{"id":737,"date":"2011-11-14T11:30:17","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T16:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/?p=737"},"modified":"2011-11-14T11:30:17","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T16:30:17","slug":"karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/11\/karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people.html","title":{"rendered":"Karma: Beyond “bad things happening to good people”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Karma is a concept that has always fascinated me. \u00a0It’s complex, thought-provoking, and essential to Hinduism. \u00a0 Yet it is a term that has been “dumbed” down over the years as it has entered everyday jargon. \u00a0And more recently, “karma, baby” tends to be casually thrown out as a reason or explanation when something “bad” happens to a person. \u00a0But the concept of karma is far more complex than that, and does not only apply to cases where “bad things” happen to good people.<\/p>\n

At the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), we’ve described karma<\/a> as:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The principle of cause and effect<\/li>\n
  2. The idea that an individual’s every action produces an appropriate outcome for him\/her<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Integral to this is the understanding that outcomes may span over lifetimes. \u00a0Thus, karma also presupposes a belief in an undying, everlasting soul, or atman<\/em>, that carries on when one’s physical body\u00a0dies. \u00a0A person’s actions – good or bad – are attached to the soul and are carried forward as the soul survives the death of the current physical body to be reborn in a new physical body. \u00a0Thus, the fruits of today’s thoughts, actions, and intentions may not be felt today, tomorrow, or even in the next five years. \u00a0They may take lifetimes to manifest. \u00a0But as of yet, no Swami, guru, or Hindu scholar has been able to provide me with an exact formula for karma.<\/p>\n

    Gadadhara Pandit Dasa – the Hindu Chaplain at Columbia and a friend of mine – took at a stab at explaining karma in his latest piece in the Huffington Post. \u00a0I think his piece is a great introduction to the concept:\u00a0http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/gadadhara-pandit-dasa\/karma-what-goes-around-comes-around_b_1081057.html?ref=religion<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Karma is a concept that has always fascinated me. \u00a0It’s complex, thought-provoking, and essential to Hinduism. \u00a0 Yet it is a term that has been “dumbed” down over the years as it has entered everyday jargon. \u00a0And more recently, “karma, baby” tends to be casually thrown out as a reason or explanation when something “bad”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":390,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hinduism-101"],"yoast_head":"\nKarma: Beyond "bad things happening to good people" - Om Sweet Om<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/11\/karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Karma: Beyond "bad things happening to good people" - Om Sweet Om\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Karma is a concept that has always fascinated me. \u00a0It’s complex, thought-provoking, and essential to Hinduism. \u00a0 Yet it is a term that has been “dumbed” down over the years as it has entered everyday jargon. \u00a0And more recently, “karma, baby” tends to be casually thrown out as a reason or explanation when something “bad”…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/11\/karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Om Sweet Om\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-14T16:30:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"sheetal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Karma: Beyond \"bad things happening to good people\" - Om Sweet Om","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/11\/karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Karma: Beyond \"bad things happening to good people\" - Om Sweet Om","og_description":"Karma is a concept that has always fascinated me. \u00a0It’s complex, thought-provoking, and essential to Hinduism. \u00a0 Yet it is a term that has been “dumbed” down over the years as it has entered everyday jargon. \u00a0And more recently, “karma, baby” tends to be casually thrown out as a reason or explanation when something “bad”…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/11\/karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people.html","og_site_name":"Om Sweet Om","article_published_time":"2011-11-14T16:30:17+00:00","author":"sheetal","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/11\/karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/11\/karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people.html","name":"Karma: Beyond \"bad things happening to good people\" - Om Sweet Om","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-11-14T16:30:17+00:00","dateModified":"2011-11-14T16:30:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/892f83fe41e8ba0b2d625fb00436cec8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/11\/karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/11\/karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/11\/karma-beyond-bad-things-happening-to-good-people.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Karma: Beyond “bad things happening to good people”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/","name":"Om Sweet Om","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Sheetal Shah","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/892f83fe41e8ba0b2d625fb00436cec8","name":"sheetal","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b81\/b81e39bd8aa137041bf8c5f1ece2d99fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b81\/b81e39bd8aa137041bf8c5f1ece2d99fx96.jpg","caption":"sheetal"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/author\/sheetal"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/390"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":739,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions\/739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}