Karma

[Matsya]

I've noticed that a lot of people, mostly family and friends, have used the term Karma to refer to someone receiving payment for good and bad deeds. My questions are as follows: (1) Is there a concept of good karma in hinduism?
(2) can you receive bad karma from evil thoughts and intended evil actions that you didn't go through with.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Poeticus]

I've noticed that a lot of people, mostly family and friends, have used the term Karma to refer to someone receiving payment for good and bad deeds. My questions are as follows: (1) Is there a concept of good karma in hinduism?
(2) can you receive bad karma from evil thoughts and intended evil actions that you didn't go through with.

Thank you in advance.

To be frank, I'm unfamiliar with the media-popularized notion of karma (e.g., "karma's a b&%*h"; "what goes around, comes around"). Unfamiliar in the sense that, that karma is not the karma that I, as a Hindu, am familiar with. Neither am I familiar with "good karma", "evil thoughts", "evil actions", or "bad karma". These are terms of different ontological realities, of different paradigms---certainly not of Dharmic paradigms.

 

[Vinayaka]

I've noticed that a lot of people, mostly family and friends, have used the term Karma to refer to someone receiving payment for good and bad deeds. My questions are as follows: (1) Is there a concept of good karma in hinduism?
(2) can you receive bad karma from evil thoughts and intended evil actions that you didn't go through with.

Thank you in advance.

Opinions vary, Matsya. But here's mine.

There is just karma, it's not good or bad. It is not a thing, but a principle, like gravity. What people mean when they are receiving karma is that they are getting the effects of a previous action, due to the karmic principle. That's just too long to say, so it' shortened, and now is misunderstood as a \thing' we get. It is considered 'action', and is past to current, and current to future.

 

[Makaranda]

(1) Is there a concept of good karma in hinduism?

There is the concept called punya, which might roughly translate to merit accumulated through virtuous (dharmic) actions. These are actions which are conducive to spiritual as well as physical/mental wellbeing. This merit is, as it were, stored up as we commit various karmas, and is then re-distributed by God in the form of pleasurable or happy experiences (or lokas).

(2) can you receive bad karma from evil thoughts and intended evil actions that you didn't go through with.

Negative merit is called papa, and accumulates (as you'd suppose) through undharmic actions (actions which strengthen ignorance and its effects). It results in unpleasurable and miserable experiences. Personally I don't believe that 'evil' thoughts and intentions can produce papa if one desists from acting upon them, because it is the action (karma) itself which produces the subsequent result in the form of papa, and not the mere intention to act, which can be thwarted through discipline. This, however, is my opinion only, I'm not certain what the view of Shruti/Smriti is on that, but perhaps somebody else will be able to clarify on that for you.

 

[Poeticus]

There is the concept called punya, which might roughly translate to merit accumulated through virtuous (dharmic) actions. These are actions which are conducive to spiritual as well as physical/mental wellbeing. This merit is, as it were, stored up as we commit various karmas, and is then re-distributed by God in the form of pleasurable or happy experiences (or lokas).





Negative merit is called papa, and accumulates (as you'd suppose) through undharmic actions (actions which strengthen ignorance and its effects). It results in unpleasurable and miserable experiences. Personally I don't believe that 'evil' thoughts and intentions can produce papa if one desists from acting upon them, because it is the action (karma) itself which produces the subsequent result in the form of papa, and not the mere intention to act, which can be thwarted through discipline. This, however, is my opinion only, I'm not certain what the view of Shruti/Smriti is on that, but perhaps somebody else will be able to clarify on that for you.

By typing the above post, you have increased your amount of negative merit. You have pāpa-ed. Now repent !

 

[Makaranda]

By typing the above post, you have increased your amount of negative merit. You have pāpa-ed. Now repent !

I have done a pApa? Oh, poop!

 

[Vinayaka]

Makaranda, my understanding is the same as yours. Ignore that other guy.

 

[Aupmanyav]

(1) Is there a concept of good karma in hinduism?
(2) can you receive bad karma from evil thoughts and intended evil actions that you didn't go through with.

I will go with Makaranda with one difference. An evil thought is a bad deed. Like Buddha said 'samyak-saṃkalpa/sammā sankappa' in the noble Eight-fold path. One's actions should be good - manasa, vacha, karmana - in thought, in speech, in action; and I think this is just as much Hindu.

"And what is right resolve? Being resolved on renunciation*, on freedom from ill will, on harmlessness: This is called right resolve."

* Renunciation does not mean asceticism, not at least in Hinduism, it means non-attachment.

 

[Matsya]

An evil thought is a bad deed.

I agree 100%. Swami Satchidananda said the following regarding thoughts:

"Every thought, feeling, perception, or memory you may have causes a modification, or ripple, in the mind. It distorts and colors the mental mirror. If you can restrain the mind from forming into modifications, there will be no distortion, and you will experience your true Self."