We are faced with a totally ill-balanced
world. We perceive the inequalities and manifold destinies of men and the
numerous grades of beings that exist in the universe. We see one born into
a condition of affluence, endowed with fine mental, moral and physical
qualities and another into a condition of abject poverty and wretchedness.
Here is a man virtuous and holy, but, contrary to his expectation, ill-luck
is ever ready to greet him. The wicked world runs counter to his ambitions
and desires. He is poor and miserable in spite of his honest dealings and
piety. There is another vicious and foolish, but accounted to be fortune's
darling. He is rewarded with all forms of favors, despite his shortcomings
and evil modes of life.
Why, it may be questioned, should one be
an inferior and another a superior? Why should one be wrested from the
hands of a fond mother when he has scarcely seen a few summers, and another
should perish in the flower or manhood, or at the ripe age of eighty or
hundred? Why should one be sick and infirm, and another strong and healthy?
Why should one be handsome, and another ugly and hideous, repulsive to
all? Why should one be brought up in the lap of luxury, and another in
absolute poverty, steeped in misery? Why should one be born a millionaire
and another a pauper? Why should one be born with saintly characteristics,
and another with criminal tendencies? Why should some be linguists, artists,
mathematicians or musicians from the very cradle? Why should some be congenitally
blind, deaf and deformed? Why should some be blessed and others cursed
from their birth?
These are some problems that perplex the
minds of all thinking men. How are we to account for all this unevenness
of the world, this inequality of mankind?
Is it due to the work of blind chance or
accident?
There is nothing in this world that happens
by blind chance or accident. To say that anything happens by chance, is
no more true than that this book has come here of itself. Strictly speaking,
nothing happens to man that he does not deserve for some reason or another.
Could this be the fiat of an irresponsible
Creator?
Huxley writes:
"If we are to assume that anybody has designedly
set this wonderful universe going, it is perfectly clear to me that he
is no more entirely benevolent and just in any intelligible sense of the
words, than that he is malevolent and unjust."
According to Einstein:
"If this being (God) is omnipotent, then
every occurrence, including every human action, every human thought, and
every human feeling and aspiration is also his work; how is it possible
to think of holding men responsible for their deeds and thoughts before
such an Almighty Being.
"In giving out punishments and rewards,
he would to a certain extent be passing judgement on himself. How can this
be combined with the goodness and righteousness ascribed to him."
"According to the theological principles
man is created arbitrarily and without his desire and at the moment of
his creation is either blessed or damned eternally. Hence man is either
good or evil, fortunate or unfortunate, noble or depraved, from the first
step in the process of his physical creation to the moment of his last
breath, regardless of his individual desires, hopes, ambitions, struggles
or devoted prayers. Such is theological fatalism." -- Spencer Lewis
As Charles Bradlaugh says:
"The existence of evil is a terrible stumbling
block to the Theist. Pain, misery, crime, poverty confront the advocate
of eternal goodness and challenge with unanswerable potency his declaration
of Deity as all-good, all-wise, and all-powerful."
In the words of Schopenhauer:
"Whoever regards himself as having become
out of nothing must also think that he will again become nothing; for an
eternity has passed before he was, and then a second eternity had begun,
through which he will never cease to be, is a monstrous thought.
"If birth is the absolute beginning, then
death must be his absolute end; and the assumption that man is made out
of nothing leads necessarily to the assumption that death is his absolute
end."
Commenting on human sufferings and God,
Prof. J.B.S. Haldane writes:
"Either suffering is needed to perfect
human character, or God is not Almighty. The former theory is disproved
by the fact that some people who have suffered very little but have been
fortunate in their ancestry and education have very fine characters. The
objection to the second is that it is only in connection with the universe
as a whole that there is any intellectual gap to be filled by the postulation
of a deity. And a creator could presumably create whatever he or it wanted."
Lord Russell states:
"The world, we are told, was created by
a God who is both good and omnipotent. Before He created the world he foresaw
all the pain and misery that it would contain. He is therefore responsible
for all of it. it is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due
to sin. If God knew in advance the sins of which man would be guilty, He
was clearly responsible for all the consequences of those sins when He
decided to create man."
In "Despair," a poem of his old age, Lord
Tennyson thus boldly attacks God, who, as recorded in Isaiah, says, "I
make peace and create evil." (Isaiah, xiv. 7.)
"What! I should call on that infinite love
that has served us so well? Infinite cruelty, rather that made everlasting
hell, Made us, foreknew us, foredoomed us, and does what he will with his
own. Better our dead brute mother who never has heard us groan."
Surely "the doctrine that all men are sinners
and have the essential sin of Adam is a challenge to justice, mercy, love
and omnipotent fairness."
Some writers of old authoritatively declared
that God created man in his own image. Some modern thinkers state, on the
contrary, that man created God in his own image. With the growth of civilization
man's concept of God also became more and more refined.
It is however, impossible to conceive of
such a being either in or outside the universe.
Could this variation be due to heredity
and environment? One must admit that all such chemico-physical phenomena
revealed by scientists, are partly instrumental, but they cannot be solely
responsible for the subtle distinctions and vast differences that exist
amongst individuals. Yet why should identical twins who are physically
alike, inheriting like genes, enjoying the same privilege of upbringing,
be very often temperamentally, morally and intellectually totally different?
Heredity alone cannot account for these
vast differences. Strictly speaking, it accounts more plausibly for their
similarities than for most of the differences. The infinitesimally minute
chemico-physical germ, which is about 30 millionth part of an inch across,
inherited from parents, explains only a portion of man, his physical foundation.
With regard to the more complex and subtle mental, intellectual and moral
differences we need more enlightenment. The theory of heredity cannot give
a satisfactory explanation for the birth of a criminal in a long line of
honourable ancestors, the birth of a saint or a noble man in a family of
evil repute, for the arising of infant prodigies, men of genius and great
religious teachers.
According to Buddhism this variation is
due not only to heredity, environment, "nature and nurture," but also to
our own kamma, or in other words, to the result of our own inherited past
actions and our present deeds. We ourselves are responsible for our own
deeds, happiness and misery. We build our own hells. We create our own
heavens. We are the architects of our own fate. In short we ourselves are
our own kamma.
On one occasion [*] a certain young man
named Subha approached the Buddha, and questioned why and wherefore it
was that among human beings there are the low and high states.
* [Culakamma Vibhanga Sutta
-- Majjhima Nikaya, No. 135.]
"For," said he, "we find amongst mankind
those of brief life and those of long life, the hale and the ailing, the
good looking and the ill-looking, the powerful and the powerless, the poor
and the rich, the low-born and the high-born, the ignorant and the intelligent."
The Buddha briefly replied: "Every living
being has kamma as its own, its inheritance, its cause, its kinsman, its
refuge. Kamma is that which differentiates all living beings into low and
high states."
He then explained the cause of such differences
in accordance with the law of moral causation.
Thus from a Buddhist standpoint, our present
mental, intellectual, moral and temperamental differences are mainly due
to our own actions and tendencies, both past the present.
Kamma, literally, means action; but, in
its ultimate sense, it means the meritorious and demeritorious volition
(Kusala Akusala Cetana). Kamma constitutes both good and
evil. Good gets good. Evil gets evil. Like attracts like. This is the law
of Kamma.
As some Westerners prefer to say Kamma
is "action-influence."
We reap what we have sown. What we sow
we reap somewhere or some when. In one sense we are the result of what
we were; we will be the result of what we are. In another sense, we are
not totally the result of what we were and we will not absolutely be the
result of what we are. For instance, a criminal today may be a saint tomorrow.
Buddhism attributes this variation to Kamma,
but it does not assert that everything is due to Kamma.
If everything were due to Kamma, a man
must ever be bad, for it is his Kamma to be bad. One need not consult a
physician to be cured of a disease, for if one's Kamma is such one will
be cured.
According to Buddhism, there are five orders
or processes (Niyamas) which operate in the physical and
mental realms:
i. Kamma Niyama, order of
act and result, e.g., desirable and undesirable acts produce corresponding
good and bad results.
ii. Utu Niyama, physical
(inorganic) order, e.g., seasonal phenomena of winds and rains.
iii. Bija Niyama, order of
germs or seeds (physical organic order); e.g., rice produced from rice-seed,
sugary taste from sugar cane or honey etc. The scientific theory of cells
and genes and the physical similarity of twins may be ascribed to this
order.
iv. Citta Niyama, order of
mind or psychic law, e.g., processes of consciousness (Citta vithi),
power of mind etc.
v. Dhamma Niyama, order of
the norm, e.g., the natural phenomena occurring at the advent of a Boddhisatta
in his last birth, gravitation, etc.
Every mental or physical phenomenon could
be explained by these all-embracing five orders or processes which are
laws in themselves.
Kamma is, therefore, only one of the five
orders that prevail in the universe. It is a law in itself, but it does
not thereby follow that there should be a law-giver. Ordinary laws of nature,
like gravitation, need no law-giver. It operates in its own field without
the intervention of an external independent ruling agency.
Nobody, for instance, has decreed that
fire should burn. Nobody has commanded that water should seek its own level.
No scientist has ordered that water should consist of H2O, and that coldness
should be one of its properties. These are their intrinsic characteristics.
Kamma is neither fate nor predestination imposed upon us by some mysterious
unknown power to which we must helplessly submit ourselves. It is one's
own doing reacting on oneself, and so one has the possibility to divert
the course of Kamma to some extent. How far one diverts it depends on oneself.
It must also be said that such phraseology
as rewards and punishments should not be allowed to enter into discussions
concerning the problem of Kamma. For Buddhism does not recognize an Almighty
Being who rules His subjects and rewards and punishes them accordingly.
Buddhists, on the contrary, believe that sorrow and happiness one experiences
are the natural outcome of one's own good and bad actions. It should be
stated that Kamma has both the continuative and the retributive principle.
Inherent in Kamma is the potentiality of
producing its due effect. The cause produces the effect; the effect explains
the cause. Seed produces the fruit; the fruit explains the seed as both
are inter-related. Even so Kamma and its effect are inter-related; "the
effect already blooms in the cause."
A Buddhist who is fully convinced of the
doctrine of Kamma does not pray to another to be saved but confidently
relies on himself for his purification because it teaches individual responsibility.
It is this doctrine of Kamma that gives
him consolation, hope, self reliance and moral courage. It is this belief
in Kamma "that validates his effort, kindles his enthusiasm," makes him
ever kind, tolerant and considerate. It is also this firm belief in Kamma
that prompts him to refrain from evil, do good and be good without being
frightened of any punishment or tempted by any reward.
It is this doctrine of Kamma that can explain
the problem of suffering, the mystery of so-called fate or predestination
of other religions, and above all the inequality of mankind.
Kamma and rebirth are accepted as axiomatic.
.
.The
Buddha I I The Dhamma: Is it a Philosophy?I
I Is it a Religion? I I
Is Buddhism an Ethical System? I I Some
Salient Features of Buddhism I I Kamma or the
Law of Moral Causation I I Re-Birth I I
Paticca
Samuppada (Dependent Origination) I I Anatta
or Soul-lessness I I Nibanna I I The
Path to Nibbana