a piquant blend of cats, foxes, dolls, beautiful people and whatever else may tickle my fancy.
tw for ableism: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Karma. People love that word. It gets thrown around a lot.
It’s really too bad that the West uses it very, very wrongly.
(This is a pretty rough, basic, “Dummies” sort of explanation, because frankly I’m a Dummy when it comes to navigating the byzantine maze that is Eastern religion.)
Karma as a concept originates from Dharmic religions. We’re talking Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism. It’s somewhat complicated, and the exact emphasis on Dharma varies from sect to sect. Dharma is “natural law”. It is one’s particular path or calling, one’s duties and obligations. When a person obeys their calling and their obligations, they are upholding the natural order.
Karma plays into the system when someone does not follow their dharma. It is a realignment. It does not reward a person for doing good, or punish a person for doing bad. It is merely a reaction to a person’s deeds in life. People who follow their dharma do not gain additional karma. People who do not uphold their dharma earn additional karma.
You never want more karma. There’s no such thing as ‘good’ karma.
A person will reincarnate, upwards (or downwards) until they have discharged their karmic burden. Since the entire goal is to liberate the soul from the eternal cycle of life and death, it logically follows that one wants to follow their dharma as much as is possible, to shorten the amount of time it takes to get out of the reincarnation cycle.
Karma doesn’t function separated from dharma. It’s connected to dharma in such a way that removing it from that context renders it rather meaningless. The Western “karma” doesn’t have much in common with its’ original. It is, sadly, yet another thing misappropriated and bastardized for common use.
I put to you that the Western use of ‘karma’ is just a non-Abrahamic version of “Ye Shall Reap What Ye Have Sown”. People want to toss a word around meaning “I hope that person gets what they deserve”, and yet somehow avoid all the dogma and baggage they may have regarding their relationship with Christianity, and its’ morality.
TL:DR?
Western ‘karma’ isn’t karma at all. It is a misappropriation of a term that has a completely different meaning and usage in its’ proper context.
(via queerandpresentdanger)
