KARMA MAYBE NOT PLEASING TO ISHWARA

There is a story reported in the British News that Glenn Hoddle, coach of the England Football team, during an interview, stated, “You and I have been physically given two hands and two legs and a half-decent brain. Some people have not been born like that for a reason. The Karma is working from another lifetime.” Although this caused outrage from all quarters, the sports minister for England at the time (Tony Banks), added that, “Hoddle was from another world.” “If his theory is correct, he is in for a real problem in the next life.  He will probably be doomed to come back as Glenn Hoddle.”

As humorous as the above may be, the idea that the disabled are paying for sins they committed in a previous life, is widespread throughout many portions of the world where Karma is mainstream.  See the article, for example, from the New Internationalist Magazine (“Stuff Pity” Nov. 2005): “Cambodia currently has the second highest rate of disabled people in the world (Angola has the highest) – a legacy of years of war and extensive use of landmines. With this recent surge in physical impairments, a corresponding cultural response might have been expected. But Cambodian society stuck fast – clinging to notions of ‘bad Karma,’ blaming the sins of people’s past lives for their disabilities.”

There is the inspiring story of Lydia Nash, who won 16,000 pounds on the British channel ITV and then donated it to an orphanage in Thailand (The Oxford Student Jan 2006) “Who Wants to Be a Philanthropist?”).  The children of this orphanage are described in this way, “Undernourished, secluded and ignored, the vast majority of children in these orphanages develop serious physical and mental health problems, many of which could be avoided with better care. Some are abandoned because their families cannot afford to care for them, some are children found on the streets of Bangkok and some are discarded by society due to a distortion of the Buddhist belief in Karma: that disability is a curse derived from sins committed in a previous life.”

Disability and even the idea of disability are hard to accept as we try to make sense out of the “why” we are as we are.  The disabled not only face their handicap but face poverty as well.  Also from the “Stuff Pity” article, “Disabled people are disproportionately poor all over the world. But in countries where poverty is not in the slightest bit relative, it robs them of all the chances that mainstream society is so intent on withholding anyway. About 82 per cent of disabled people live below the poverty line in the Majority World. The World Bank states that ‘half a billion disabled people are undisputedly amongst the poorest of the poor’ – out of a total estimated worldwide disabled population of 600 million.   Survival is often their most pressing human rights issue. Death rates for children with disabilities are in some countries as high as 80 per cent – no-one knows how many of these children have been murdered.”

Are Theosophists free from the notion of Karma as interpreted above?  Maybe yes - maybe no.  A case could be made for no.  To illustrate. Not long ago a young lady, using a wheelchair, described to the writer how embarrassed she often feels when attending theosophical meetings.  Her embarrassment was related to what she felt was the perception of other theosophists.  This was, being crippled, she must have done something terrible in a former life.  By implication, she is now a terrible person suffering the acts she committed in past lives.  Where did she get this idea she was asked?    From, she said, the theosophical teachings on Karma.  Before rushing to explain how she may or may not be misinterpreting theosophical teachings, lets us quote William Q. Judge in The Ocean of Theosophy (p. 92):

“Take for instance the case of a child born humpbacked and very short, the head sunk between the shoulders, the arms long and legs curtailed. Why is this? His Karma for thoughts and acts in a prior life. He reviled, persecuted, or otherwise injured a deformed person so persistently or violently as to imprint in his own immortal mind the deformed picture of his victim. For in proportion to the intensity of his thought will be the intensity and depth of the picture. It is exactly similar to the exposure of the sensitive photographic plate, whereby, just as the exposure is long or short, the impression in the plate is weak or deep. So this thinker and actor―the Ego―coming again to rebirth carries with him this picture, and if the family to which he is attracted for birth has similar physical tendencies in its stream, the mental picture causes the newly-forming astral body to assume a deformed shape by electrical and magnetic osmosis through the mother of the child. And as all beings on earth are indissolubly joined together, the misshapen child is the Karma of the parents also an exact consequence for similar acts and thoughts on their part in other lives. Here is exactitude of justice which no other theory will furnish.”  Gosh, from this, not only is the humpbacked child guilty from acts in a prior life, but the parents performed “similar acts and thoughts on their part….”  We now have the possibility that those who are crippled, and their parents, did something bad in their former life and they are being punished.   Is the embarrassment of the young lady in the wheelchair so far fetched?  More -    Echoes From the Orient (William Q. Judge)    “When the disciples of Jesus asked him if the man who was born blind was thus brought into the world for some sin he had committed, they had in mind this doctrine of Karma, just as all the Hindus and Buddhists have when they see some of their fellows crippled or deformed or deprived of sight.” And more – In Judge’s ""Forum"" Answers (p. 55) the questioner directly asks, “Are misfortune, accident, physical deformity, etc., due to Karmic causes? Judge responds, “And, to add, the indissoluble unity of the race demands that we should consider every man’s troubles as partly due to ourselves, because we have been always units in the race and helped to make the conditions which cause suffering."  We might infer not only is the deformity due to his or her Karma but everyone else has a share.

Suppose we go to areas other than disability.  Let us start with a woman who was molested, raped, robbed or otherwise violated.  Do we say to her, it’s your Karma. What did I do? She may cry.  We may answer, we do not know, but it must have been something she did in a former life.  In this sense, Karma has the flavor of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Only - one or more lives removed.  You get what is coming to you.    Is this not an intensified form of victim blaming?   Even worse, she doesn’t even know what she did.   In our society, without Karma, if there is no awareness of having committed a crime, often this is accepted as a legitimate defense and we are considered, “Not Guilty.”  We could go to other groups.  What about the mentally afflicted?  We could start with childhood autism, childhood schizophrenia and guess what?  Bi-polar (manic depression) mental illness is now being found in young children.  Are these children paying for their sins in a past life?  For some reason even considering this sends a shutter in most of us as we taste this possibility.

Are there ideas in the theosophical literature that run contrary to the “sins of past life” explanation?  Indeed there are.  There are both direct and indirect ideas.  Before visiting these let us turn to the “why” from other traditions – particularly Buddhism. 

There seems to be evidence of change in the Buddhists world regarding Karma.  Certainly early Eastern Buddhism – along with Hinduism – can be related to the “sins of a former life” - bringing disability to this one.  This, as well, leading to the casting aside those physically or mentally disabled.   Writings of the revered Tsong-Kha-Pa (1357 – 1419) The Great Treatise on the Stages Of The Path To Enlightenment (Snow Lion Publications, 2000) can attest to this: “Nonvirtuous actions create even in the happy realms such effects as not having  complete limbs, fingers, or sensory organs, and having an unpleasant color, a short life span, many illnesses, and poverty.  Further, virtuous actions create consummate wealth even for animals and hungry ghosts." (p. 239).

There is now a vast literature coming from what may be called Western Buddhism and of the modern era.  One of these who writes on disability is Richard Bruno and his views are ably put in his magazine published in the Post Polio "Forum", November 1999.  Addressing “Disability – Karmic Punishment?,” he writes, “Some Buddhists believe in reincarnation and say that what happens to you in this life results from your actions in previous lives. Does this mean that being born with or acquiring a disability is punishment for ‘bad Karma’? Abbie Freedman, student of Theravada Buddhism and T5 paraplegic, says, 'I believe my accident (and its consequences) is a result of something I did or didn't do--or because of something I didn't handle properly--in a past life. I now get another chance to do it right. I don't think of it as a punishment.’ And neither did the Buddha. He said it 'does not lead to profit' to contemplate past lives, which we cannot remember, when there is so much we must learn--and unlearn--here and now.”

In a communication with Bruno he was asked where did Buddha say not to contemplate past lives?  Bruno responded, “I don’t have the citation.  The quote comes from the sutra when the Buddha is dying and his former Hindu followers ask him, ‘What will happen to you?  Will you be reincarnated?"  He said, in effect, the whole point of Buddhism – and living – is NOW! Not where we’ve been or where I’m going.  When the Buddha didn’t want to answer a question he said, ‘It does not lead to profit.’  So, to him, discussion of past and future lives ‘It does not lead to profit.'”   The idea seems to be that trying to hook up past lives with your current life is not of value.  What is of value is what you do with your life “now” no matter of your physical or mental condition.

Nancy Eiesland, writing from a Christian perspective – “A Faith Response to Persons with Disabilities,” quotes another author who implied that “religion offers no relevant answers to the query ‘What is disability?’" According to the article’s author the answers available are the following: Disability is (a) a punishment; (b) a test of faith; (c) the sins of the fathers visited upon the children; (d) an act of God; or (e) all of the above.”  Despite Eiesland’s lament that these are unsatisfactory choices, they do seem to cover the playing field given a one life basis.

There is some suggestion that Islam may have a more compassionate attitude towards the disabled.  The gist of the answers as to why God created the disabled is that God created all beings with differences and that disability and a disabled person's reaction to the disability may be a test which can result in a pleasant hereafter. See IslamOnLine.net: “The Qur'an offers one exception to this strictly spiritual definition. This is where the Qur'an directly contrasts both the physical and the figurative aspect of disability:  Sheikh Isse A. Musse quotes from the Qur'an, "'It is not the eyes that grow blind, but it is the eyes which are in the hearts that grow blind'.”

Now let us go to Theosophy and Karma.  In the Key to Theosophy, (H.P. Blavatsky) the ever brilliant “Enquirer” asks why is the Theosophical literature so sparing on the subject of Karma?  The “Theosophist” answers, “Because it is the most difficult of all our tenets.” (p. 207).  Some quotations from the Theosophical literature below, may illustrate the difficulty in this “most difficult of all our tenets.”

1. Karma is of three sorts – that which we are experiencing – that which we are making for the next life – and Karma held over “unfelt until some other life or lives. (p. 3)” ""Forum"" Answers – Judge. This would almost negate deciphering Karma yet it may stretch our minds to the enormity of our task.  There are events and circumstances in most of our lives which seem to “come out of nowhere” leaving a kind of momentary confusion.
2. Simply the desire to become a chela can precipitate Karma (p. 9) ""Forum"" Answers - Judge. This would seem true of most acts of commitment – particularly a spiritual commitment.  The decision of spiritual commitment could be thought of as a way of declaring ourselves ready to balance not only our past actions in this life but perhaps many prior lifetimes.
3. Karma ordinarily seen as unpleasant may be an opportunity to gain strength and overcome error or mischance in other lives (p. 41). ""Forum"" Answers – Judge.  What seems negative can be an opportunity for growth.  Most of us have had experiences where we felt we did not obtain which was desired and, then later, so grateful it we did not come about.  Or, a seeming tragedy led to an incredible opportunity.
4. . Karma is a doctrine too vast and complicated to be disposed of by set rules applied like balance-sheets to commercial enterprise (p. 41) ""Forum"" Answers - Judge.  Linear Karma or the idea of an “eye for an eye” seems dissolved with this one statement.   It seems evident that there are shades of gray, or maybe shades of light all interconnected in the streams of Karma passing before us.  Meaning seems to be more in gaining a wider band of consciousness than in checking off the negative acts from our past.
5. Good Karma is that act and thought which is pleasing to the Higher Self. Hence sorrow and pain and discipline may be good Karma. (p. 97). "Forum" Answers – Judge.  Both beauty and meaning seem to be in the eye of the beholder.  And, only to each individual.  There can be said to be a consensus that no one can really interpret another’s dream.  In the illusion of life perhaps only we can discern karmic meaning.
6. Karmic effects may not “be felt in the same detail as when produced” as different sorts of Karma may come to a head together at one point in the life….” This may be known as the nullification of the postulated effect of the classes of Karma involved.” Epitome – Judge (p. 23).  Trying to sort out what is important and not important seems pivotal in almost all life stages. 
7. “There is a tendency, in every department of Nature, for an act to repeat itself; the Karma acquired in the last preceding birth is always trying to forge fresh links in the chain, and thereby lead to continued material existence…” Five Years of Theosophy, p. 216  It may also be a way to understand more why often we watch ourselves do something which we know will have a negative outcome – but still do it.  Breaking habit chains takes everything we have.
8. The “mysterious power of meditation” reaches back over many lives of the unexpended Karma.  This suggests thought forms are maintained over many lives ready to come forth as the circumstances warrant. Gita Notes – Judge, p. 67.  The skandhas stay with us often as uninvited guests.
9.  “It is held as a truth among Theosophists that the interdependence of Humanity is the cause of what is called Distributive Karma, and it is this law which affords the solution to the great question of collective suffering and its relief. It is an occult law; moreover, that no man can rise superior to his individual failings, without lifting, be it ever so little, the whole body of which he is an integral part. In the same way, no one can sin, nor suffer the effects of sin, alone.” Key to Theosophy – Blavatsky.  We share in the Karma of the nation or the world.  Perhaps those experiencing significant suffering are carrying their own load as well as the load for others.  There is a kind of nobility for those that have suffered.  “The ladder by which the candidate ascends is formed of rungs of suffering and pain...” Voice of the Silence, H.P.B
10. “The effects may be counteracted or mitigated by the thoughts and acts of oneself or of another, and then the resulting effects represent the combination and interaction of the whole number of causes involved in producing the effects.” “Aphorism on Karma” – Judge.  Karmic interaction is in a constant state of change.
11. “No man but a sage or true seer can judge another’s Karma.  Hence while each receives his deserts, appearances may deceive, and birth into poverty or heavy trial may not be punishment for bad Karma, for Egos continually incarnate into poor surroundings where they experience difficulties and trials which are for the discipline of the Ego and result in strength, fortitude, and sympathy.”  “Aphorism on Karma” – Judge.  The Karma for every individual is unique to that individual and not for us to judge.

Karma, from the Theosophical view, is complex and truly “the most difficult of all our tenets (Blavatsky – referenced above).”  The hints given here are to the point.  We in no way can judge another’s Karma let alone our own.  It is a question if we should even try to understand our Karma from the past.  The Western Buddhists, referred to previously, say “no.”  Live in the “now.”  Most of us do not have much choice.   Knowledge of what happened in previous lives does not appear to be consciously available.  Yet, there can be instances where reaching for understanding may add a special dimension to our lives.  If we gave tendencies in our nature which seem to interfere with a peaceful life (most of us have these), the realization that we may have struggled with these same tendencies over lifetimes may make us more aware of what we are up against.  Recognition of a tendency may be a tip of an iceberg.  Having awareness of what lies below the surface may help in the recognition of how much is needed to prepare for the task.

The concept of distributive Karma can also show the depth of Karma from a Theosophical view.  For example, most of us realize that at some level the Karma associated with the modern invasion of Iraq has to be shared by us all.  We can say we did not do this.  It was the president, his staff, and the military that did it.  But, they are us.  We shudder in horror when we learn there are Muslims decapitating some of their hostages.  But how many know the Muslim world is still reacting to Richard the Lionheart (12^th Century) and the crusades - including the decapitation of Muslim prisoners.

Given the vast implications of Karma as found in Theosophical teachings, the girl in the wheelchair (described at the beginning of the article) may not necessarily be paying for sins committed in a previous life.  Who knows, she may have chosen the disability for discipline and/or for discovering greater levels of consciousness.  The point is we do not know why she is as she is.  Perhaps she may know at some level of her being but this is hers and hers only in her journey to find meaning.  This is true for all of us.  We search for our appointed work for this life.  But we can never tell another what is theirs.   

 "Good Karma is that which is pleasing to Ishwara, and bad that which is displeasing to Ishwara. (Is Poverty Bad Karma? Path Judge, 1891).”