Karma: Escapism or action?

Neeraj Saxena

Just chanced upon how The Skeptic's Dictionary describes Karma. Now, almost two decades ago while undergoing my journalism training, I was taught to be a skeptic. Though I must admit I have never been a good skeptic, I do feel the days of skepticism in journalism itself are numbered. It is rare to come across journalists who ever doubt what they are being dished out. Many a times I have wished those of my tribe would poke serious holes in everything. But then, that has its own pros and cons. Just like almost everything in the world has a number of ways of looking at it!

But The Skeptic's Dictionary (See http://skepdic.com/karma.html) completely trashes the theory of Karma, without the writer even making any serious attempt of reading deep about it. I guess that’s why I feel skepticism can be a double-edged sword in absence of complete knowledge of the matter.

Karma has a component that is known as ‘Purusharth’, or the Karmic action that one must do as duty and one which can shape and alter the destiny completely. Nevertheless, this post on the Skeptic's Bible made for interesting read.

While I have nothing against disbelievers of the principles of Karma and Reincarnation, I sincerely wish they would do a more serious digging of the Hindu Purans and Upnishads, even Vedas, before jumping to conclusions. Of all the religions, Hinduism is among the most complex also because it has evolved what Hindus know as Sanatan Dharma and comprises practices, literatures and practices that do not flow from a single source and a single time. The spiritual power of Indian saints of yesteryears is legendary. Even the powers of many a modern-day Gurus need not be retold.

“Karma is a law for sheep. We should not wonder that the shepherds advocate it. It is a law for the passive, for those who will not disturb the status quo, who will accept whatever evil is done as "natural" and inevitable. Karma is a law for slaves, for the vanquished.”

The skeptic author of this comment has obviously seen Karmic principles from a very skewed viewpoint, perhaps out of ignorance. As I said, Hinduism is complex and it is not easy to understand the matters of Karma, birth and death with a straight-jacketed vision.

“On one level, karma serves to explain why good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. The injustices of the world, the seeming random distribution of good and evil, are only apparent. In reality, everybody is getting what he or she deserves. Even the child brutalized by drugged adults deserves the horror. The mentally ill, the retarded, the homosexuals, and the millions of Jews killed by the Nazis deserved it for evil they must have done in the past. The slave beaten to within a breath of death deserved it, if not for what he did today, then for what he did in some previous lifetime. Likewise for the rape victim. She is just getting what she deserves. All suffering is deserved, according to the law of karma.”

Strange are the ways of death indeed. Those, of course, are not the only examples in horrific deaths and sufferings. There are many, many more which have happened over centuries and continue to take place. But no, all of that cannot be brushed as taking place due to collective or individual past Karma. The concept of free will within Karma is loud and clear. You only have to read deep, not go by some quickfix 200-word explanation of the theories of Karma, and call the wheat from the chaff.

“Despite the fact that there could be no evidence for a metaphysical belief in karma, the idea of karma is popular among many in western cultures where it has become detached from its Hindu roots. The theosophists, for example, believe in karma and reincarnation.”

Why then has it become so popular? Because people want to be passive and escapists? That can’t be farther from reality because man is not known by nature to be passive, or an escapist.

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