The Hindu concept in respect to karma is much different than the Occidental concept divulged by spiritism and spiritualist groups. With the Judo-Christian influence, rich in the notion of guilt and sin, in the Occident karma has the configuration of something extremely bad, that you should pay with suffering.
For Hinduism, karma is only a law of cause and effect; it is of the genre “spit while looking straight up and you will be spat on.” The pure law of karma is simply mechanical and not spiritual. It isn’t even moral. Furthermore, it is independent of any reincarnation related or even theistic fundaments. It refers to a mechanism of nature itself. In fact, it is a type of potential energy that is very distant from the fatalism that we attribute to it.
To exemplify the flexibility of this concept in India, we can cite a parable that compares karma to an archer with his arrows. Karma has three stages: First, comparable to the moment in which the archer has his bow resting and his arrows resting in his back. Second, you have the stage in which the archer puts an arrow in the bow, pulls it back and points it at a target. Third, there is the stage where the archer releases the arrow.
According to this comparison, as much in the first state as the second, the archer has absolute control over karma. Even until the last second, he can direct the arrow at a different target, pull the bow back more or less to give the arrow more or less potential, and can even decide not to shoot. This corresponds to the dominion of two-thirds of karma, which is very reasonable when compared to our concept of inflexible destiny over which we have not control.
Beyond this, whatever might our karma be, the liberty that we have over the ways of fulfilling it are very elastic. The sensation of restriction or being impeded comes much more from our own reticence to change and from the inertia of people, rather than from the law of cause and effect itself.
It is as if the fulfillment of karma were a transatlantic journey. You are inevitably steering yourself to your destiny, however, you can take advantage of the journey in many ways. You can complete its course relating poorly or well with the companions of your journey. On board, you will have the right to sunbathe, swim, read, dance, practice sports and date. Or, you can complain about life, the monotony, the smell of the ocean, the rocking of the boat, the cabin service, the size of the cabin, the seasickness … All will arrive at their destination, one way or another. The only difference is that some will have a great time during the trajectory while others will suffer. This depends entirely on the temperament of each person, not on karma. This is the true concept of karma. The rest is a guilt complex.
However, if you want to complicate things more, we can add that there exist two laws that act on our lives: karma and dharma. Because spiritualists do not know this difference, they confuse the two and end up attributing qualities to karma that are not inherent to it. Karma is a universal law and dharma, a human law, be it judicial or religious or of other natures, from the place and time that the individual is living. Karma is neither temporal nor spatial. The same rule is applicable to an atheist of the 21st century, to a Muslim of the 15th century, to a Roman centurion, or a pre-historic troglodyte.
However, the dharma of each one of these examples is very specific because it was determined by the customs of its time or place. To live well, in health and happiness, it is necessary to be familiar with these forces in order to obtain harmony between them, especially in the many moments that they conflict. There are circumstances in which dharma determines that you act in a certain way and karma, another. For example, dharma orders you, in times of war, to kill, while karma prohibits this in any circumstance. How do you act? There are many solutions. One of them is to serve the military as a nurse. This dissimulative maneuver is also applicable in our day-to-day lives.
Karma is not a moral law because morals are temporal and change all the time. Dharma is a moral law because it is based on customs.
Article writen by Marcello Oliveira, Instructor of SwáSthya, The Ancient Yôga and member of The International University of Yôga.
