Karma: what exactly is it?

A type of energy that, according to various Eastern philosophies, causes you to receive what you give.

Thousands of years ago, when the first philosophical questions began to be recorded in writings, these questions were not as concrete as those we usually ask ourselves today.

Ancient thinkers tried to answer very metaphysical and general questions, such as: what is the energy that guides in a coordinated way everything that happens in nature?

The concept of karma, born in AsiaThe concept of karma, born in Asia, is based on the idea that reality is articulated by a law of retribution according to which you get what you give in a moral sense.

What is karma?

In various Eastern religions and philosophies such as Hinduism or Buddhism, karma is an energy that is given to the individual, karma is an all-embracing energy that surrounds everything and that makes the moral actions that are performed have a return of the same style towards the person who has done them. That is, it is a kind of metaphysical compensation mechanism.

For example, if someone hurts someone else, he does not have to be a victim of the ill-treatment of another person, but karma will make sure that the consequences of this action are also of a negative character and its intensity is of a similar proportion to the evil that has been done.

In a way, the idea of karma introduces the idea of justice into the workings of the world.. A justice that is imposed without us having to do anything for it. According to some currents of belief, karma is put into practice by divinities, while for other non-theistic religions such as Buddhism there is no god that operates this energy, but it is a part of reality, just like those mechanisms that are described by the natural laws discovered scientifically.

Actions and consequences

The whole idea of karma is based on the belief that the consequences of our actions always correspond to the consequences of our actions. the consequences of our actions always correspond to their moral value.. In other words, everything bad and everything good that we do will come back to us in the form of consequences of the same value as the actions we take.

Moreover, actions that produce a certain karma are not only movements. For most Eastern philosophies and religions that have adopted this concept, thoughts also cost.

The origin of the concept

Etymologically, "karma" means "action" or "doing".. That is why it has not always been used with the metaphysical and religious meaning to which we are accustomed in the West.

It is believed that the first mention of karma as a concept related to retribution appeared in Hindu sacred texts in the 2nd century B.C. Specifically, it appears in the book Chāndogya Upaniṣadwritten in Sanskrit.

Due to its antiquity and the influence that Hindu cultures have had throughout history, the idea of karma has come to be adopted by several Asian societies and has merged with religions born by the south of the continent.

Types of karma

Traditionally, there are three types of karma. They are as follows.

1. Prarabdha karma

The karma that is felt at the moment when the action is being performed.. For example, when lying to a person, the nerves make you speak in a not very fluent way and the nerves and embarrassment appear.

2. Sanchita karma

Memories that have remained in our mind and have an effect on our future actions. have an effect on our future actions. For example, the sadness that comes from not having proposed to someone and that makes that the next time we fall in love we do not give up expressing what we feel.

3. Agami karma

The effect that an action in the present will have on the future.. For example, binge eating for several weeks will cause you to be in poorer health for the next few months.

The moral value of retribution

These three types of karma are different facets of the same thing seen from different temporal perspectives. Sanchita karma of the past produces Prarabdha karma in the present, which generates Agami karma in times to come.

The three together form a sequence of causes and effects whose effects we cannot control.. However, according to the way of thinking that uses the idea of karma, we can choose whether to do good or evil, that is, two types of cause-effect chains with a different moral value for us and for others.

Eastern philosophies and psychology

Both karma and other concepts from Asia, such as Yin and Yang and meditation based on religious rituals, have become fashionable in certain forms of alternative therapy. However, it should be kept in mind that these ideas only make sense within a framework of beliefs. only make sense in a framework of empirically unfounded beliefs, and therefore do not and that, consequently, it cannot be claimed that taking karma into account will enable us to make life treat us better. The concept of karma is not and cannot be reinforced by scientific discoveries.

It is true that the fact of believing in karma makes us experience reality in a different way (as happens with any new belief we adopt), but we cannot know if this change will be for the worse or for the better.