A fatalist or analyst, you would gain an insight
While the concept of ‘Karma’ is hard to define and confine it within boundaries of thought, a forthcoming event will attempt to present it in varied manifestations and stimulate healthy discussions.
‘Veda Festival, scheduled to be held on Saturday, June 23, 2018 between 2 pm and 6 pm at Unitec Campus (Building 115, Gate 4), Carrington Road, Mount Albert, will hopefully explicate how Karma influences all living beings and draw parallels between cause and effect.
Organised by Chinmaya Mission New Zealand (CMNZ), the Programme has the benefit of speeches and presentations by a cross-section of the resident population of varied dispositions.
The Programme
CMNZ Trustee and Auckland Executive Committee President Ram Lingam said that the Programme will begin with a Keynote address (by this Reporter), followed by a Panel Discussion on ‘Good Karma, Bad Karma- how does it work?’
“Among those on the Panel would be Venerable Amala Wrightson (from the Auckland Zen Centre), Swami Karma Karuna (Anahata Yoga Retreat, Golden Bay, South Island) and Swami Aparokshananda (Chinmaya Mission, Melbourne) and Venerable Ajahn Chandko (Vimutti Buddhist Monastery, Bombay, Auckland) through video recording,” he said.
Workshops and Meditation
Mr Lingam said that thereafter, two Workshops will be held concurrently.
Swamini Amritananda of Chinmaya Mission Nelson and Acharya Pundit Ajay Tiwari (of Auckland) will conduct workshops respectively on ‘Karma and Health,’ (with guided meditation ‘Karma and Afterlife.’
Swami Atulananda of Chinmaya Mission in Auckland will do a Presentation on ‘Karma de-mystified’ at the main Lecture Theatre.
The Programme will conclude with Reflections by speakers and participants.
The Karma Theory
Jonathan Haidt, a trailblazer in the scientific study of the psychology of moral sensibility and judgement, says that Karma simply means action.
“Every action has consequences. Conscious choice-making is the most effective way of creating future consequences of Karma. Karma creates the future, but it is also an echo from the past. Karma conditions our soul through memory, desire and imagination. Most people are prisoners of Karma, because it becomes a conditioned reflex and produces predictable outcomes in their lives.”
The Hindu Thought
Followers of Hinduism and Buddhism would agree and say that Karma is the result of deed or action, not necessarily undertaken in this birth.
Karma Yoga, also called Karma Marga, is one of the several spiritual paths in Hinduism, one based on the ‘Yoga of Action.’
To a Karma Yogi, right work done well is a form of prayer.
It is one of the paths in the spiritual practices of Hindus, others being ‘Raja Yoga’ (Path of Mind and Emotion Control), ‘Jnana Yoga’ (Path of Knowledge) and ‘Bhakti Yoga’ (Path of love and devotion to a Personal God). The three paths are not mutually exclusive in Hinduism, but the relative emphasis between Karma Yoga, Jnana yoga and Bhakti Yoga varies by the individual.
Karma Yoga
Karma Yoga is the path of unselfish action. It teaches that a spiritual seeker should act according to Dharma, without being attached to the fruits or personal consequences.
According to spiritual leaders, the Bhagavad Gita purifies the mind.
It leads one to consider the Dharma of work, and the work according to one’s Dharma.
Lord Krishna says, “Everyone must engage in some sort of activity in this material world. But actions can either bind one to this world or liberate one from it. By acting for the pleasure of the Supreme, without selfish motives, one can be liberated from Karma.”
Karma in the West
Karma (like Dharma) has entered the English and other lexicons and hence is subject to different interpretations, which according to scholars, is the essence of Hinduism – that each, according to his or her vision reserves the right to question. “There is no such thing as blind faith in Hinduism; you have the right to question and seek the truth.”
Mr Haidt says that Karma is not an exclusively Hindu idea.
“It combines the universal human desire that moral accounts should be balanced with a belief that, somehow or other, they will be balanced.”
In 1932, the great developmental psychologist Jean Piaget found that by the age of six, children begin to believe that bad things that happen to them are punishments for bad things they have done.
Mr Haidt and Ms Piaget would perhaps agree on the ‘Positive side of Karma,’ which propounds that “Employees who work the hardest should be paid the most.”
Positive and Negative Karma
Everyone agrees, but conservatives agree more enthusiastically than liberals and libertarians, whose responses were identical.
And here is a statement about the Negative side of Karma: “Whenever possible, a criminal should be made to suffer in the same way that his victim suffered.”
Liberals reject this harsh notion, and libertarians mildly reject it. But conservatives are slightly positive about it.
Spiritual Law
According to one interpretation of Karma as mentioned in the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, Karma is a Spiritual Law and is equivalent to Newton’s Third Law of Physics, which says, ‘For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.’
“In Sanskrit, Karma means ‘actions’ or ‘deeds.’ Good Karma brings good result and bad Karma brings bad results. Everything that you think, feel and do is recorded in the cosmic hard drive. As time progresses, the data are retrieved, and result of those data are calculated and gradually manifested in life.”
