A person at our Vedanta meeting asked today about the nature of karma: "I am struggling with a twofold issue with the concept of karma: good-good and bad-bad. If something bad happens to a person, if you think in terms of karma then it becomes easier to judge them, thinking this is their bad karma from a past life experience that they brought upon themselves. The other issue is that, if something bad happens to me, I lose motivation to deal with it or overcome it, thinking this is my bad karma so it's inevitable."
I love that this student of Vedanta brought up this challenging topic. It made me reflect as well, drawing wisdom from my own life experiences as not only an orphan, but a working adult in this chaotic society.
It made me reflect on how we tend to assign the meaning "good" and "bad" to events.
Karma is impersonal, which can be difficult to fit into a Western narrative, because Western religions personalize everything. For instance, in Western thought, if something bad happens to you, it's seen as "punishment." Or if something good happens to you, it's because God has favored you (or variations of this.)
This idea of good and bad begins early in childhood, in socialization. It is part of the Western Judeo-Christian narrative. But in fact, if you remain completely rational, you can reason that no event in life is good or bad, whether you accept karmic law or not. It just is. Events happen in our lives, some of them difficult, destructive, and hurtful to us, but the event itself is neutral. There is no cosmic grudge against us. There is no God meting out punishment and reward. But, the mind needs to understand things. It needs to ask, "Why?" It reasons, "Am I bad?"
So, in Western society, we try to personalize the event as punishment or "bad karma," placing our friends or ourselves at fault for suffering. But people don't suffer because they deserve to suffer. People suffer because the narrative that defines our world creates suffering by its tendency to "cling" to meaning, to reasons, to outcomes. Events happen because we live in an imperfect reality. Are we to hate or blame the nature of reality for our struggles? That doesn't make sense. In fact, that sounds like a form of insanity.
Instead of trying to find an answer to the reason "Why?" or trying to reason out why a "bad thing" happened to someone, it's better to retain an attitude of indifferent compassion. What do I mean by this? Rather than worrying about the "Why" of an event, or who's responsible, or reasoning out an explanation, or judging the nature of the event, remain indifferent to it. Who cares why? This is the nature of an impermanent reality. There will be difficult situations. Simply accept what is and focus on a compassionate reaction. If you need help, then seek help. If you can help others, then help others. That's all that matters.
Spiritual growth isn't about controlling our external reality. It's about attaining balance in our internal reality.
Detached compassion creates a sense of flow in life and helps maintain inner peace. Over time, we begin to see even very serious disasters as simply small bumps to be stepped over, because we no longer see events as good or bad, and nothing can disrupt or interrupt our inner peace. Then, we are free to focus all our energy on being compassionate to everyone.
Be the sky, not the weather.
