Thursday, October 26, 2017

Attitude Affects Karma

Suppose you have the idea there are bad people in the world that should be hurt. Your attitude is that they need to be punished. You take yourself to be the virtuous one, and you are going to do some of the punishing.

You decide that a number of bad people hang out in the dive bar at the edge of town. So you take it upon yourself to go there and have a few drinks. Surely you'll find someone that needs to be hurt.

You arrive and have a few drinks. Soon enough you're feeling cocky. A rough looking dude walks in and starts behaving badly. He is pestering some young woman who wants nothing to do with him. You approach the tough guy and confront him concerning his behavior.

Now you have an argument and you smile as it escalates. Being virtuous, you let the other guy throw the first punch. You are rather tough yourself, you get the better of him. You both get kicked out of the bar, but you are satisfied that you hurt someone who needed to be hurt.

You attitude keeps you going back. You repeat the same scenario over and over. Soon, you are no longer allowed in that bar. You find another one. Same story.

Thirty years later you find yourself alone, banned from all the bars. Half your bones are broken. Your nose is off kilter, and a piece of your ear is missing. As you sit pondering, you suddenly realize that all the other people who thought some people needed to be hurt, were also gathering at the dive bar. You had found each other and provided the correct karma. 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

What if one of our friends call us at the bar, even though we don't want to go there,and a rough dude misbehaves with a woman to the point of physical violence, choking her out. You had to intervene even though you did not want to. What if all of this was purely accidental. Would someone still accrue bad karma ? I 'm just curious.

Maury Lee said...

Thanks for your comment. I am no expert on karma, but I'll offer some thoughts.

First of all, I don't think anything is accidental. What seems like chaos is simply a lack of understanding the principles involved.
You don't want to go to the bar, but you go. That is inviting whatever karma relates to that choice. It is an action, it will have effects.
The man misbehaving with the woman will obviously accrue karma for his actions.
You intervene. That is a beneficial action and I would expect that you would accrue good karma.

Every action has consequences, good or bad. That is karma Calling something accidental doesn't change the facts.

Hope this answers your question.