Karma never loses an address.
What goes around comes around and what comes around goes around.
In the dance of life, every action has a corresponding reaction of the same magnitude. For each give, there is a take and a tit for every tat.
Such is the rule of life.
Like an ouroboros, life is cyclic and everyone gets what they dish. This idea of cosmic retribution keeps people going. It makes good people feel justified in the “good” they do and keeps a lot of undecided people from tumbling into the bad side of things. Like a thread, this belief in karma and karmic justice runs like a thread across different religions, irreligions, and schools of thought:
Actions are like boomerangs; you give what you get
Do unto others what you want to be done unto you
You get what you deserve and what you get, you deserve
Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness (James 3:18)
Let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9–10)
Whoever seeks good finds favor, but evil comes to those who search for it (Proverbs 11:27)
Heck, a couple of lines in Beyoncé’s “Best Thing I Never Had” points to it:
“What goes around comes back around (hey my baby)…You turned out to be the best thing I never had…sucks to be you right now…”
I think the idea of karma is laughable. Remember how our parents used to come up with funny narratives (that we believed hook, line, and sinker) to help us conquer our fears and insecurities? That’s exactly what I feel the idea of karmic justice is; a puerile concept forged to satisfy our longing for justice.
We live in a matrix and for every matrix to prosper, there are a lot of constructs to support it. This is where concepts like karma, religion, and the law of cause and effect, and so on come into play. And from an early age, we are indoctrinated into believing this.
When the school bully beats you up, you believe he would get what he deserves. That later in life, you will be the owner of a promising tech startup and he ends up as a taxi driver.
When your asshole of a boss puts you down, you bear it because he will one day reap what he sows.
When your partner cheats on you, you believe they would get what they deserve. That one day someone would break their heart into a million pieces just like they did yours and they would look at you with your happy life, successful career, and now-toned body and regret how they treated you.
This idea of karmic justice is what most fairytales are based on. Cinderella suffers for so long and gets rewarded for her sufferings with marriage to the Prince and a rich life. Her stepsisters and stepmother get nothing. The Evil Queen dies a horrible death after all she does to Snow White. On the other hand, as a result of the goodness of our moribund Princess, she gets awakened by true love’s first kiss and rides into the sunset with her Prince.
I understand the purpose of the whole concept of karma and how it maintains order in the world. However, I dislike the whole concept of expecting cosmic justice for three major reasons:
1. Karma and Transactional Goodness
Human nature is inherently transactional. People rarely ever do things for the heck of it. We unconsciously, subconsciously and sometimes consciously look for benefits we can accrue from any action or decision we make. This phenomenon can be seen in areas like love where we choose people that make us feel happier (benefit) or look accomplished (another benefit). This can also be seen in our career choices where we choose professions we are passionate about (benefit) or that bring us financial freedom (another benefit).
This help-you-to-help-me mindset trickles down to our everyday life where a lot of us don’t see the point of being good unless it comes with a reward.
Acts of philanthropy lose their appeal when they are not accompanied by praises, retweets, and reposts on Instagram.
Add Karma to the mix and the innate transactionality of our nature become more obvious. People begin to do good not for the sake of being good or because they should be good but rather because of some cosmic reward and the accumulation of good karma. This effectively defeats the major purpose of being and doing good.
2. Steady Diet of Hope and Karmic Amnesia
I feel the whole idea of karma was formed to put people in check to prevent “good” people from actively pursuing justice themselves. Someone punches you in the face and you turn the other cheek because…karma. It makes sense and at the same time, it doesn’t. It keeps people in this state of constant wanting and hoping and actively prevents them from moving on.
Life is almost always never cyclic. The way I see it, life is painfully linear. Bad people hurt good people. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people sometimes.
The end.
There is no karma waiting to pay them in their own coin. You’d be awfully disappointed if you hold on to this because bad people do prosper and reap good fruits they did not sow. The way I see it, it is better and less toxic to accept that bad things happen to good people sometimes and move on. There is no divine retribution or cosmic justice in the works waiting to give your story a Disney-esque ending, love. You’d be in for a huge heartbreak.
That ex of yours will probably find someone as good as or better than youin every sense of the word (and that’s ok)
That shitty boss of yours will make partner (and that’s ok)
That bully might later become a renowned doctor. (and that’s just peachy)
When this happens, a lot of people see life as unfair. It gets worse when everything is going wrong with their life. This is why a lot of people lament when bad things happen to them. “I am a good person,” they say, “this shouldn’t be happening to me.” Karma is a scam that always seems to have amnesia. Life owes you nothing for being a good person. In a reiteration of the previous point, you should be good because it is the right thing, not because you expect cosmic brownie points.
From a Christian point of view, Karma is as fleeting as a mirage on a hot day. I know there are many verses in the bible to support the existence of karma and the reaping of what you sow. Now, imagine the said bad person truly repents. All their “bad karma” is erased, effectively breaking karma’s cycle.
3. The Arbitrariness of Occurences
The universe operates on a very unpredictable set of rules. Bad things happen to everybody, regardless of whether the person is bad or good. So the fact that sometimes bad things happen to bad people doesn’t mean it is karma, fate, or divine justice at work. Conversely, good things can happen to anybody irrespective of where they stand on the moral spectrum. This has absolutely nothing to do with karma or how good they’ve been. That’s just the way life is.
So what are your thoughts?
Why do you (not) believe in karma and cosmic retribution?
Originally published on Medium.
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