Karma

And Human Suffering

Karma is a zero-sum prison called Samsara

If we don’t know why we suffer Then, what good is Karma?

Long before the arrival of Gotama the Buddha — clearly in the Vedas and the later Upanishads — Karma was an accepted fact of life (and death). You lived, you acted, you died, you were reborn based on your good vs. bad tally of the life you just left (along with the accumulated totals from all previous lives as well, i.e., those deposits that had not already sprouted and played their part in boosting or thwarting your survival).

Here I stop for a wee while to think, to imagine the complexity (and storage capacity) of the database that would track all my thoughts, words, and actions (yes, all three nodes/zones are recorded as Karma — which, as a word, means action — to later influence your life) over uncountable lifetimes is to attempt to imagine the utterly unimaginable.

And to further imagine that this database holds not only my many, many lives but all lives in the universe (for as many, many) is to imagine the even more unimaginable.

But Karma is now Hindu and Buddhist Gospel.

The practical Christian on the other hand took one look at Karma and simplified it, thus: God keeps tabs on us all, and, of course, his infinite memory capacity and divine eye for detail, does this no problem at all, He is God after all. And He will see to it that we get to where we deserve: heaven if good, hell if bad, purgatory if He needs a wee think about it.

Hindus and Buddhists deal directly with the database — if indeed it exists — for most Hindu and Buddhist life battle plans consist mostly in trying to amass as many Karma brownie points as possible and a few bad ones as ditto to make sure of a good (profitable, pleasant) rebirth next time around.

So, say Karma exists, and I’m not saying that it does not, surely this amazing piece of cosmic software must be maintained by someone(s) or something(s)? It stands to reason, does it not, that it would be. Would have to be. Software always needs maintaining (unless this is God’s perfect work, of course). There must be Keepers of this data vault, of the engineering feat of the ages.

But here’s my quandary. If Karma was created to keep us well behaved, how come it’s invisible, not taught in school, not lectured upon at major universities, not reported upon by newscasters the world over, not serving as the major beanstalk of all life, everywhere, officially. For if we don’t know about it, and I mean know about it, what good does it do? It would be like finding ourselves in a game that we cannot leave and whose rules we cannot know.

I mean, really?

It’s like suddenly: one strike: you’re out.

What? Since when?

Since always.

I do not see any difference between such a game and prison, except, of course, in prison you do know the rules.

Ask your heart, says the virtuous.

Follow your instinct, says the mystic.

Kill or be killed, says the lion.

Eat each other, says God.

I mean, really?

Design something that’ll keep them too busy to worry about getting out. Yeah, I can hear it now, that would have been the marching order (issued by whom, though? I wonder).

Will do, said the engineer(s) (surely it took more than one, unless, of course, we’re back to God’s doing again) and drew up the blueprints for Karma.

Inspected and approved (again, by whom? I wonder) they set about coding the thing, and then alpha and beta tested it over a few million years working out the bugs (some smaller than others) to finally, a long time ago now, launch it for public consumption: Karma (the primordial Facebook).

The slogan at the time: If you can find your way out of this, you win.

Really?

We must have been bored beyond spiritual belief to have fallen for this ruse. But listen we did and fall we did. Too busy now staying what we all lovingly think of as alive.

I’d like to take one or two of these engineers out back and have a few words in private; unless, of course, that would generate bad Karma.

© Wolfstuff

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