What Goes Around, Comes Around: Clarifying Karmic Misconceptions
A few weeks ago, I shared an introduction to reincarnation from a non-dual perspective. Now, let’s dive into another fundamental (and often misunderstood) concept from yogic metaphysics: karma.
What Karma Is
“Karma” derives from the Sanskrit root kri-, meaning “to do, act, or make.”
Most simply, karma is the universal law of cause and effect.
In the teachings of classical yoga and Buddhism, every action creates an imprint or “seed” at the most subtle level of the mind. These “seeds” persist from lifetime to lifetime until eventually ripening, and you experience a mirror image of whatever you did in the past.
As with reincarnation, once you accept consciousness as the root cause of material existence, the notion of an intelligent give-and-take with the “external” world is nearly obligatory. Everything we do, even on the most subtle level of thought and intention, sends ripples into the conscious medium of the universe, and sooner or later, those ripples echo back toward us.
Although most associated with Eastern religion, similar teachings exist in other traditions, including Christianity—compare St. Paul’s saying that “whatsoever a man sows, that also he shall reap.” (Galatians 6:7-9)
Karma is a vast topic. At the moment, however, let’s address some of the most common misconceptions around karma and hopefully illuminate some of its workings at the same time.
What Karma Is Not
- Karma Is Not Destiny
Amidst his presentation of karma, Patanjali states, “Future suffering can be avoided.” (Yoga Sutras 2.16)
“Fate” or “destiny” implies an inevitable outcome, arriving at the same point no matter which path you take.
Karma represents a set of potentialities that may or may not come to fruition in your lifetime. It is more like probability than fate.
Everything you have done in the past has generated a set of karmas. Some of them are highly likely to manifest based on the particular configuration you were born with and what you have expressed up until now.
For example, simply being born as a human means that you have a certain set of humanity-related karmic seeds in your bank. It indicates that possibly you have the karma to get married, have a root canal, become a famous actor, or reach Self-realization. These options would not be available for this life if you were born as a horse or a mayfly, though you might still possess those karmic seeds in latent form.
Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
Choices turn into habits, which become patterns that shape the contours of our lives. When we live inside our mental programming, it can seem very much like forces outside our control are pushing us around.
But with more awareness, you can see how your psychology leads you into repetitive scenarios. Like water flowing through a carved track, whenever you unconsciously choose the same route, it will dig the groove deeper and make it harder to change course. (Harder but not impossible: once you bring awareness into a repeated pattern, it will be a little looser and easier to shift out of when it next recurs.)
Karma is more subtle than psychology, but it moves somewhat in the same way. Unconscious actions create self-perpetuating loops, as we tend to react to events with an energy similar to the events themselves. These cycles will carry you further in that direction until either some underlying karma burns itself through or you awaken to the situation and shift consciously into a different mode of reaction.
- Karma Is Not Reward and Punishment
A quote of unknown origin, usually falsely attributed to the Buddha, states, “You will not be punished for your anger but by your anger.”
If you drop a stone from the top of a building, it will fall to the ground. It isn’t a punishment for the stone, simply the working of a natural force.
Like gravity, karma is morally neutral. It has no motive and passes no judgment. It functions the same everywhere and for everyone.
If you harm others, harm will come to you, not as a punishment but as a reflection. Karma is a wonderful teacher because it shows us our own tendencies through their results, while they would otherwise be very difficult to see.
- Karma Is Not a Reason Not to Help Others
“Well, it’s her karma. She just has to deal with it.”
Have you ever heard someone say something like this? This sentiment is a perfect example of how a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You may hear it from an immature spiritual seeker with a needy friend or, on a larger scale, as a justification for caste-based discrimination in Hindu societies.
When someone is suffering, it is their karma, yes. But for you to see them suffering is your karma. If you neglect to help them (or at least to try), that indifference is now on your hands.
It’s true, people need to work through their processes and find their own way out. You can’t push someone beyond what they are ready to learn, nor are you the best judge of what they should learn and how fast they should progress.
Still, you can always be present and available, and look for ways to support that person through your heart’s intuition rather than mental ideas.
- Karma Is Not a Value Judgment
Related to the amorality of karma, having a lot of good or bad karma in this lifetime doesn’t mean you’re a good or bad person. It’s just the particular arrangement you have to work through in this incarnation.
It is difficult even to say what constitutes “good” or “bad” karma.
By the classical Tibetan definition, “good karma” is karma that results in a pleasurable experience, and “bad karma” results in suffering. However—and both Hindu and Buddhist traditions emphasize this—having a lot of good karma is not necessarily a good thing!
Good deeds without wisdom, such as religious piety or being very charitable from a sense of “me” and “other,” create the conditions for material enjoyment without spiritual progress.
You may enjoy a comfortable life, wealth, success, even be born in the realm of the devatas (demi-gods), where you are surrounded by unimaginable luxury for thousands of years, but with all of that, you don’t think to look for God.
A little misfortune, on the other hand, is a classic impetus toward truth-seeking.
The greatest suffering of all, the root of all suffering, is our illusion of separation from God. Good karma, therefore, is anything that brings us closer to the Truth, anything that causes us to turn towards the Beloved—no matter how it expresses on the material plane.
Each of us in this human incarnation (or any other) has a unique karmic configuration—a “karmic predicament,” as Ram Dass used to say, meaning we have a unique degree and quality of separation that we are meant to resolve.
We have all passed through countless lives. We have within us the karma of saints and murderers, mothers, fathers, warriors, leaders, subsistence farmers, artists, and beggars. Why do certain impressions rise to the surface in this lifetime while others lie dormant?
No one can say. It is part of God’s inscrutable creative process, fermenting ever-new formulations of circumstance to draw us closer to Him.
Oscar Wilde was not recorded to have said, “Be yourself because everyone else is taken.” Nonetheless, it is an excellent and accurate statement. The elements in your life might be common, but the stark individuality of their arrangement and particularities remains. This soup is yours alone.
The Self Is beyond Cause and Effect
Ultimately, who we are is beyond karma. The eternal Self is untouched by these fluctuations, these turnings of the wheel of samsara. In the blazing purity of the Present Moment, no one is there to create karma, and no one is there to experience it.
After declaring the avoidability of future suffering, Patanjali continues: “The cause of that which is to be avoided is the absorption of the Seer in things seen.” (Yoga Sutras 2.17)
When consciousness is absorbed in external objects, identified with limited factors, karma is generated that perpetuates the illusion of separate existence, and suffering is the result.
When consciousness turns back towards itself, the chain is broken.
Naveen is a Hridaya teacher and a frequent contributor to our blog. You can read all of her posts here.
