Karma is the law of moral causation. The theory of Karma is a fundamental doctrine in Sanatan Dharma (Hinduism). This belief was prevalent in India before the advent of time. Nevertheless, it were the many sages who explained and formulated this doctrine in complete form in which we have it today.
- What is the cause of the inequality that exists among mankind?
- Why should one person be brought up in the lap of luxury, endowed with fine mental, moral and physical qualities, and another in absolute poverty, steeped in misery?
- Why should one person be a mental prodigy, and another an idiot?
- Why should one person be born with saintly characteristics and another with criminal tendencies?
- Why should some be linguistic, artistic, mathematically inclined, or musical from the very cradle?
- Why should others be congenitally blind, deaf, or deformed?
- Why should some be blessed, and others cursed from their births?
Either this inequality of mankind has a cause, or it is purely accidental. No sensible person would think of attributing this unevenness, this inequality, and this diversity to blind chance or pure accident.
In this world nothing happens to a person that he does not for some reason or other deserve. Usually, men of ordinary intellect cannot comprehend the actual reason or reasons. The definite invisible cause or causes of the visible effect is not necessarily confined to the present life, they may be traced to a proximate or remote past birth.
According to many sages, this inequality is due not only to heredity, environment, "nature and nurture", but also due to Karma.
In other words, it is the result of our own past actions and our own present doings. We ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. We create our own Heaven. We create our own Hell. We are the architects of our own fate.
Perplexed by the seemingly inexplicable, apparent disparity that existed among humanity, a young truth-seeker approached the Buddha and questioned him regarding this intricate problem of inequality:
"What is the cause, what is the reason, O Lord?" questioned he, "that we find amongst mankind the short-lived and long-lived, the healthy and the diseased, the ugly and beautiful, those lacking influence and the powerful, the poor and the rich, the low-born and the high-born, and the ignorant and the wise?"
The sage replied:
"All living beings have actions (Karma) as their own, their inheritance, their congenital cause, their kinsman, their refuge. It is Karma that differentiates beings into low and high states."
He then explained the cause of such differences in accordance with the law of cause and effect.
Certainly we are born with hereditary characteristics. At the same time we possess certain innate abilities that science cannot adequately account for. To our parents we are indebted for the gross sperm and ovum that form the nucleus of this so-called being. They remain dormant within each parent until this potential germinal compound is vitalised by the karmic energy needed for the production of the foetus. Karma is therefore the indispensable conceptive cause of this being.
The accumulated karmic tendencies, inherited in the course of previous lives, at times play a far greater role than the hereditary parental cells and genes in the formation of both physical and mental characteristics.
The sage, for instance, inherited, like every other person, the reproductive cells and genes from his parents. But physically, morally and intellectually there was none comparable to him in his long line of Royal ancestors. In the sage own words, he belonged not to the Royal lineage, but to that of the Aryan sage. He was certainly a superman, an extraordinary creation of his own Karma.
It is obvious from this unique case that karmic tendencies could not only influence our physical organism, but also nullify the potentiality of the parental cells and genes – hence the significance of the Buddha’s enigmatic statement,
- "We are the heirs of our own actions."
Dealing with this problem of variation, the Atthasalini, being a commentary on the Abhidharma, states:
"Depending on this difference in Karma appears the differences in the birth of beings, high and low, base and exalted, happy and miserable. Depending on the difference in Karma appears the difference in the individual features of beings as beautiful and ugly, high-born or low born, well-built or deformed.
Depending on the difference in Karma appears the difference in worldly conditions of beings, such as gain and loss, and disgrace, blame and praise, happiness and misery."
Depending on the difference in Karma appears the difference in worldly conditions of beings, such as gain and loss, and disgrace, blame and praise, happiness and misery." Thus, from the sage's point of view, our present mental, moral intellectual and temperamental differences are, for the most part, due to our own actions and tendencies, both past and present.