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Talk - Karma, The
Law for Change
One night, when my children had got out of bed for the millionth
time, I lost my temper and went into their room and shouted
at them. As I stormed out, my scalp was pulled back by a sudden
violent force from above. My hair was totally entangled in the
wooden airplane mobile hanging from the ceiling. It was painful
and humiliating. “That was Karma,” I thought. That
was, in fact, my dumbed-down Western interpretation of Karma:
You do something bad and something bad happens to you - as a
non-logical consequence. But, Karma is an idea as old as they
get and is rather more complex than this. The philosophy represents
the backbone of spiritual ideas about sin, re-birth, retribution
and forgiveness, and is a highly influential part of Hindu,
Buddhist and Christian belief. Karma has many interpretations.
The trendy one is about taking responsibility for all your actions
however small: raise yourself and you improve the world. The
extremely dodgy one is about being punished for sins you committed
in a previous life.
If Karma is a topic that you want to look into, then go to the
Subud Centre on Sunday 9th April where you can join a lively
discussion entitled “Karma, the Law of Change” led
by Ravi Khanna. If the talk does your head in, then remember
to look out for low hanging objects when leaving the room. JW |
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Sometimes Western ideas of
karma aren’t quite what the
Buddhists had in mind |
