The Law of Karma is very important in many spiritual schools. It’s a very potent weapon in the arsenal against skeptics to ward off unnerving questions. The most important being why good people suffer badly?
Today I was reading about shifting goalposts in the excellent book Human nature after Darwin by Janet Radcliffe Richards which spoke about bringing in a totally different (seemingly related but actually irrelevant) concept to ward off the questions.
Example :
A: You are parking in a No-parking zone. So, pay the fine.
B: The human mind is always curious and tries and experiments transgression. So for impulsive acts of human mind, I cannot pay the fee.
Now B is completely shifting the goalpost and this would not make A’s specific argument meaningless. But it will allow B to commit all traffic violations without remorse.
Consider this argument:
A: God exists. God is omnipotent, omniscient. He’ll protect you.
B: Why bad things happen to good people?
A: It is because of Law of Karma. People should suffer for their bad karma.
Now this explanation of Karma is like Dan Denett’s universal acid. An acid so strong that it dissolves everything, even the container itself. So where will you hold such an acid? Similarly the law of karma is so potent that it dissolves A’s first stand itself. If you should anyway suffer because of Law of Karma and God wants you to do that, what is the point in praying to God in those difficult times? In other words, here God himself plays the role of Descarte’s evil genius in making those bad karma guys suffer. So what’s the point in praying?
Again Karma theory is also a strong insulation for predictors. Let’s say an astrologer predicts that a business will go good for you. But in future it fails. Now the predictor can safely say that it either failed because of your past karma or failed because after you had started the business, you had acquired some bad karma.
Now two schools of spirituality that I have come across (ISKCON and Isha Yoga) preach about law of karma. And the ideal state of mind as per both the schools is akarma. You should transcend the dualities of good and bad karma. That’s because even for enjoying the fruits of good karma you need to be in this ‘material’ earth, take rebirth etc. The way to reach this state is the famous but elusive “non-attachment”. The presumptions of the karma theory stands on two pillars – the existence of a soul outside the body and rebirth. Two very dubious and shaky pillars. At this point I’m not taking the psychological or physiological benefits that may arise by following the two schools. I’m just out of doubt raising questions about the ‘other’ gyaan these schools give.
Good post, as always. Some impressions of mine -
1. I think the idea of shifting goalpost is commonplace in day-to-day decisions at personal level. Picture this: A is a diabetic.
A: I want to have sweets today. B: But you are a diabetic. A: But I did not have sweets for whole of this month.
So, A is trying to justify his action, in other words, ‘Rationalze’.
I also agree with the fact that karma can be (mis)used as a proxy for consequences – good/ bad.
2. Going further, in my opinion, your argument ‘God exists. God is omnipotent, omniscient. He’ll protect you’ and therefore ensuing reasoning about ‘utility of praying’ appears fallacious.
3. Regarding predictors using karma theory, you might like the post http://noenthuda.com/blog/2009/11/18/moron-astrology/ which gives some ‘econometric’ flavour to the whole idea.
4. Finally, regarding the observation that ‘karma theory stands on two pillars’, rebirth is not necessarily the factor (‘Prarabdha karma’ and ‘Sanchita karma’).
Hey Shreyas,
Deep thoughts…
No astrologer can predict how a business will do. Reason: which horosope (planetary positions) would they use to do so? Is it the owners or the business (yes even it has a horoscope)? If the business has multiple partners then what happens? And even the best astrologers cannot predict this as there are multiple interpretations possible.
Taking a step back, the reason that the person goes to the astrologer is because the business is not doing well. Now when the astrologer says it will do well, he might go back happy and be hopeful. I think it is this hope that the person is buying from astrologer. If it turns out to be good, it is definitely not because that astrologer told so. He is not a wish granting person. However if it does not do well, how can the astrologer take responsibility? For economic reasons he has to shift it to some other reason for continuing his business
These are some of the thoughts I had on reading the article, especially the piece on astrologer.
@Hareesh,
Thanks for the comments. Good to see you following this section of my writing
1) Utility of praying and A’s argument is just a sample theist stereotype I wanted to depict.
2) Regarding the Prarabhda and Sanchita Karma – According to my limited understanding, these are just types of Karmas. Sanchita is your net cumulative karma including all your previous births.(Obviously rebirth is taken for granted). Prarabhda is that part of Sanchita karma which you must go through or work out in your present life. Karma theory falls apart without the assumption of rebirths.
@ Badri: +1 on your observation