Talk:Objections to the Doctrine of Karm and Responses:Mass-Deaths and the Doctrine of Karm

By Vishal Agarwal

Objection: Incidents like an airplane crash or natural calamities like earthquakes or pandemics can kill or injure numerous people at the same time. Even Śāstra describe this fact of life:

Just as several wicks soaked in oil arise from the same lamp and all get extinguished by a strong gust of wind, so also several lives get extinguished during an unforeseen calamity. Yājñavalkya Smṛti 3.165

But events causing mass deaths seem to invalidate the Law of Karm. For example, if a million people die in a pandemic, does it mean that a million people had conspired together to commit a heinous crime in their previous lives? This appears too incredible, especially when no such collective act can be determined.

Response: Hindu Dharm rejects the notion of collective Karm resulting in a simultaneous, collective fruit. This has been discussed in Sections 14.12 and 19.3 above. To summarize, a modern teacher’s opinion in this regard is reproduced below:

“So that we may not be unduly disturbed by external factors, we deliberately take certain well-thought-out measures which are also Karm of the precautionary type. By that, effects caused by external factors may, to some extent, be regulated. Most of us do take some such precautionary measures.

A storm in the sea is not caused by an individual’s Karm but the decision to sail or not to sail in such a storm lies with him alone. Similarly, the desire to assume the mundane body and to experience concomitant feelings of pleasure and pain—undergoing the cycle of births in a world in which almost everything is left to chance—is the result of our own Karm.

From this standpoint, it may be said that all our internal and external experiences follow directly or indirectly from our own acts, and permanent deliverance from them can also be attained by efforts of our own. That effort is nothing but the practice of Yog accompanied by a strong Puruṣakāra or free will.”