I have been pondering karma. In different guises karma is said to be the law of cause and effect, or perhaps what goes around comes around. It has a popular, almost superstitious, version as when a friend finds herself in a difficult situation and says, "I must have done something wrong to deserve this!" It comes in impersonal guise when karma is thought to be the way the universe works, as in Newton's third law, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." That's just the way the world works. Karma is found in all the world's religious traditions. It comes in theistic guise when god is thought to be the dispenser of karmic effects, as when the stern father says to his naughty son, "If you continue to do bad things, god will punish you."
The Jewish prophet we now know as Trito-Isaiah (scholars tend to divide the single book called Isaiah into three, at least) had a more sophisticated version of theistic karma than the stern father. He said:
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
Notice the "if-then" nature of the prophet's words. If you do such-and-such a thing, then such-and-such a thing will happen to you. In all versions karma is of this type: "if-then." The "then" will happen if you fulfill the condition of the "if."
In some popular versions of Christianity the "if-then" is used in this way: "If you give your money to the church/mission/evangelist/healer, then you will get rich, or god will bless you, or you will be happy." In its more crass versions this kind of religion becomes just another way to make money. Karma becomes a threat, or a reward, or a gamble. But someone profits.
In other versions the karmic effect is found not in getting rich now, but getting rich in heaven. Karl Marx, among others, noted that this was a very useful karma for the wealthy. You can get the poor to do a great deal for you, if you promise them a reward in heaven for all their hard work. It's no wonder that Marx considered religion an opiate for the people. Life is tough for the poor workers. But you can dull their pain by promising them riches in the by-and by.
There is clearly truth in karmic cause and effect, in natural consequences, but it can be misused and abused.
For the Jewish prophet the best kind of life was one lived in accordance with the grain of the universe and not against it. The grain was imprinted in nature by god. If you lived against god's grain, then there would be natural bad consequences. If you live with god's grain, then the consequences would be good for both you and all that you touch.
Karmic ideas have their uses: Parents use natural consequences to teach their children life's lessons; behavioral psychologists (now out of fashion) used rewards and punishments to change behavior; states uses karma constantly in their myriad laws to ensure reasonable civic life. We would be foolish to ignore karma, pretend it is not so.
But karma is not the highest road. The ancients said that "virtue is its own reward." Ancient Chinese sages called this living with the grain of the universe the Dao, the universal way. You do not follow the Dao simply to get what you want and to avoid what you don't. The Dao is a good in itself. You love goodness, seek truth, and appreciate beauty not for any utility. You love god not because of what god will give you, but because god is the supreme good.
And then there are those good things that happen to you which you don't deserve—completely unmerited kindnesses. In Christian theology that is called grace. It runs counter to karma. Grace too is woven into the way the universe works. Can grace and karma exist together? It seems that they do. How can it be? I honestly don't know. That is something to ponder another day.
+Ab. Andy
Posted with Blogsy