Reincarnation Illustrated

If you ever meet a Hare Krishna devotee pushing books on a street corner, this is the general picture you will get about karma and reincarnation, and the need to break free from the cycle of transmigration.

Here's  they forget to tell you when they are recruiting you into the ranks — until it's too late... Caveat emptor!

"I'm a tweet wittow biwd in a diwded cage; Tweety'th my name but I don't know my age. I don't have to wuwy and dat is dat; I'm tafe in hewe fwom dat ol' putty tat."

Tweety knows the deal, and this indeed becomes the natural position of a living entity in the Hare Krishna movement. Mind you, on this one I can really say that I've been there and done that!

The Banishment of the Watch-Maker

"You can't talk about karma without God, for every law needs a law-maker!" Or so I was told by someone who had read my earlier article discussing universal and Buddhist concepts of karma. Do we really need to have an intelligent designer for each and every minuscule aspect of existence, or does the world turn every bit as well without a cosmic architect?

Despite my sincerest efforts, it just didn't add up in the end.

Foundational Fallacy

It is quite meaningless for someone to just say that every law or principle requires a law-maker. A hypothesis employing deductive analogy is far from a conclusive standard of evidence. Analogy meaning the hypothesis that the principles of our human world would be identical to those of any second dimension, of which we may deduce that just as every law of human world is made by a human maker, so every principle in existence requires an intelligent designer.

Does this make sense? Is it logical? Of that, we have little evidence. Our experiences in the human world may be manifold, but the human world is not an archetype from which to derive and reconstruct any and all higher dimensions of existence. After all, in the human world all things come to an end, and grief is inherent in existence, but the supposed god and his domain are invariably in breach of these fundamental principles.

It is really rather naive to assume that our form of existence would be the only extant form of conscious life, thence creating the myth of how exceptionally rare a coincidence it is that we should exist as we do. This ill-assumed exceptionality again gives rise to theories of intelligent design, and culminate in concluding that the great intelligent designer must be akin in principle to those now considering themselves the created. Ladies and gentlemen, the anthropomorphic creator god is now seated on his throne.

Had god had a sense of humor, two plus two would equal five.

Self-evident Principles

When a man opens his palm holding an apple, the apple falls. Do you need a law-maker for that? The intrinsic properties of the variables bring about a certain conjoint effect by their own natures. Gravity exists in a situation where objects with mass attract each other. Where these conditions don't exist, the said phenomenom does not occur. We happen to be in a place where objects with mass attract each other, hence the apple invariably falls to the ground. Should we shift our location to outer space, for example, the apple would no longer fall owing to different coefficients.

You don't need a law-maker to decide whether 2+2=4 or not. The intrinsic values of two identical variables add up to a combined result of twice their value, automatically and without need for divine design or intervention. Everything is the way it is in the human world because the variables happen to be right for a particular variety of existence. In other conditions, the variables would either create a foundation for a different variety of existence, subject to the effects of the interacting variables, or none at all if their current synergy would be too weak to effect such, in which case they would remain latent pending a change in surrounding effectors.

Moreover, causes and effects require no will of their own to interact. Any given effect is the only possible outcome of the exact interacting causes in the exact environment of variables. Theoretically, knowledge of each intricate aspect contributing to a situation would give a passive observer, who knows the potentials of each aspect, the ability to foresee any given event or series of events with perfect accuracy. Advanced capacity in recognizing variables and patterns is what the ancients called omniscience, while omnipotence was the derived capability for intricate manipulation of variables to effect the desired outcome.

Why would you possibly need a watch-maker, a compassionate watcher, a passionate interventionist or a dutiful maintenance man for any of the above to function as it already does?

The beginningless dance of infinite co-efficent factors

Beginningless Redundance of Creator

The concept of an original law-maker-cum-creator is every bit as flawed in the light of Vedanta as it is before plain logic. The Brahma-sutra states that existence is anadi or beginningless. Beginningless by its very definition indicates that there has never been a dawn of existence where principles of interaction would have first been established, rendering the necessity for a god or a law-maker entirely redundant. If the wheel of existence has been turning without a beginning, the concept of an original creator becomes a paradox by its very definition.

The principle of causality, then, is a beginningless field of coefficient exchange requiring no designer or supreme intelligent coordinator for its functioning. Everything is in a constant state of flux, each factor in motion and shaping the other, two causes giving birth to a new effect that naturally follows. The momentum of each factor escalates its contacted surroundings, giving rise to infinite new causal chains, even as the sum total of energy remains constant. I call it the dance of the universe, as also the great weaving of cosmic fields. If there must be a god, let him be the symmetric caleidoscope of the universe.

Continued: The God Who Created the God Who Created the God »

Karma: Universal and Buddhist Interpretations

The word karma, in its simplest sense, means action. In a broader context, it features the causal relationships brought about by the action, likened to seeds awaiting to ripen in the future. Karma is generally understood as the sum-total of one's activities and their latent effects, weaving a complex causal web leaving even the wisest perplexed over matters of predetermination and free will.

The exact course and formation of causal relationships can be hard to decipher.

The concept has been broadly popularized in the West by Buddhist and Hindu teachers over the past century. The Buddhist tradition has excelled particularly in its presentation of the underlying ethics, while the Hindus, and in particular the Vedantic tradition, have done some interesting groundwork in estimating the subconscious mechanics of karmic ripening.

A comprehensive gloss on the treatment of karma in Buddhism and Hinduism, along with Jainism and Sikhism, the other two main dharmic religions, is beyond the scope of this article. In the following, I hope to first distill the essentials of what determine the nature of the effect arising from a particular cause, and then gloss the Buddhist ethical analysis of action and offence as applied in their old monastic code.

A number of universal factors affect the causal content of each action.

Universal Karma

Karma is the sum total of several variables instead of the outcome of a single factor. Cause here means all direct and indirect, often far-reaching consequences born from the action. First and foremost, karma is born of the desire and intent of the doer. The consequence befalling each action are defined, among others, by the following:

1) Intention. Was the intent positive or negative, good or evil? Was the act done impulsively, with contemplation or by accident?
2) Implementation. Was the act fulfilled in accordance with the intention, or to a contrary result? Was the good or evil act brought to a conclusion?
3) Effects. Are the factual effects of the act positive, negative or mixed, individually as well as collectively?
4) Object. Was the object of a good deed particularly wanting or without need? Was the object of an evil deed helpless and innocent, equal and neutral, or greater and evil itself?
5) Circumstances. Was the act done out of a real need, or whimsically? Was the doer in a forced situation or faced with a free choice?
6) Atonement. Did the doer of an evil act try to make amendments by attempting to correct its consequences? Was the repentance superficial or genuine?

We can all form examples of the above for ourselves, the principles ought to be clear enough. In examining the factual consquence of the act and its effect on its object, the collective effect of the transformation effected in the object, and the underlying intents, we all begin to fathom just how complex the network of cause and effect really is.

I would assume the above to be largely universal, and for the most part also applicable in a court of law as in ethical measurement, even if it is evident that analysis and interpretation of the variables involved is an inherently subjective venture. Religions have certainly all had their say on the matter, and particularly so among Indic religions, where extensive theories of personal causation have evolved.

Buddhist monks of Thai and Tibetan traditions gathered in Lumbini, Nepal.

In Buddhist Monasticism

The ancient Buddhist monastic rules (vinaya) make for a particularly fascinating read in this context. This owes largely to the excessively detailed and thorough philosophy of offense featured in the commentarial tradition, primarily assessing an offense against the criteria of motivation and implementing act. The system of Vinaya Pitaka doesn't discuss the variables of the offense with regards to its possible consequences; its sole intent is to judge whether an offense has occured, and if so, at which degree of severity.

There are four parajika-offenses or unforgivables for the Buddhist monks, committing which a monk is unconditionally exiled from the monastic community for the remainder of his life. They are as follows: 1) sexual intercourse, 2) homicide, 3) theft, and 4) exaggeration of spiritual status. These offences are applicable at this severity only while living as an ordained monk; should the monk for example be unable able to control his sexual urge, he may forsake monkhood and live in a relationship for as long as he wishes, and later in his life again become a monk. However, having sex while still ordained is unforgivable.

The monastic tradition, rich in its abundance of rules, naturally gives the bulk of its attention to these four severest offences. As an example, the tradition defines theft by four criteria:

1) Object: Anything belonging to another or a group of people.
2) View: The object is understood as belonging to another or a group of people.
3) Intention: One decides to steal the object.
4) Effort: One steals the object.

In the above, in absence of factor 2) no ethical violation has occured. (The object accidentally stolen must of course be returned once understood as such.) In absence of factor 3), where the thief has accidentally stolen an object he has contemplated on stealing, a full offense is not committed, neither is it in absence of factor 1) where the thief has stolen no-man's property or something of his own. Additionally the value of the object is in direct proportion to the severity of the crime.

Homicide, in turn, is judged according to the following criteria:

1) Object: A living human being. (Commentarial tradition includes featus here; the rule was born consequent to abortion medicines administered to nuns.)
2) Intention: To knowingly, with understanding, contemplation and intention wish to terminate a person's life. "Knowingly" also includes the following:
3) View: A perception of an object as a living human being.
4) Effort: Whatever may be done in order to terminate an individual's life.
5) Outcome: Life is terminated as a direct consequence of the act.

In the above, in absence of factor 2), for example in an accidental shot, no ethical violation punishable as homicide has occured. In absence of factor 3), for example in the accidental killing of an animal or another human instead of the object (not however if the other is viewed upon as the object), a full offense has not been committed. In absence of factor 4) a full offence has also not been committed, for the transition from will to action has not occurred. A death caused without intention, and thereby also without effort, does not lead to an ethical violation.

Those interested in the Vinaya-tradition may want to study Thanissaro Bhikkhu's Introduction to the Patimokkha Rules and Buddhist Monastic Code, freely employed in this article. In the latter, particularly the fourth chapter discussing the parajika-offences makes a thorough study of ethics, coupled with illustrative examples.

Continued in The Banishment of the Watch-Maker...

Transcending Guilt

The issue of being guilt-ridden is one of the heaviest and gloomiest facets of spirituality on many paths. In the theistic paths it takes the form of an external projection of conscience into a god-entity that oversees and forms ethical evaluations of our activities based on a given traditional standard. In non-theistic paths there is no "fear of god" per se, but in an ego-serving pursuit of spiritual materialism the spiritual ego is enthroned as the deity in slavery to which our puny lives are led.

There is however good and evil beyond the psychological distortions caused by either of the above two views, a sense of objectivity. There are wholesome and unwholesome activities, activities conducive to our and others' peace, welfare and happiness, and activities counterproductive to the same aim. Yet in this, there is no inherent psychological guilt distortion — you are your own master, and in the end only you alone are responsible for your activities. Not only that, but really it is only you yourself that you need to face with your decisions — your puny life really doesn't mean anything to anyone else in the end. And in the end of ends, it won't matter even to you...

Growing to this awakening, initially shocking and explored with a great sense of dare, was a great sense of relief for me. Literally, it was as if I had breathed fresh air again after living for a decade in a stagnated, dark basement. There was no longer any "employer" or "master" — there was just the free I, there to act as I will, in knowledge that I bear the good and bad results of my activities myself alone.

I alone am responsible, and I have a free choice. If I choose to engage in unwholesome activities, I will experience suffering in the future, while wholesome acts will lead to happiness. I can, however, choose to act in unwholesome ways if I am willing to bear the burden. I am free to do wrong, if just for the sheer experience, knowing the harmful effects of the activity on the body and the mind, both conscious and subconscious, something to confront with responsibility and integrity, seeing the causal bondage inherent in all activity.

The absence of an ultimate, lasting overseer gives you a great deal of fresh airy space to live in. It's just about you and your destiny. Period. And in the end, when the ephemeral and transitory nature of the ego-entity is understood, there is even no self before whom we would suffer from a sense of guilt. There is only the ever-present here and now, the focal point of experience. At this point, acts tend to automatically be geared towards the wholesome, being that they are in harmony with the natural flow of the universe, the imposing and friction-generating ego-agent having been dissolved.

Of course it's good to always retain a healthy inner imperative and a sense of integrity in our lives. In the interim, in reaching higher levels of enlightened existence, we should be — for our own sake — cultivating wholesome activities that lead to the purification of the mind, to freedom from greed, aversion and the myriads of delusions that condition us. But if you slip around or fall, there's no metaphysical entity with the powers or the right to issue judgment. There are just the mechanics of nature. And that's all there is.

And experiencing this open, spacious quality of nature sans ego is the heart of all spirituality. The deities and the rest are just so many cherries on the cake, present but without any real impact on the nutritional value of the food. It's deeply psychological in the end. Implode and introspect, get back to the basic elements of your psyche and your existence.

Wallowing in self-pity and feelings of guilt, we invoke a gloomy, darkening sky above our heads. There is little benefit in this in terms of empowering you with the mental factors necessary for progressive spirituality. Let go of the dark skies, let go of the gloom pervading your being. Expose yourself to the sunshine, to the wide blue skies. Fly and fly, higher and higher, glide across the majestic sky. Be you that eagle.