The word karma is often used by aspiring spiritualists, and why not, karma makes sense. Let’s look at the ancient Vedic texts of India, where the idea of karma originates, and what they have to say on the subject.

First let’s look at, “Why do “bad” things happen to “good” people?” Well, the simple answer is karma and reincarnation. Suppose an innocent looking little kid is regularly picked on at school by a bully. According to the law of karma this seemingly “bad” act is occurring because the “innocent” child bullied other small children in his previous life. Karmic law is perfectly just and infallible. The child that is getting harassed was placed in that particular situation by universal law of justice. So the child’s punishment is not bad, it’s just, and the child isn’t completely innocent; it is guilty of similarly rude behavior that he had committed in a previous lifetime.

Secondly, this child under discussion is not a child at all; it is an eternal spirit soul who happens to be in a human child’s body in this lifetime. We as spirit souls are placed in different bodies, on different planets, at different time periods, and in various pleasant or unpleasant conditions all based on our previous actions, or in other words our karma. If one has a beautiful or an ugly body, if one lives in hellish or heavenly circumstances, if a person is rich or poor, it is all because of one’s karma.

“Life is eternal, love is immortal, and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.” – Rossiter W. Raymond

According to the Vedic texts, one important concept we should live by is complete forgiveness. This idea that we can and should forgive everyone comes from understanding the law of karma. If someone wrongs us it is because we have wronged someone else in a similar fashion. A cosmic force greater than both, us and them, has directed them to cross paths with us and deliver our karmic reaction. So the advanced transcendentalists forgive everyone for every offense, because they know that they are getting only what they deserve and nothing more. If it wasn’t one person giving us the reactions to our bad karma, it would be someone else. So if we retaliate or try to get revenge when people upset us, then we create more bad karma that must be paid for later.

A possible misunderstanding is, if everyone is getting what they deserve, then shouldn’t we let them get what’s coming to them and not feel compassion? … I have done things in the past that I wish I hadn’t. I would want a spiritually advanced person to have compassion on me, and help me to better myself.

One question you might have about all this is, “If a person is directed by karmic law to punish us, then are they just robots being completely controlled?” The answer is no. We all have free will, so the person who is mean to us was probably in a bad mood that day and was just looking for someone to take it out on. We happened to be nearby, and happened to have the karmic reaction of someone being rude to us coming, so we and the person in a bad mood crossed paths. If a person desires to commit any bad or evil act, there is always someone who deserves such a punishment nearby. However, this is not a license to be mean and say “Well, they must have had it coming to them.” Since we have free will, if we desire for a victim to be brought to us, even if higher powers made the arrangement and the person deserves it, we still have to pay for our bad behavior. We can choose at any time to stop behaving badly, and then we won’t be used to deliver other’s karmic reactions.

Another possible misunderstanding is, “If everyone is getting what they deserve, then shouldn’t we let them get what’s coming to them and not feel compassion?” Well, I would say that we all have behaved badly at some point in our life. I know that sometimes I snap at people, and I have done things in the past that I wish I hadn’t. I would want a spiritually advanced person to have compassion on me, and help me to better myself. Compassion is one of the main characteristics of saintly people from any tradition, and the Vedic texts recommend that we develop feelings of compassion for other living beings.

Forgiveness is the answer to the child’s dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again. – Dag Hammarskjold

Unfortunately everyone is forced to suffer or enjoy the results of their karma from this and previous lives in this lifetime, but even if there is some enjoyment there will inevitably be some suffering also. The Vedas tell us that there is no pure happiness in the material universe; that we shouldn’t dabble in karma, whether good or bad, at all. The solution is to become transcendental to material karmic law altogether. When we serve the supreme spiritual cause instead of our narrow personal, family, or national interests, then we transcend the material plane of existence and its karmic laws characterized by concentrated and extended selfishness. If one is a Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, or a member of any spiritual tradition, one is advised to seriously follow the universal scriptural injunctions from their particular tradition, about what to do and not to do. I personally follow the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most known and important Vedic texts, which clearly explains how to transcend material consciousness. However, whatever tradition one may follow, if one cultivates forgiveness and compassion and lives for a higher spiritual purpose, one can stop the chain reaction of karma forever.

From ancient mystic scriptures to the smutty tabloid pages in the drug-store check-out line, you hear the word a lot these days — “reincarnation.” What is it, anyway?

Simple: After you die, you get born again in a different body.

Sounds kinda wild at first, maybe. But if you sit down and give it a fair think-over, you’ll see the logic of it.

The last article explained how you are not the body.

Understanding this, you can easily get a grasp on reincarnation. Remember that experiment, comparing your baby pictures with the baby face that confronts you in the mirror? You saw two very different bodies, but they both belonged to one person—you.

You used to have a tiny infant’s body, now you have a mature body, and someday you’ll have a wrinkly body. Somehow, you’ve been imperceptibly changing from one body to another as time passes by. From here it’s not such a gigantic leap to understanding reincarnation. Just as we change bodies throughout life, we also change bodies at the time of death.

It’s a bit more drastic, but it’s the same basic principle.

How it Works

You’d be surprised how many people belive in this kind of thing. But few have a clue as to the details of how reincarnation works. The ancient knowledge of the Hare Krishna movement, however, explains the subject exhaustively. We’ll just give you a quick summary of the essentials.

First of all, we’re not simply a self in the body. We’re a self in two bodies: a physical body and a mental body.

The physical body is that familiar thing made of flesh and blood and stuff like that. The mental body is formed of the three subtle elements known as manah (mind), buddhi (intelligence), and ahankara (false ego, or conditional identity).

At death the mental body and the self get kicked out of the broken-down physical body. The mentality carries the self from the physical body to the next, to fulfill the hopes and desires of the mind, intelligence, and false ego.

The Purpose of Reincarnation

All right, in a weird way it sounds pretty reasonable and convincing—but what’s the purpose of the whole thing? You get born, you die, you get born again, you die again… What’s the use of it all?

Yeah, it is pretty dumb to get born and die over and over again. But sometimes desires and dreams overthrow our better judgment and we do dumb things. That’s basically how we got involved in this cycle of birth and death to begin with.

Desires and dreams impel us to build our hopeful sand castles of material happiness — which are smashed flat again and again by deathly waves in the ocean of time.

The purpose is to learn the lesson that finding any lasting satisfaction in this costume-party world is hopeless. The whole idea of self-realization is to stop reincarnation, to stop taking off and putting on bodies, to halt the endless parade of masks marching before the forgotten face of the soul.

The frustration of reincarnation is to give us the hint that the fulfillment we seek can only be found by waking up our long-dormant perpetual identity, the true self, who lives outside the avenues of time, beyond the borders of birth and death.

Doubt: If I really have lived past lives, I should remember them.

Answer: I have serious trouble remembering what happened yesterday. Five years back things become a dim haze. Memories of my early childhood are practically forgotten. And my birth is entirely unknown. Is it really such a surprise that I don’t remember previous lives? I can’t even easily remember what I ate for lunch last week!

Doubt: OK, this is like “Karma”. Right? I suffer or enjoy because of what I did in the past. That’s supposed to teach me a lesson and gradually move me toward self-realization or something, right? Well, my question is: What good is it for me to be punished or rewarded for something in a past life that I don’t even remember doing? How is that supposed to teach me a lesson?

Answer: Suppose you rob a bank and get caught, convicted, and locked up. Then one day you get in a fight and bang your head. Bam! Suddenly you can’t remember who you are or how you got into jail. But then your cellmate tells you, “Hey, man, you robbed a bank. You belong here.” Now it all makes sense, and if the system works (which admittedly it rarely does) you’ll learn your lesson, and when you get out you’ll go straight.

This whole world is also a sort of a jail. Ultimately, we’re all on death row, and in the meantime there’s plenty of bad stuff that happens to us—like diseases, wars, getting ripped off. If we’re smart enough to ask “Why?” and look for the answer in the right place—such as the ancient books of wisdom called the Vedas—we’ll understand that it’s because we screwed up in our last life. Instead of working toward self-realization so we could stop reincarnation, we did whatever the heck we wanted, impelled by the desires of the body and mind. And so we wound up with another miserable material body in this prison house of the material world. This is an example of the law of karma.

Doubt: “Karma!” I can’t believe you. To think that people deserve their suffering—it’s just a reaction of their past activities—what a horribly insensitive, cold-hearted outlook.

Answer: If you’re not familiar with the term, karma is the natural law that “every action has an equal opposite reaction.”

Yes, it’s true; people who are suffering are really just  “getting their karma,” getting justice. But that doesn’t mean we prance around famine victims, sneering and pointing fingers – “Hah! You deserve it, buddy!” Of course not.

Reincarnation and karma don’t interfere with our compassion for others. In fact, by understanding the complete philosophy, a person becomes totally compassionate toward everyone and gains knowledge of how to help people become free from karma and suffering.

Karma