Introduction
Pop
culture has made karma a familiar concept to millions of the small
screen faithful. "My Name is Earl," an
American sitcom created by Greg Garcia, owes its premise to the concept
of karma. Jason Lee stars as "Earl Hickey," a petty cook who wins
$100,000 dollars with a lottery ticket. Before he has the chance to
cash it in, however, he loses it when he gets hit by a car. While in
the hospital, he learns about karma and decides that his bad fortune is
because of all the things he's done in his life to hurt people around
him. Armed with his new belief in karma, he makes a list of all of his
wrongdoings and vows to make them all right. His new belief in karma is
affirmed when he finds his missing lottery ticket after doing his first
good deed.
Earl Hickey's tongue-in-cheek karma experience is amusing, but the new path he sends his life on actually follows the principle. Karma is a concept in Indian religions, including both Hinduism and Buddhism. The word "karma" is a Sanskrit term meaning act, action or performance. Karma causes the entire cycle of cause and effect, or samsara. According to the law of karma, a person's actions in the present have a direct relationship with their experiences in the future. Each action has a result or fruit called vipaka. According to karma, each person is the architect of their own fate. They are responsible for their own pain and misery as well as their own happiness.
Karma doesn't begin with birth and end with death. The cycle continues unbroken from one person's incarnation to the next. This could explain "something bad happening to a good person." If a person did something bad in a past life, even if they are virtuous in their current one, they could pay for it now. At some point, with a person's actions by volition or accident, they caused their present circumstances. Karma is not limit to the individual, however. Karma is a cosmic priciple, with each person effecting each other's life like ripples in a pond.
Accepting the idea of karma is rejecting the idea of chance. It is no accident that one person is born into the lap of luxury while another is born into sickness and poverty. It is no accident that one person is born with talent and mental brilliance while another is born blind, dumb or deaf. Karma is a law of the universe, like gravity. It feels nothing for no one. It is simply the natural law of causation playing out. It isn't the universe's judgment. It's the universe's reflex.
This storybook will give us a look at lessons in karma through Waris Karan. Waris was born in the United States and has never been to his parents' birth country of India. Before his senior year in college, he decides to spend the summer traveling through India by train to discover his heritage, but his trip soon gets interrupted by strange and vivid dreams about people from long ago. The characters and events seem familiar somehow, and his journey of cultural discovery soon becomes a chase for self-discovery as he desperately tries to understand his dreams and the "effects" that they are having on him. Waris learns about karma the hard way as it appears that the events in his dreams are somehow affecting the events of his own life.
Dream 1: Demons in the Desert
Rama battles the demon Thataka in the desert.
Dream 2: The Girl on the Balcony
It's love at first sight for Rama when he sees Sita. Rama wins Sita's hand in marriage.
Dream 3 and 4: Brahmastra
Rama saves Sita.
Earl Hickey's tongue-in-cheek karma experience is amusing, but the new path he sends his life on actually follows the principle. Karma is a concept in Indian religions, including both Hinduism and Buddhism. The word "karma" is a Sanskrit term meaning act, action or performance. Karma causes the entire cycle of cause and effect, or samsara. According to the law of karma, a person's actions in the present have a direct relationship with their experiences in the future. Each action has a result or fruit called vipaka. According to karma, each person is the architect of their own fate. They are responsible for their own pain and misery as well as their own happiness.
Karma doesn't begin with birth and end with death. The cycle continues unbroken from one person's incarnation to the next. This could explain "something bad happening to a good person." If a person did something bad in a past life, even if they are virtuous in their current one, they could pay for it now. At some point, with a person's actions by volition or accident, they caused their present circumstances. Karma is not limit to the individual, however. Karma is a cosmic priciple, with each person effecting each other's life like ripples in a pond.
Accepting the idea of karma is rejecting the idea of chance. It is no accident that one person is born into the lap of luxury while another is born into sickness and poverty. It is no accident that one person is born with talent and mental brilliance while another is born blind, dumb or deaf. Karma is a law of the universe, like gravity. It feels nothing for no one. It is simply the natural law of causation playing out. It isn't the universe's judgment. It's the universe's reflex.
This storybook will give us a look at lessons in karma through Waris Karan. Waris was born in the United States and has never been to his parents' birth country of India. Before his senior year in college, he decides to spend the summer traveling through India by train to discover his heritage, but his trip soon gets interrupted by strange and vivid dreams about people from long ago. The characters and events seem familiar somehow, and his journey of cultural discovery soon becomes a chase for self-discovery as he desperately tries to understand his dreams and the "effects" that they are having on him. Waris learns about karma the hard way as it appears that the events in his dreams are somehow affecting the events of his own life.
Dream 1: Demons in the Desert
Rama battles the demon Thataka in the desert.
Dream 2: The Girl on the Balcony
It's love at first sight for Rama when he sees Sita. Rama wins Sita's hand in marriage.
Dream 3 and 4: Brahmastra
Rama saves Sita.