Isn’t belief in karma psychologically damaging?

Question: Doesn’t the belief that our sufferings are due to our past karma add insult to injury? Isn’t it psychologically damaging to people who are already troubled by present problems to be told that they were sinful in the past?

Transcript

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Question. Doesn’t the belief that one’s sufferings are due to one’s own past bad karma add insult to injury? Isn’t it psychologically damaging to people who are already troubled by present problems to be told that they were sinful in the past? Answer. Knowledge of karma is not psychologically damaging, but psychologically empowering.
Let’s see how. Firstly, one of the biggest problems that we face when suddenly problems attack and overcome us is not just the problem per se, but the question of why the problem came upon me. Often this question has three aspects.
Why me? Why this? Why now? Why I or everybody else is suffering this problem? And why has the problem come in this particular perplexing form? Often, if the problem doesn’t come in a form that is unpleasant to us, then it is not a problem. But when the problem comes, we are particularly irked, irritated by the way in which the problem comes upon us. And often we feel that the problem has come at just exactly the wrong time.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time for us. So why me? Why this? Why now? And our normal materialist worldview as well as the worldview of the Abrahamic religions Abrahamic religions are Judaism, Christianity and Islam so both these worldviews can offer no satisfactory answer to this question. The materialist worldview holds that everything happens by chance.
Whereas the Abrahamic worldview holds that actually, ultimately it is either God’s will or it is Satan’s evil design and God is temporarily unable to stop it. So either way, we are left at the mercy of chance or we are left at the mercy of caprice. Caprice means whimsical attitude.
So caprice, it may be of God or it may be of Satan. So overall, whatever I am speaking is presented succinctly in the article on the website Who Fixed the Match of Our Life? It is only the Vedic tradition that actually offers a reasonably satisfactory understanding that actually it is neither chance nor caprice it is not that everything is happening just by blind and pitiless chance nor is it happening by the whims of some higher power or being but rather we are getting whatever we have sown. So there is an intuitive sense of justice in the idea that whatever happens to us is due to our own past misdeeds.
So there is also a lecture on the website called Unraveling the Mystery of Karma with a PPT where the principle of karma is elaborately explained and I won’t go into the logic and the rationale of the principle of karma we are looking right now about its emotional implications because that is the focus of the question. So, if we are able to understand and accept this point that whatever is coming upon us is due to our own actions either from this life or from a previous life then that acceptance and explanation that underlies that acceptance can free us from an enormous amount of inner resentment that chokes and paralyzes our mental energy very often when adversities hit us unexpectedly. So that’s why once we accept that this has happened somehow because of my own bad deeds and if I change my deeds now I can be confident that in the future my prospects are much brighter.
So once the cause is understood then the mental energy gets freed for the cure but when the cause is not understood then one is half-hearted about the cure also. Just like if we go to a doctor and we don’t know what is the diagnosis and the doctor also doesn’t know the diagnosis and the doctor just says, try out this medicine, this will work. Even the doctor will not be convinced to give us the medicine and we will not be convinced to take the medicine.
So, the knowledge of the correct diagnosis inspires and energizes us to take the treatment properly. Similarly, the knowledge of karma actually inspires and energizes us to take corrective action and harmonize ourselves with ethical and spiritual principles given by the scriptures. So actually it is psychologically empowering not psychologically damaging.
Of course, even the most exalted spiritual knowledge can be abused by people with ulterior interests to serve their own agendas. So the same has at times happened with the law of karma. Now we visualize a situation when a person comes with some sexually transmitted disease.
So if some people are very puritanical then the doctor may well tell the sick person you were an immoral rascal and that is why you are suffering in this way. Suffer now. That would make the person psychologically weakened and even damaged.
The doctor is not meant to be an instrument of wrath. He is meant to be an instrument of correction or compassion and cure basically. So, now the doctor has the knowledge of the cause of the disease.
But if the doctor uses that knowledge to condemn the patient for that patient’s immoral actions then the doctor is defeating the purpose of that knowledge. The purpose of knowledge is not to make the person feel worse but to make the person feel better, to improve the health of the person. On the other hand, if the doctor just in the name of not wanting to make the person feel bad for his past immoral acts doesn’t tell the patient the cause of the disease.
He just tells him, take this medicine, you will be cured. Then the doctor will be failing in his duty because the patient not knowing what is the cause of the disease may again indulge in the same behavior and end up with the same disease again. So, the doctor has to give knowledge of the disease with an underlying spirit of compassion.
So, his overall purpose is to help the person. Excuse me. The overall purpose of the doctor is to help the patient feel better and to help the patient become better.
To remove his pain and to remove his disease, both. So, removing the pain will make the patient feel better and removing the disease will make the patient actually better. Now, while doing this, the doctor also has to ensure that the same disease doesn’t come again.
For that, the doctor also has to tell the patient the cause. But the telling of the cause is not in a value judgmental, condemnatory mood. It is in a compassionate, curative mood.
The same applies to the principle of the law of karma. That, if a person is told that you are getting this particular disease, you are suffering from poverty, or you have met with this accident, or whatever, and it’s all your past karma, then such an attitude is entirely wrong. It is non-scriptural.
And it is not only against the letter of the scripture, but it is also against the spirit of the scripture. We see that in the Vedic wisdom tradition, God himself descends to this world repeatedly to elevate people. And God doesn’t tell all the souls, that it’s your karma, suffer.
God gives people knowledge of how to transcend their karma. So, the overall mood of the Vedic literature is a mood of compassion. And while wanting to help the people become free from their sufferings, it is also important, according to the Vedic literature, to tell people why they are suffering.
And for that purpose, there is the law of karma. Now, it may happen sometimes, that some people might be economically and socially deprived, and denied, and they may be told that all this is because of your past karma. And in this way, the people who are more economically and socially powerful may exploit and dominate others.
But such people are governed and motivated not by a knowledge of scripture, but by their own selfish agendas. We see in scripture again and again, that actually, no matter what a person’s past is, it is in every individual’s duty to do his part in helping others. So, if we have the example, say, of a thief robbing a person’s house, and if the person who has been robbed goes to the king, and the king says, it was just your karma, that’s why you got robbed.
No, the king doesn’t do that. The king finds out who is the thief and punishes the thief, and restores the stolen property back to the person who owned it. So, why? Because the normal system of justice in this world and the normal interactions in this world are meant to be judged by each other based on our actions in this life, not in some previous life.
So, to judge people according to their previous lives is the responsibility of God. To judge people, if at all we have to judge people, in this life, if we have to do that, it has to be based only on their activities in this life. So, in this life, this particular person owns the belt, and this particular thief has stolen it.
Therefore, the thief has to be punished, and the property has to be restored to the owner. And that’s how the normal system of justice works. So, this is very much essential and taught in the Vedic scriptures as foundational, and we will see this in Vishnu and Pitamah’s teachings of Rajadharma, what are the duties of a king.
In fact, if we take the whole concept of karma, separate from the concept of dharma, then the theory of karma might be psychologically damaging. But, when it is parallel in the sense with the concept of dharma, that everybody has their ordained duty, and they need to do their duty. So, this understanding is what helps people maintain law and order in the society.
Now, beyond our capacities to maintain law and order, sometimes there may be some inevitable, inescapable wrongs. So, if a child is being subjected to a disease because of the negligence of the parents in giving medicine, the parents have no right to tell the child, it’s your own karma to get the disease. The parents have the responsibility to take care of the child.
Sometimes, despite the parents taking care of the responsibility, the child may still get a disease. And that is understood as a result of the past karma. So, at that time, when a child wonders, OK, why did I have to suffer like this? So, when the child understands, OK, this is because of what has been done in the past life, then the child understands, OK, that is the principle of cause and action, immediately cause and effect, action and reaction.
Even if I don’t see it with my eyes immediately, and I need to keep myself on the right side of this principle, and not on the wrong side. So, then the child becomes alert. So, the purpose of the giving knowledge of the law of karma to others is not to condemn them for their past wrongs, but to empower them to prevent repetition of the past wrongs.
And this is the actual purpose of the Vedic literature, and the mood in which they give the knowledge of karma. And this is how the authentic spiritual preceptors in the parampara also give this knowledge. Some people, selfish, resisted interests, might distort this to condemn people and make people feel bad and stay bad.
But they are not fulfilling the Vedic scriptures purpose, but they are simply fulfilling their own selfish agendas. But in general, if we get the understanding of the law of karma from the proper sources, in the proper mood, then it is far from being psychologically damaging, it is tremendously psychologically empowering.