Talk:Karm Mīmāmsa or the Science of Karm:Is Life Fair

By Vishal Agarwal

Consider the following facts –

Sr. No.	Paradoxes of Life	Examples
1	Some are born into good fortune, others into bad fortune by accident of birth	Children born in a royal family versus children born to beggars.
2	Sometimes good people suffer, and bad people enjoy their lives.	Bigoted king Aurangzeb lived a long life of 90 years while Swami Vivekananda died at the early age of 39 and underwent numerous hardships in his childhood.
3	A happy person suddenly experiences pain and sorrow and vice versa. Children born in a royal family versus children born to beggars.	A billionaire suddenly discovers that he has a cancer that will kill him within a year. A poor man wins a jumbo lottery.
4	Our lives have both happiness and sorrow.	A healthy person meets with an accident and becomes paraplegic
5	The world itself is a mixture of happiness and sorrow-causing objects.	A young man is handsome and rich but is a poor student getting low grades in college.
6	Sometimes a lot of effort does not lead to the desired goal, at other times we get a ‘windfall’.	A good student prepares hard for a Physics test but scores low in the final exam whereas a bad student scores an A grade even though he did not study much.
7	What gives one person joy, gives another person sorrow.	Argentinians rejoice at winning the World Soccer Cup, but Germans are unhappy at losing.
8	Good luck of one person can be bad luck for another.	A millionaire loses his bag of jewels that is found by an anonymous person who decides to keep it.

One might then ask all these questions - Is it Fair? Is God unjust? Is it just ‘Fate’ or ‘Luck’?

Hinduism answers these questions through the doctrines of Karm and Rebirth, and with the assumption that Bhagavān is just and fair. The scriptures voice the above apparent unfairness of life and say:

Agni, make me have good conduct (su-charita), bar me against bad conduct (dus-charita). Yajurveda, Mādhyandina Samhitā 4.28

For they lay it (the good and evil) on the scales in yonder world; and whichever of the two sinks down, that will he follow, whether it be the good or the evil. Yajurveda, Shatapatha Brahmana 11.2.7.33

It happens sometimes that even people who have no good qualities of character get a lot of wealth and fame. But it is seen that they are not able to enjoy these for a long time, and eventually perish down to their roots. Mahābhārata 12.124.69

But we see that many humans who are disciplined, wise and clever also get tired after making a great effort but still do not achieve success. Mahābhārata 12.331.10

Whereas others who are foolish, have no good qualities, are evil, and are devoid of any blessings from their elders are yet able to fulfill all their wishes. Mahābhārata 12.330.11

There are others who commit violence against others all their lives and keep cheating others but live happily into their old age. Mahābhārata 12.331.12

And there are many who do not do any work and sit quietly but wealth walks towards them on its own. And some people work very hard but are not able to obtain what they want. Mahābhārata 12.331.13

In all these paradoxes, one should understand that it is the guilt (accumulated karm from the past) of humans that comes into play. Mahābhārata 12.331.14ab

In the long run, life is indeed fair. It is a zero-sum game. We have only ourselves to blame or credit for our failures and successes, whether we know it and understand it – or not.

“If you experience and believe in reincarnation, then you must know and accept the basic law of karm: You reap what you sow. You are aware that your thoughts and actions have consequences – if not this lifetime, then in future lifetimes. This is a humbling experience.”

A Hindu teacher also explains:

“Karm is the expression of the rule of perfect justice within us. It is the law of the cosmos reflected in the microcosm, man. There is nothing arbitrary or punitive about it; it is universally the guarantee that every act produces results that finally return to the source. Karmic results may be immediate or delayed, but they are always inevitable…”

Another Hindu teacher says-

“The law of karm teaches us that the world is a purposive moral order, where the individual obtains what he desires as a direct manifestation of his own free will. Any lesser cosmic retributive mechanism would be unjust. Any seeming injustice in the metaphysical constitution of God’s creation would reflect negatively upon the Divine, requiring precisely the many unsatisfactory forms of speculation (known as theodicies) used to attempt to explain the existence of suffering that are found throughout the 2800-year history of Euro-American philosophy of religion.”