To expect life to treat you fairly because you’re a good person is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you’re a vegetarian.
Apparently the fellow who wrote this doesn’t believe in karma. That doesn’t mean we can’t be good people anyway.
June 11, 2015
No, he most decidedly does not know anything about Karma. Yes, we now have the free choice to be good in our thoughts and behaviour. The effect of those causal thoughts and actions will fructify sometime in the future, not necessarily in the current life. Current status, benefits etc are all the effects of past thoughts and deeds, again not necessarily from this life’s past. Karma is a very subtle cause and effect phenomenon, difficult to pin down.
He knows a lot about what karma is, he just doesn’t believe it. Karma means there is some justice in the universe, and that clearly doesn’t happen in one lifetime. One needs to add the concept of reincarnation, heaven and hell, or some other reward-punishment system for it to work.
I have a quote saved with the photo of a beautiful lion.
It says something along the lines of expecting the world to be fair because you are fair is like expecting a lion not to eat because you wouldn’t eat him.
I saved it to remind myself that a lion is a lion and how you can’t change that and that it’s just who they are. Oh sure, maybe you could tame them but that lion instinct is still there and when it springs out and kills you, well you really shouldn’t be shocked, because it was a lion after all.
I remember this because it’s my own nature to be fair and kind and not to be hurtful to others but I work with lions. Although lions might be too kind of a description….
OK, I work with snakes who take joy out of wrapping themselves around others and squeezing the life out of person and biting them in the back of the head as they do so.
So, I’m not thinking about karma. Sure, I hope karma gets them eventually but I also think that karma is already in action. Truly how can these snakes be happy? They are so busy trying to figure out how to slither up on people that they are missing out on the little things.
Little things like puppy breath, sunshine and kitty purrs.
I try to focus on those things, and not let them squeeze out my own sense of fairness and kindness. I watch the ground and I’m careful of the “tall grass” and step carefully.
They might view me as weak but I carry my “garden hoe” with me in my heart and I will pull it out and whack them into pieces if they threaten what is dear to me.
Hmm, I guess my garden hoe is karma.
😀
I agree with you. The best strategy in a case like that is to lead your own life and be happy. What is your boss like? How many people work there? Do you have to interact with the snakes much or are you in a different area? As I recall, you’re hiring a new person who seems nice. Will you interact with her much, or will she be working different shifts so you have more time off? I love your art and hope you will have more time to do it!
When I’m a good person, I feel good. I’m bad –I feel bad(ly). Or am I good because I feel good? I don’t know.
I’m still only 85% good. 😀 (Not 15 % bad. That would be like the half empty cup. 🙁
Tom is 100% good & feels 100%. OMG he’s so perfect, I can never be like that.
I get grumpy when I’m tired & I over did it. Lydia says to me “Give yourself a break.”
OK I also exaggerate. I’m good 97%.
BTW I don’t believe in Karma one bit.
Oh My. Of course Karma works. Be nice to people & they’re nice. And if they don’t have a smile, give them one.
I smiled at first, then began thinking the quotation was more and more mysterious. What’s karma to the bull, for ex? Let’s see, being a bull in this life must mean it did a lot of good things in a previous life, maybe as an ant. And now, as a very good bull, it’s destined for even greater glory in its next life, esp. if it tramples the vegetarian. It’s like a fundamentalist of one religion murdering someone from another religion on the grounds that they’re evil/ i.e.different. Does murder in that case count as a plus in the karma awards system? To the fundamentalist, it’s an unquestioned good, God wants it.
I’m being silly in a way, but also a bit serious. What does it ever mean to follow the good one believes in, or was created by nature to do? What an amazing idea, that good and evil can somehow be understood and balance out. Well enough understood so that some ultimately achieve nirvana.
You might want to read the Bhagavad Gita. As I recall the warrior Arjuna has doubts about fighting and killing because his enemies are also his relatives, friends, and teachers. He turns to his charioteer, who happens to be the god Krishna, who tells him he has to do his duty as a warrior and prince and get in there and fight. Not my cup of tea, I’m afraid.
I’m more inspired by the Dalai Lama: “My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” It’s a lot easier on my poor little brain.
Very true I think. I don’t believe in karma either (too many nasty things happen to nice people and too much good fortune comes to nasty people).
Yes, one would have to believe in an afterlife. It sounds as if you don’t believe in one either.
Well, an afterlife I don’t know about.
I don’t believe materialist empiricism can adequately account for our experience. Which opens us that (and much else) as a possibility.
I’ve never had a sense of contact with someone who has died. Others have. But how this experience is made sense of leads to many large and interesting questions.
all fascinating comments!
i too choose the dalai lama. the rest will work itself out. for good or bad.
and as shakespeare or somebody like that said… ‘good or bad only thinking makes it so…’
and as the marine believes and was taught in the corps…
“nobody promised you a rose garden!”
LOLOL. truer words never spoken! 🙂
I still remember my mother being in a bad mood once and instead of being sympathetic when I hurt myself, she said, “If that’s the worse thing that ever happens to you, you’ll be darned lucky.” That wasn’t her usual reaction, she was usually good about sympathy and bandages, but I never forgot it. I thought it was a wise thing to say. 🙂
I have to agree with Evan about not believing in karma. Nice things happen to nasty people all the time – and vice versa. The idea that karma is all very long-term and you’ll only see the effects in an afterlife is a bit too much for me to swallow. I do believe in an afterlife but not necessarily as a human being. I might turn into a butterfly or a rose bush. Or just a bundle of energy floating through the cosmos.