophy and an attempt to explain life and its features that we can notice. Its obviously not physics that we can relate one to one and make accurate predictions. 

Can you name any reputable philosopher that takes ideas of karma seriously ?

Most philosophers take due account of the findings of science.  Science has shown that persons are not immortal, neither are geese or dung beetles or snow leopards; the only thing that is arguably immortal is energy and it is a sorry state of affairs when people disadvantaged by birth defects have to suffer the further humiliation of discrimination born of this 'philosophy'.  It's not philosophy, it is fantasy beliefs and superstition legitimising prejudice.

[SusanDoris]

Can you name any reputable philosopher that takes ideas of karma seriously ?

Most philosophers take due account of the findings of science.  Science has shown that persons are not immortal, neither are geese or dung beetles or snow leopards; the only thing that is arguably immortal is energy and it is a sorry state of affairs when people disadvantaged by birth defects have to suffer the further humiliation of discrimination born of this 'philosophy'.  It's not philosophy, it is fantasy beliefs and superstition legitimising prejudice.

Bravo - well said. How anyone can still believe in this utter nonsense is absolutely astonishing.
Could anyone seriously believe that, for instance, my sight loss was because of some misdeameanour or crime committed by someone in  the past? The reason why blood vessels clot at the back of the eye is becoming better and better understood and technology is coming up with new ways to overcome it. I would go so far as to say that to promote in any way the idea of karma is to be irresponsible.

[Sriram]

Can you name any reputable philosopher that takes ideas of karma seriously ?

Most philosophers take due account of the findings of science.  Science has shown that persons are not immortal, neither are geese or dung beetles or snow leopards; the only thing that is arguably immortal is energy and it is a sorry state of affairs when people disadvantaged by birth defects have to suffer the further humiliation of discrimination born of this 'philosophy'.  It's not philosophy, it is fantasy beliefs and superstition legitimising prejudice.

Since western people are normally completely ignorant of Indian/Eastern philosophers and philosophies.....by 'reputed philosophers', I expect you mean Western Philosophers!!

Try Schopenhauer and Jung!

[Bramble]

Bravo - well said. How anyone can still believe in this utter nonsense is absolutely astonishing.

He can't help it. It's just his karma 

[Sriram]

Torridon,

British people in general seem to be especially of the 'Zoom -In' variety.  More tuned towards details, materialism and empirical observation rather than metaphysics and spirituality. 

Almost all British Philosophers from William of Ockham to Hobbes to Hume to Bertrand Russel seem to be material philosophers interested in politics, economics, logic, language, empirical methods and such matters.   You don't find any metaphysics or mysticism.  More into details and less into the Big Picture.

Maybe that is why the British were good engineers and scientists......but even after 300 years of colonizing India they learnt nothing of eastern philosophy.  The Germans from Max Mulller to Schopenheuer were much better.   In recent decades even the Americans seem to be more capable of understanding Indian philosophies.

Maybe it is something genetic!!

[Aruntraveller]

I hope all you doubting Thomas's are being careful because:

Instant Karma's gonna get you
 Gonna knock you off your feet
 Better recognize your brothers
 Ev'ryone you meet
 Why in the world are we here
 Surely not to live in pain and fear
 Why on earth are you there
 When you're ev'rywhere
 Come and get your share

 Well we all shine on
 Like the moon and the stars and the sun
 Yeah we all shine on
 Come on and on and on on on
 Yeah yeah, alright, uh huh, ah