I think that makes perfect sense. But it's not Hinduism, and from what I'm reading... it's not Vedanta, either.
In Hinduism, karma is quite literally a cosmic force. It's cause and effect plus a moral arbiter, spanning life after life after life after life. It settles the nasty question of why bad things happen to good people by answering that--on some level, in some life either present or past--they do deserve it, even if they don't seem to. It's that idea that people deserve their "place" which drove a lot of lower-caste Indians away from Hinduism to Buddhism, or later to Islam.
I think Vedanta doesn't go nearly far enough to escape the "good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people" aspect of karma, because I'm not sure we can get rid of the core concept of karma and retain any meaning at all. I think redefining "karma" to mean "habits of thought and feeling" discards the original meaning to such an extent that it's hard to see why "karma" was picked instead of "cheesegrater" or "antenna."
Another ramble from me. I guess the first two sentences would probably have sufficed. >_>
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Date: 2009-05-25 07:15 pm (UTC)From:In Hinduism, karma is quite literally a cosmic force. It's cause and effect plus a moral arbiter, spanning life after life after life after life. It settles the nasty question of why bad things happen to good people by answering that--on some level, in some life either present or past--they do deserve it, even if they don't seem to. It's that idea that people deserve their "place" which drove a lot of lower-caste Indians away from Hinduism to Buddhism, or later to Islam.
I think Vedanta doesn't go nearly far enough to escape the "good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people" aspect of karma, because I'm not sure we can get rid of the core concept of karma and retain any meaning at all. I think redefining "karma" to mean "habits of thought and feeling" discards the original meaning to such an extent that it's hard to see why "karma" was picked instead of "cheesegrater" or "antenna."
Another ramble from me. I guess the first two sentences would probably have sufficed. >_>