Inner Work

For the week of April 14, 2008

Karma

In the normal course of life, the consequences of our actions and of our non-actions teach us responsibility, which then entails foreseeing those consequences. However, for many actions we cannot foresee their repercussions. Those situations can tempt us into irresponsible and wrong actions. For example, another driver is rude to me on the highway. Expecting no consequences, I make an obscene gesture at him. It appears to cost me nothing. Indeed it feels good, just, and righteous, a healthy release of anger and stress. But the truth lies deeper. Every intentional act and every intentional non-action when action is called for, create karma, known in the Christian tradition as sowing what you reap and in New Age circles as “what goes around comes around.”

But what is karma and is it real? This physical world we occupy is full of uncertainty. Quantum physics reveals a universe built on probabilities. Furthermore, the physics of complex systems shows that the large events of our world are influenced by the smallest of conditions, so that life-sized complex systems are inherently unpredictable, the probabilities unknowable. Through these large and small causal gaps, karma acts to shift the probabilities of our life, to change the course of our future.

All our intentional acts create karma, thereby shaping our future. Karma is our self-initiated influence on the unknowable factors that choose our future from among the infinitely-many possible events that could occur. The law of karma is Justice in the garb of Newton’s Third Law of action and reaction operating in the realm of probabilistic causality. Science cannot yet prove the law of karma, nor disprove it. The clear existence of causal gaps in the fabric of our world at least makes the law of karma rationally plausible.

All that is not to say there are no accidents. There are. And not every disease is the result of karma. Yet karma exists.

So how do we know karma exists? We watch and observe our intentional actions. And we see what comes to us out of the future into our present. At times we can intuit the connection. Maybe another driver, a week later, makes an obscene gesture at me — or worse, causes me a near accident. Or maybe a stranger is unexpectedly rude to me in a public place. I am best positioned to see my karma at work, for only I can truly know my intentions. We each can see it for ourselves.

Karma covers our positive actions, as well as the negative. Selfless acts of kindness dispose our environment to deliver the same back to us. Current efforts can create a better future with more possibilities, for example by acquiring an education. The key determiner of karma is our motivation and our intention, because they emanate from and embody our will. That will sets in motion the hidden patterns of karma that shape the events of our life.

In petitionary prayer, we trust that God can stack the cards that determine what emerges out of the ongoing uncertainty and complexity of our life in the natural world. By acting in the light of karma creation, we help stack those cards ourselves.

Karma can even apply to our intentional thoughts. This does not mean that unintentional, associative, random, or reactive thoughts create our future. Thoughts are just thoughts; intentions matter. So we need not fear our thoughts per se. But the thoughts we strongly agree to, the thoughts we align with may create karma. For example, if we inwardly adopt an unsympathetic attitude when someone painfully stubs their toe, we may end up later suffering the same pain ourselves. Through our own suffering karma teaches us compassion and motivates us to clean up our inner house. We might notice those unsympathetic thoughts and ignore them rather than aligning with them, or intentionally think sympathetically instead.

Karmic events do not always relate one-to-one with our prior actions. A pattern of behavior or groups of actions may combine in unpredictable ways to influence the events of our future.

When we first begin to understand the reality of karma, the fear of certain retribution descends on us. We avoid wrong acts to avoid their consequences. We may do right acts to invite their positive consequences. In both cases our right actions and non-actions stem from mixed motives containing a dose of egoistic self-seeking. Nevertheless, by living that way, in greater awareness of our actions and motivations, we eventually come to love doing the right thing for its own sake, for the clarity of conscience, for the fulfillment of our obligations as responsible people, and for the peace of heart it affords us. Thus an experience-based understanding of the law of karma can guide us up the spiritual path of pure-heartedness.

Ultimately we may reach a spiritual station where our actions and non-actions do not arise from self-centered motives, but rather as appropriate and compassionate responses or acts of creative service. In such states of freedom, we do not create karma for ourselves, for we have transcended our self. But we may create a positive influence on the world around us.

For this week, notice the unexpected events of your life, large and small, and see if they somehow correlate with karma you previously created.

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