Karma is not Justice

India seriously a weird land, to understand it, or even get the feeling that you are understanding a bit of it, would be a very bold statement. I don’t remember who said it, but described it precisely, “Anything you say about India, the opposite is also true”. Thats based on modern experience, and when we add a continuous cultural existence of over nine thousand years, it all becomes way too much to handle in one life time.  One would expect  to be aware of the sheer collective wisdom it has accumulated, but exactly opposite is true. Despite India being an ancient civilisation, we hardly know the meaning of principles and the underlying ideologies that India introduced to the world.

Most of our own philosophy has gone to the West and returned to us with Abrahamic colours. We learn our own philosophy with western logic, which will never lead to any realisation. Think this as eating roti with fork or chopstick and wonder why one would make such an odd food item which is hard to eat with fork/chopstick.  As logical logic sounds, logic can never help nor lead one on the path of liberation. Generations (over the last 1000 years) accepted the dominance of logic and are attempting to understand core Vedic philosophy through the logical lens, struggling and stumbling but going nowhere. Perhaps Einstein’s logic might come here handy, one should not expect different result doing the same thing over and over again.

Take the logical concepts, Justice and Equality, which we all hold dear. But have you ever given a thought to what these values are? What do they even mean? Justice is a vague, abstract idea. Can a thief imprisoned for, say, ten years for stealing one kilogram gold be considered as Justice? Can a life sentence for murdering someone be Justice? Or can forgiving the thief or the murderer be okay? What is the basic understanding of all this?

Hammurabi wrote an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth as law, intending the Sense of Justice. Thus arose the concept of punishment to serve Justice. This works when a crime, defined by society, occurs. Punishment gives rise to the idea of forgiveness. Many debates have spawned from the see-saw-natured relationship between punishment-forgiveness. This sense of Justice is limited to humanity; what about Justice in the animal kingdom. Simple Suffering is the only grievance.

The Vedic philosophy remains just to this concept, all there is, is Suffering, there is as such no justice. Look at what Pandavas had to go through to establish Dharma. Despite the perceived good act, they lost their progeny. Ram destroyed the trans-universal villain Ravan, ushered in Ramrajya, and yet suffered the painful separation from his wife. Where is the Justice?

Vedic philosophy nowhere uses this concept of Justice. For Justice, we need an ever prevailing almighty. A God (a doctrine) is necessary to impart Justice; he needs to define what is wrong, what is deemed correct, and so forth. Vedas never enter the path of declaring anything right or wrong. It comes up with a complex concept of Karma.

Our generation conflates Karma with Justice. As if Karma is some entity assigned the duty of settling scores. Colloquially this entity has a form, as they say: Karma is a Bitch.

However, in its Vedic roots, Karma is never Justice.

This misconception has led us to believe that Chitragupt imparts Justice to souls by assigning them Hell or Heaven. This oversimplification is laden western thought. At its core, Chirtagupt can best be described as an accountant. A bookkeeper who tracks a person’s Karmic balance sheet. If the credit/debit statement is zero, a soul has a balanced Karma and is deemed fit for liberation. Any imbalance, the soul has to go through another cycle of birth and death.

And here is a prime example of the deceptive nature of Karma. Even when we simplify Karma as a balance sheet, we fail to grasp its complexity. A lay mind would immediately start to think that any debts in the balance sheet need a repayment. But Karma doesn’t work that way.

Here is a simple example. You give alms to a beggar. This action has two consequences, one, you committed a good deed. Two, the beggar is indebted to you for your help. When the time comes, you are rewarded for your good deeds; you get your deeply desired car as a reward. Your good deed got balanced with a prize, but your Karmic balance sheet is still not zero. It will not turn zero until the indebted beggar pays off their debt to you.

The example must have widened your scope about Karma. Just think about the multitudes of people you have interacted with. Each interaction has created Karma that needs balancing. By now, you must have figured out that one life is not enough for attaining balance. Hence, re-birth and Karmic philosophy go hand in hand.

All Indian traditions, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, grapple with the idea of Karma in their own way. The Wheel in our flag symbolises the Karmic cycle of birth and re-birth. Each tradition tried to analyse Karma from a unique perspective. Can we say which one is right or which one is wrong? Rather, do we have the capacity to make any such definitive statement! We Don’t.

However, this is certain, None of the Indian traditions try to box Karma into the concept of action and consequence. They do not see Karma as a mechanism of Universal Justice.In a simple action and consequence system, you control your good deeds, and you may control your rewards for it. But, like in our example, who controls the beggar, when does the beggar pay off debts to you?

Hopefully, you have understood that Karma is not simple. And any system that emerges out from a Karmic belief is never straightforward. To understand Karma takes many lifetimes. So the next time someone advises you to do a certain pooja to get the next job, be a bit skeptical.