Clarifying the Idea of Karma

The notion of karma is widely accepted at present.  The problem is, our popular understanding is quite different from the notion of karma as it was originally conceived in Hinduism and Buddhism.  Additionally, while contemporary Christians may use the word karma, the traditional Christian conception is somewhat different.  Personally, I suspect there are elements of truth in both conceptions, and that neither the Hindu/Buddhist nor the Christian concepts are fully accurate.

The popular idea behind karma can be summarized in the familiar saying, “What goes around comes around.”  Basically, this refers to the everyday understanding that all actions have consequences.  Both the Hindu/Buddhist and the Christian concepts of karma agree on this point.  Beyond this agreement, they diverge.

The Sanskrit word, karma, literally means action, deed, or work.  Originally the word karma referred to ritual actions, often without any hint of a moral dimension.  Over time, however, karma begin to carry both moral and causal connotations.  In addition, Hindus developed the notion of the transmigration of souls.  This meant that the consequences of one’s actions today might be played out in a future lifetime.  

Over time, the notion of karma evolved into a kind of cosmic accounting system.  Thus, when a person did something good, a mark was made in the ‘Plus’ column.  Conversely, when someone violated an ethical standard, a mark was made in the ‘Minus’ column.  

Over time, many of these Eastern schools developed this understanding further.  They posited the notion that intention is an important factor in this kind of accounting.  Thus, a negative or a positive action that was deliberate and intended carried more weight than an action which was incidental or inadvertent.  Of note, we find this principle embodied in our current laws.

In my experience talking with Buddhist teachers, they say that our popular understanding of karma is very different from its Eastern roots.  In their understanding, there is no self-existing soul that travels from lifetime to lifetime.  Instead, there is an ever-changing aggregation of karmic consequences without any personal memories or identity.  Thus, in their view, our present fascination with past-life regressions is simply fantasy.

Of note, I was a member of the Association for Past-Life Regression and Therapy for several years at the start of my psychological career.  Typically, the membership of that group acknowledged that their work could be explained by a number of very different hypotheses – including the fantasy hypothesis.  That being said, it was also quite clear that past-life regressions were very therapeutic for many of their clients.  What actually happens during these sessions is still an open question.

I suspect that we will develop more empirical information on these questions as our science explores these unknown depths in the human soul.  In my first class in seminary, our professor, Dr. Edward Hobbs, suggested that we create a box in our heads much like the inbox or outbox on an executive’s desk.  Instead of ‘In’ or ‘Out,’ he suggested that we label the box, “Awaiting Further Revelation.”  I put matters like this into such a box.  You might consider doing the same.

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Our contemporary Western experience with the idea of karma revolves around the notion of “cosmic justice.”  Typically, people use this idea without the implication of reincarnation or multiple lifetimes.  This, I think, shows the impact of traditional Christian thinking on these very Eastern ideas.

Christianity affirms the notion that our actions have consequences, and thus we all bear full responsibility for our actions.  This is embodied in both the Jewish and Christian scriptures in multiple places.  In Hosea 8.7, for example, we hear, “They sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”  In Galatians 6.7, we hear, “Whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”  These passages clearly affirm the moral principle that our deeds, both good and evil, have clear consequences.

That being said, traditional Christian theology qualifies this with several important additions.  First, there is no implication that the consequences of one’s deeds in this life carry over into future lives.  Christians typically do not believe in reincarnation or the transmigration of souls.

Second, there is the important qualification that it is God the Father who sits in the final judgment over all, not just some kind of impersonal accounting system.  While Christians acknowledge cause and effect, they add the notion of grace and forgiveness.  Thus, even monsters like Hitler may, at God’s discretion, be forgiven their many and horrible sins.

Third, traditional Christian theology understands our journey in this life, not as an accrual of merits and demerits in some sort of cosmic accounting, but rather as the transformation of our sinful nature through both works and God’s grace.  Thus, for many Christians, there is a very personal interaction between God and the soul that is quite different from the rather impersonal system of karma as it has been developed by the Eastern religions.

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So, what are we to believe?  Let’s start with the agreements between East and West.  It seems to me that when we find any agreement between these very different systems of belief, we can put a great deal of trust in them.

Both East and West agree in the notion that our actions have consequences.  In addition, they agree that our intentional actions, both for good and ill, have more weight than casual or incidental actions.  We do indeed reap what we sow!

In addition, both the East and West agree that the soul continues after the physical death of this body.  While the East believes in an almost endless progression of lifetimes, the West affirms that there is only this lifetime and we will be judged by God after our death.

Thus, we see that the major divergence between Eastern and Western thought has to do with the transmigration of souls.  So, what does science have to say about this difference?  Here is where things get very interesting…

We need to begin by acknowledging the many and conflicting points of view that science brings to this matter.  I have neither the time nor the inclination to explore all of these perspectives today.  That being said, I do want to share a scientific perspective that I find persuasive.  Quoting Joseph Selbie,

Over the span of the 20^th and now 21^st centuries, branches of physics have produced an astonishingly vast and predominantly nonmaterial view of the cosmos, a cosmos of which our enormous physical universe is only a tiny part.  Current theories in physics (and) quantum theory… relegate our physical universe – which is essentially organized energy held in stable patterns – to be a small, self-contained, three-dimensional energy “bubble” in a virtually infinite two-dimensional ocean of energy – what I like to call the energy-verse.

Physicists are not alone describing a much larger, nonmaterial cosmos beyond the physical universe.  Saints, sages, and near-death experiences have also described heavenly worlds of pure energy: luminous, nonphysical realms that permeate our physical universe.

The saints and sages arrived at this view through transcendent experience.  Physicists arrived at this view because they have been forced to conclude, for a variety of reasons (to be explored in future newsletters), that the measurable matter and energy in our universe cannot fully explain why the universe behaves as it does.  Any mathematical model that includes only the universe’s visible matter and measurable energy in its equations simply doesn’t “add up” to the actual behavior of the universe.

-If Joseph Selbie.  The Physics of God. New Page Books. 2021. p 51.

Selbie goes on to say:

We inhabit simultaneously our local three-dimensional physical bodies and our nonlocal inter-penetrating, two-dimensional energy bodies.  When we feel our life force, our vitality, we are feeling the subtle energies of our interpenetrating, nonlocal, two-dimensional energy bodies.  Our local, three-dimensional physical bodies are the holographic projections of our nonlocal, two-dimensional holographic energy bodies.  Our two-dimensional energy bodies are the source of most of what we experience as ourselves – our awareness, feelings, motivations, memories, and life energy.  -p 133

I know that I am dumping quite a basketful of new ideas on you.  I promise, I will explore these ideas with you in future newsletters.  What Selbie is saying is that the best minds in science appear to be hypothesizing that we exist in two very different ways.  First, we exist as the three-dimensional physical person you know as yourself.  This apparently real person, however, is actually a holographic projection of a two-dimensional energy body, which is the second way we exist.  

Thus, if I understand this correctly, we exist as both a physical body and as an energy body.  The physical body dies, but the energy body does not; it continues to exist and manifests a long succession of physical bodies.  

If this is accurate, then both the Eastern and the Western spiritual traditions are both correct and incorrect.  They are both correct and agree that something – the self – persists after the death of the physical body.  The East misunderstood this as a transmigration:  apparently there is nothing that migrates – the ‘soul’ (aka energy body) has existed all along and continues to exist after the physical body dies.  The West’s misunderstanding revolves thinking that, in death, we are judged and then ‘sentenced’ (my word) to a relatively permanent place – heaven, hell, purgatory, limbo, etc.  

This is a lot to take in, isn’t it?  When I started writing about karma, I had no idea it would take us to this place.  For now, I would encourage you to sit with these data and just let them percolate for a while.  

I would also encourage you to read Selbie’s book, The Physics of God.  It provides a thorough summary of much of the recent research in physics and quantum physics.  I am always amazed when I read the recent research in these areas.  Basically, there seems to be a growing consensus among physicists that matches or integrates with the understanding of the great spiritual teachers from all of the major religions.

I find this convergence both exhilarating and validating.  For most of my life, 77 years to date, science has been in opposition to religion and spirituality.  Scientists have typically held that spiritual knowledge, which comes from interior exploration, in large part is vastly inferior because it is subjective.  Atheists and agnostics have hammered religious views by claiming they are based on subjective, rather than objective data.  Now we are seeing the physical scientists acknowledging the importance of these subjective data.

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I hope that this newsletter has answered some of the questions you might have had about karma and its implications.  I also hope that our brief foray into the physics of God has stretched your minds a bit and left you somewhat uncomfortable.  There is much that we still have to explore and I look forward to sharing with you in future newsletters.  For now, remember to meditate daily, for that is the clearest means for our spiritual transformation.  If you are new to our newsletter series, please refer back to our archives for traditional Christian methods of meditation.

With love,

P.S.  Several of you have expressed the desire for an online meditation class.  If there is enough interest, I will try to figure out how to hold a group class on the web.  If you have an interest, please write me at [email protected]. 

Humility as a Tool  → Letting go → Fear → Openness →  Acceptance & Growth

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