What the Law of Karma actually means for Hindu followers

The Law of Karma is one of the two mechanisms alongside the Law of Reincarnation in the Hindu system of religion used to enforce Dharma, which is one’s duty or ‘right action’. Most people have a muted view of karma. In movies and TV shows, karma is used as a term to mean “what goes around, comes around”; simply that whatever you do will come back to you. If a character in a movie harasses a fast food employee and then their car breaks down, the audience or the movie itself may call that Karma. This view has some credibility in the Hindu religion and it taps into the aspect of Karma being a Law of the Universe. As Hinduism is a pantheistic system of religions, all things are God and as such all things (i.e. the Universe) must be governed by itself. However, popular culture both in the West and culture in the East has failed to understand the true weight of the Law of Karma.

To understand what the Law of Karma actually means for humanity, we need some background. Firstly, Hinduism has a concept called the ‘Atman’. The Atman is the eternal soul of a living being and this atman transcends any mortal body that it possess. Reincarnation allows the same Atman to possess a new body for another life. One Atman, many lives. The key here is understanding that the Atman is eternal and uncreated. Like the conception of a ‘First Mover’ God from St. Thomas Aquainas being uncreated and eternal, all things in the Hindu understanding are as such. Because of this, Karma is attached to the Atman and not the body. Second, the Law of Karma must be thought of as a currency system in so far as doing one’s Dharma adds more ‘good Karma’ to one’s metaphorical bank account and not doing one’s Dharma adds more ‘bad Karma’. Third, the punishment in Hinduism is reincarnation itself and it’s determined by the Atman’s account. Like credit or debit, at the end of a given life of the Atman, if their account has more good than bad karma, they obtain Moksha, the liberation from the endless cycle of birth and rebirth. If not, they are reincarnated to try again once more.

People wrongly underestimate the implication of Karma, obfuscating it for a mystical law that tips the scales based on our actions in the present life. Rather, the Law of Karma governs the scales of one’s eternal life as the Atman. This means that in a person’s present life, they are not simply balancing the scales by equalizing their good Karma with their bad Karma, but working off the debts of all their past lives as well. Knowing that the Atman is eternal, it is likely that at any moment in time, a given individual is responsible for the bad karma incurred by millions of past lives. Krishna, a reincarnation of Vishnu and one of Hinduism’s most revered gods, remarks in the Bhagavad Gita that he has had millions of “so-called parents” due to the millions of past lives his Atman has undergone. Being a human in the cycle of reincarnation adds an additional challenge to this Law. Unlike the animals who are devoid of a moral consciousness and cannot be faulted with “beastly” behavior, we are responsible for all our actions and thoughts. A squirrel is hard-wired in many ways to do what a squirrel does, thus fulfilling it’s Dharma. But, what exactly is it that a Human does? It is from this question that spawns many responses from Hindu scriptures and Krishna himself to give followers not only system of reward and punishment, but also the ‘way of life’ to best achieve Moksha in this instance of their Atman’s life. Yet, it doesn’t rid a true followers bleak realization that he has inherited sins he never committed from lives he never knew.

“What goes around, comes around, ” is an overly simplified view of Karma and misses the weighty implications it has for a follower of the Hindu faith. A Hindu must be confident in their ability not only to balance the scales for their own bad Karma, but for all the lives he’s lived, unknown to him.