How Karma Works

the one that that rhymes with the boy. Um. I've noticed that I've gotten probably burp year in podcasts since I started drinking that. Yeah, that stuff is you know, it's dizzy. I'm a fan. You can taste the CEO too, Remember we talked about in the Taste episode. Oh, I don't drink the plane one that much here at work because when you drink, well, I drink the green tea here at work iced, but I drink the lime flavored at home. So you pay for that self? Yeah, wow,

Discovery Channel pays for it. What well, it's you know who pays my bills? Oh? Gotcha? Yeah, but that's an exchange for work. Yeah. They don't send me like a stipend for the boy. They just send you the line soda you are we done with that one? Yes, it seems like we should be. Yes, Chuck Josh, I'm sure you've heard the word karma bandied about a lot lately. Oh man, Uh, you could probably find a pretty recent spike in use on the internets in association with a

person's name. That would be Casey Anthony. Oh yeah, yeah, Casey Anthony, the alleged killer of her daughter Kaylee, who has let off, who is um found not guilty acquitted. I guess you'd say, yeah, she's found guilty of something else though today right, she was found guilty for counts of lying to the police. Yeah. I didn't follow this case set closely. Actually I didn't either, But I mean like people were crazy over it. I saw, and uh, I get the impression that most of people, well, don't

think that that justice was done necessarily. That's the impression I get. So people have gone to their go to recourse when you have no other recourse, and they are giving it over to karma, the law of the universe. Yes, karma will get you. That karma is gonna come around and get Casey Anthony one day. Yeah, I say that

same thing. So it's a very new ag approach to karma, like karma is gonna get you for wronging me, right, or I did a good deed, so karma is gonna smile on me, right, And that you can't really approach karma from a true viewpoint as far as the viewpoint of the people who created this concept are concerned without the positive and the negative. And for the most part, karma is actually very negative. It's something you want to

escape from. And if something bad happens to you, or you are born disfigured or whatever, it's because you did something in your past life. Westerners kind of find this distasteful, right, so we've abandoned it largely and taken this new ag approached karma. Let's talk about all forms of karma. It's like mick karma in the Western world. It's exactly right. That's a really great way to pick You should coin

that um chuck. Before we get started, I want to say, if you had a problem with acupuncture, our acupuncture podcast, our reincarnation podcast, our voodoo podcast, any podcast where we showed um respect to other people's beliefs that are weird or just you know, unlike yours, and you had a real problem with it. Skip this one. We want you to continue to like us. We respect your opinions, and we don't want to bristle you. So just go ahead and skip this one to go to the next one.

There's like three d and fifty other ones. Just listen to us. Okay, listen to the Muppets one. That's a good, good advice. No dissenters on that one. So let's give everybody a second. Okay, But you know, we're works. We explain how stuff works. That's what we do. Yeah, and it's not up to us to assault um millennia of beliefs that billions of people across the world hold. So that's not what we're here for. We're here to explain it.

Like you said, So speaking from the eastern point of view, we'll get to the western view and how we got that later, how it got on. My name is Earl exactly. Yeah, that's what the basis of the show is, right, So, um, yeah, because he gets hit by a car. If you're winning a lottery, uh no, he just won the lottery and gets hit by a car and it gives him pause.

I don't remember the car part. I just knew he won the lottery, but he was a bad guy and getting hit by the car made him think, I don't remember that, and I think there was like a song or something like karma, Like karma was on his mind and he gets hit by a car and like that was the sign from the universe that must have been in the pilot episode. I don't know if I saw that. So Eastern Eastern philosophy, and we're talking four main um

organized religions that believe in karma. That would be jaane is Um, Sikhism, Jainism, yeah, John, yeah, joinis Um, Uh Sikhism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Right. Yes, the word karma itself. We like to point out the roots sometimes of these words. It stands script uh karman k r m A N, which means act. Just kind of makes a lot of sense, right. There's also a polly word, and polly is the original language used for Buddhist text. I believe um it's kama k A M m A and it means action, so

virtually the same thing. Yeah, Well, it all makes sense because karma is all about You're the acts that you commit, good or bad, coming back to bite you or elevate you. Mostly to bite you. So where should we Where should we start out here with I guess Hinduism we should. We should also say, like the concept of karma is similar in a lot of ways, but among these four

there's a lot of really interesting differences. Yes, if you do remember our Reincarnation podcast, you remember us talking about sam Sara, and that is the eternal cycle of birth and rebirth that Hindus believe that humans go through. And you're tied to that cycle through karma. Yes, until you shed all your karma, as far as Hindus believe, you will never achieve moksha, which is basically salvation. You're freed from the cycle of rebirth. You don't have to waste

any time on earth any longer. Right, But here's where I get confused. For some reason, this one confused me, maybe because they're also similar but slightly different. I thought, in Hinduism, does the karma reset after each rebirth? No, it clings, it clings to the soul. Okay, So with with Hindus, the soul survives transmutation. Okay, With Buddhists, karma is well, we'll talk about it later, but yes, with Hindus, it's it. Your soul goes from body to body and

the karma's attached to it. Yeah, okay, So moksha that you said is the goal of salvation and that's the ultimate goal. And this is one of those things in Eastern religion a lot of Westerners can't even comprehend. It can only be achieved after it is no longer desired. It doesn't like it blows my mind. I know, that's

like sound of one hand clapping. Well, and that's why they think ponder that for their lifetime, because it's hard to wrap your head around it, right, And I wonder the like, the best way to not want that is to really enjoy your life on earth. But then moksha is a bad thing, so I don't think it necessarily happens like that. I think you're just kind of like whatever.

So for Hindu's good karma is you generally get good karma if you uh perform the duties of your social uh status, your cast, and if you perform those well, then in your next life you will be born into the next highest or maybe you'll skip a couple. Right, But you have to, like you said, fulfill your duties, right, Yeah, you have to be a good priest or good laborer

um or a good leader or whatever. Um. And the one of the I guess aspects of Hindu karma is that it's a universal law that's independent of God or any of their gods. They have a pantheon obviously, um. But none of their gods can mess with karma. It's it's its own thing. So a god can't be like, Oh, I'm gonna smack you down with some karma because you irked me so bad. They can't do it, right, And I don't know. I didn't I didn't notice whether or

not the gods are subject to karma. But um, I would assume probably because it's a it's a natural law, but they're subject to it as well. Possibly humans definitely are, and gods can't mess with it. Right, that makes sense. Yeah, you're explaining this to me Buddhism. Well, hold on, there's three Let me just say, there's three types of karma in Hindu The stuff you do here in this life does not affect this life. It's goes in store for the next life or another life down the down the way, right,

So you have three kinds of karma. You have parada, which is karma that you've experienced during your present life. But it's from a past life, yes, but you're it's you're going through right now. You're you're born with a club foot. You did something in another life. This is the idea behind karma. Um. There's sancta, which is the store of karma that you have coming in future lives.

But it's not come to fruition. As they say. You got a safe deposit box chock full of whatever your deeds are, right, but you hope that through good actions in this life you can cut down on that store necessarily um, and then the the present um karma that you're sewing that's going to come to fruition will be added to that store is called agaman. That's like the stuff you're doing now, does that go into the storage

when you die? I don't know, Okay, I shouldn't have that's that then it's all right, okay, But that's that's Hindu karma alright. Buddhist karma believes They believe that the soul accumulates karma and that it carries over to the next life. Right, it makes this very cool, But there's no soul in Buddhism. It's your karma. That that links one life to the next, right right. They don't believe in a soul like we think of a soul, no

here in the West. But the karma that you generate, that you have when you die makes it to your next life and becomes I think that just the coolest three words ever. Nirvana. No, that's one word, the cool nirvana. No, it's too okay. Germ of consciousness, yes, yes, I think that's really awesome, Like that's informs what you do in this life. Yeah, the vignana, I believe it's what they

call it. But it's not your soul transmigrating from one life to the next, reincarnation, but it is a form of reincarnation, yes, And the soul consists of the five skandas uh sensation, body sensations, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. But that's not the same as the germ of consciousness right right, Okay, yeah, all of them, all of the karma combined becomes the

germ of consciousness in the next life. Right in. Buddhists like Hindus want to break the cycle of sam Sara to ultimately reach Nirvana via the Middle Way or the eight full Path, which we already talked about in reincarnation as well. Right, See is this confusing to me? Like? Am I weird? Because it's confusing? Not really? I mean if you think about it, you can, really you can break all of these beliefs down to this. You your

actions have consequences, Yeah, I get that part. And good deeds will get you closer to not having these sticky consequences from past lives any longer. At the very least, you won't generate new stuff. And in most of these beliefs, you can eventually shed all this or get rid of it through either just time, good deeds, or the intervention of God, depending on what your religion is. Right, Because it's the same in Seekhis m they also want to The whole goal is to exit the chain of reincarnation

once again. Right. Basically everybody thinks earth is just terrible, right, so um, the the Buddhists, um, well, Buddha himself came up with some pretty good thoughts on karma. He had this famous quote saying we are the heirs of our own actions, right. Um, But he was really big on contradicting the idea that everything from our past lives informed everything in our current lives and therefore we weren't. Um,

there's no such thing as free. Well, right, that's a big sticky part of karma is that, depending on how you look at it, where it's just completely fatalist right to where there's nothing we could do any differently. This is gonna happen to us anyway. So there's no reason to stop being a pervert or a thief in this life. And the way that that's um kind of uh, I guess contradicted is um. That was one of his teachings he said, He said pervert um, which stuck out to me.

I know the Buddhists, the Buddha knew what pervertstory um. But uh, the way you get around that is to say, no, stuff you're doing now you can control, and if it's bad, it's gonna come back to bite you in your bottom in the next life. And that was Buddha. Yeah, the bite you in the bottom thing, that was I I paraphrased him. Are we on daginism? Did I just kind of briefly go overseeks? So should we cover that in more detail? Um? Well, hold, let me tell you two

more things about Buddhis I found interesting. One is um the paca is the result of karma, so karma's action, but paca is the result. So it's like, um, the karma is to vapaca's seed is to fruit. Is an analogy I've seen nice, right, um, and then asana is a type of karma, a good karma. You would hope it'd be good. It's the karma, an act of karma that you um commit on your deathbed. Right, so maybe you will all of your money, your possessions to like

a local orphanage or something. They Buddhists give great import to um asana because it's so close to the beginning of the next life that it's just it's more potent, I believe. And does that outweigh even the bad deeds that you've done, Like no, can you store you know? No? But it would be like if you're compared maybe a bad thing you did in your six to a good thing you did on your deathbed, if the the asana is gonna just be, it would be bigger in scale.

I guess that's the impression I have. Again, I'm not Buddhist or Hindu or giant or seek so this is all just outside research. I'm I'm I'm a strong member of the Church of Josh. Okay, yeah, I am too. That's weird of Josh. Wow my first member. Oh you've got more than one of my friend. Uh So I mentioned Sikhis and briefly, do you have anything else on that? Yeah? I thought the Siek's got kind of a short shift shrift, shrift, shrift in this article a little bit. Um, there's you know,

plenty of stuff out there. Um, there's actually a very venerable scholar, Dr Gobin seeing Mansukhanika. He's a he's a learned Sikh scholar. So Dr Mansukhani took on the same idea that the your acts in a previous life are having an effect on your current life, and that fatalistic view of like, well, there's interesting is free will? Then he took that on and said, no, there is such

a thing as fate and it is very strong. So fate will look at like a river, right, but man can still make waves in this In this river, your actions are like a wave or like a whirlpool. So it's within this flowing river of fate, but you're still having a consequence through your actions. Do good things. And Eddie was one of the ones that used. Yeah, so so do good things, do good acts, and you will gain favor with God. Um. The that's not unique to

seek is um, I think Um. The Hindus believe that God. No, the Hindus believe God can't have anything to do with it. That the gods can't. The Sikhs say, no, God can create or destroy karma. And so if you find favor with God through good acts or through prayer or whatever, um you will there will be an effect of a loss of karmic debt. Boy, they did get the short drift.

They totally did, and there their Their view of karma is that it's the accumulation of effects of past deeds on your character, and the character is tied to the soul and so therefore the character survives death. Wow, so you're you're you wake up in the next life with the same character character that was assembled by your previous life. All right, I like that one. Plus, they had the cool turbans uh jiinism is where we get a little

star wars e with the whole thing. This sort of reminded me of the Midichlorians how they explained the force in which one it was. It was one of the newer ones. You know, they explained the forces middy clorians in the cells, and everyone was kind of like really, yeah, like you had to explain that. Yeah. Anyway, Giantism actually believes that karma is a an actual atomic substance with actual particles that attach itself to the jiva or your soul.

And as long as your soul is burdened by karma once again, you were trapped in that cycle of birth, death and rebirth. But they believe it's a physical thing. Yeah, like a particular matter. It can't be sensed or measured in your words, um, and I took that well, the vibrations of your words, your thoughts, and your deeds, they collect it, right, They attract karma, these particular matters UM. And Jainists UM have classified like I think, something like

a hundred and fifty eight sub types. So there's eight types of karma, two main types physical, physical, and psychic. Uh, there's eight types and a hundred and fifty eight subtypes. And they do it to like a remarkable degree. So like if you, um look at the number four subtype of the body shape, Nam, you're a hunchback if you have that kind of karma. Yeah, so like they have it down to like that granular level. But the one that what it reminded me of is epigenetics. House what

what do you mean? Well, they're they're saying, like karma, this particulate matter is attracted to the soul and it affects its function, but it doesn't change the nature of the soul in just the same way that like these proteins are attached to your genes and they affect its expression, but they don't change the gene. They just change its

function how it functions. That weird, And they've been talking about this for a whole Well, and Ginuts believed that the bad deeds are more likely to stick so in their life like sort of like you know, Hindu and Buddhist, they live very meagerly, don't like seek out the material things. Um obviously live a sober life and don't harm other living things. Yeah, I think they're the ones that have There's a sect of Jains that have little brooms giants.

They have little brooms and they like dust off before they sit down because they don't want to accidentally kill anything. YEA interesting. Yeah, I've been letting moths out like crazy. Dude, We're under attack. Really, yeah, you should, um turn out your lights. Yeah. Uh so, now can we move on to karma in the West, this interesting perversion, not a perversion just here in the West. It's become a truth, yeah,

half truth of Mick Karma. It's become just a buzz word, um, meaning you know how to how to increase your luck basically by doing good things, right, like tipping. Yeah, like karma, a karma jar is a tip jar. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of awful little bit. Well, have you ever wished bad karma on someone? For real? Like thought that or said that, you mean, like schaden fraud? No, I actually said like, man, you've got some bad karma coming. You're

wait for that? Oh yeah yeah yeah. I used to extensively, Like really, that was my thing. It's just so easy. You just relinquished power, like, oh well, I don't have to do anything because carm is going to come back or the universe is going to come back and get you. Well, in a way, though, it's kind of good because it means that you're not obsessed with revenge. So yeah, it is very good in that sense. Yeah. I had a

lady in l A that sold us a treadmill. I used treadmill that Her name was Joan, and that's all I'll give you. But we remember the first and last name. We still say it a yeah, was it Joan Crawford. Um, but she sold us this. She wasn't famous. She sold us a treadmill that um clearly did not work. When we got at home, like you know, I ran out under place. It was like, hey, this is cool. It turns out after like six or eight minutes the thing overheats and stop ops and it was just like that.

And we called her back and we're like, hey, you know, we were just at your house for five minutes ago and we bought this treadmill and it's not working. Overheats and stops and you know, you knew this, and like we'd like her two back or whatever. We'd like to bring it back. And she said, I'm not a store, That's what she said. And we were like really, like, you know, you kind of known this thing didn't work, like we just you know, you sell someone else or whatever.

Just we just want to make this right real quick. We'll be back over there in thirty minutes. And she was like no, She's like sorry, I'm not a store. I don't accept returns, and I wanted to take the treadmill and get some friends and go throw it to you said this big bay window, throw it through her window in the middle of the night. And Emily said, I couldn't do that, And she just said, it's probably good. Karma will get her one day. It's it's a good way.

It's a way to go. At the very least. You can serve a lot of energy that you can use elsewhere. I'm more productive things than the treadmill. Yeah. And plus I'm mean, like accelerating or hastening karma by like burning someone's house down, will get you in trouble. Some people think that that generates bad karma for you weirdos. Uh So, in the West, it's obviously become well, you called it

a new age. It is very new age. And what's interesting is we can trace it back to pretty much one person who introduced the idea, the concept of karma to the West, Helena Blovotsky. Yeah, Madame Bolovotsky, Madame Bosky. Yeah. She was. She was a she was a Russian. She was very well traveled, she was very well read. She was also um something of a huckster during the era in the UM the Northeastern United States, where you could basically say, hey, I'm a medium. Look at this um

cheesecloth that I'm pulling out of my throat. It's it's spirit. Did she do that? She made a tea cup and tea saucer up here early on and just performed a few tricks, and they were like all sorts of um spirits or depths that she worked with UM that we're basically gave all these grand pronouncements and lessons that like she issued to her cult of followers UM. But she was very charismatic too. She was incredibly intelligent and very charming,

but she was also something of a fraud. But this lady basically came up with this idea that she she was coming down with this divine wisdom that was handed down to her. Theosophy. Yeah, she founded the Theosophical Society, and I thought it was interesting as she was a huckster. She co founded it with Henry Steele Allcott, who was

an attorney and a journalist. So you're going to hook up with something in a in a huckstery way, you're really ce o a if you have an attorney on one side, and then you can get depressed by the fact that he's a journalist. So I don't know if this woman was if she bought her own hype. She from what I understand, I just read an entry on her in the Skeptics Dictionary. Um. But the from what

I understand, she's she seemed fairly um committed. She was finally run out of like the Um, the organization that the theosofts. Yeah, like in five or six. Don't they still exist today, Yeah, because they accused her of trickery or something like that. But um, by the time this happened, they were in India. So like, she seemed very committed

to the idea of you know, this Hindu teachings. But basically her idea was too that all all of this occult um scripture of like Zoroaster, and it's just just in the n Gnostic texts, all that Um could all be reconciled with like um the idea of Atlantis and this where these supreme beings lived and there's astral projections and all of this, all the stuff that we take for granted today came from this lady in this era.

And one of the things that she introduced was the concept of karma, right, and it was to prepare us for what she called the Aquarian Age, which was the ultimate enlightenment or time of brotherhood. I guess a k a the nineteen fifties right, well was she was? It sort of like akin to the Rapture? Is that now? I think it was just a change in consciousness among a humanity as a whole. It's like the sixties. You know, it's the coming of the Age of Aquarius. Yeah, what

was that from hair? Yeah, so there you go. Age of Aquarius meant everybody was on acid. That's right. John Lennon Instant Karma is Gonna Get You number three hit. I didn't know it was that big of a hit. I've never heard it before. Oh, yes, you had. I have not shot I'm not kidding. And we All shine on. You've never heard that chorus? Oh, I didn't know that it was the name of the song. Well, yeah, Instant Karma's Gonna Get You, And then the chorus was and we All shine On. I had no idea that was

the song. It's also a Nike commercial. Yeah, that's where I've heard it. Yeah, of which my name is a Royal, which we've already covered. Eventually it became fodder for television mustachioed guys who was also a scientologist. Who Jason Lee isn't ye? Man, have you seen that Memphis Beach Show. No, he's on that. He stars in it, and apparently when he has a rough day work in the homicide beat, he goes out at night and like plays the blues. I saw him in a Granddaddy show in l A, Yeah,

and thought, oh, man, I love Jason Lee. Did they play that one song? Did they have a hit Granddaddy? Yeah? Yeah, I was in twenty eight days later when they're in the Girls. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they played that song. Yeah, it's a good one. I never heard any other Granddaddy songs, but that's a good song. They can't top that one now, actually I think they have. Well I'll have to go listen. Um what else you got, Chuck? I got nothing, man, This one just the followed me for some reason. I apologize,

you do great, thank you. So I guess the lesson here is, um, anytime you about karma and you sure tipping somebody an extra dollar is a good idea. But don't forget the other aspect of karma where if there's something bad has happened to you or somebody who's born disfigured or just dismembered somewhere somewhere in life, or just where it was killed or abused, people believe that that's karma too. So do you believe in karma in the very loosest sense of like if you do good things,

like good things will return your way. I don't even know. To be honest, I think you should do good things because that's the right thing to do. But you know what I do, But I don't believe it's any kind of natural law or cosmic force. I believe it's more like doing good deeds brings out a level of consciousness where you're attuned to goodness, so you notice that in other people in life more so you open up that

door very much. So, yes, whereas like if you judge other people, you are you become consumed with the idea of being judged, and that like dwell down there where did I agree with you there? That's what I think it is. I think I agree with you completely Church

and Josh exactly. Well. If you want to read more about how karma works, type in karma with a k don't be dumb with a k uh in the handy search bar at how stuff works dot com and that will bring up that article written by Saradwiti of stuff you missed in History Glass that is right, and Chuck, I said, uh, search bar and they're somewhere. So Listener Mail, Listener Mail. We asked for calls from people in the First Murderer podcast who might be related to John Billington

and lo and behold we have one. Yeah. And also can we mention what dorcas means? Yeah, what does it mean? It means gazelle in great And we heard from quite a few people who have family members named Dorcas. Yeah, grandmothers usually Dorcas, Dorcas Minorcas. Yeah, all right. Uh, this is from Wren in Elburne, Illinois. Hey, Josh and Chuck and Jerry. You said you wanted to hear from people who related to John Billington. Well, here I am my aunt.

Researched our family history a few years ago, put it all together in a book and gave it to the family members for Christmas. It's a great gift. When I first got it, the billing Things Billington's story was for sure, the most intriguing the girls from Stuff you missed in History class at a podcast about it a couple of years ago as well, and I love that edition and

played it for my dad, who thought it was cool. Um. I have played it for almost everyone I know, saying at the end of the episode, and that's my family in a nutshell. I'm one of those people who was super excited to say I'm related to the first murderer in the New World, and also love to tell the story about his son almost blowing up the Mayflower. I told my sister when she was pregnant that if she was having a girl, she shouldn't name the baby Dorcas Dorcas.

She didn't find it amusing and had a son anyway and named Dorcas just dork. I think this mail merchant d O r C. Anyway. I just want to express my excitement for the episode. I really love all the episodes. Keep it up. Ran from Elburn, Illinois. Nice well, thanks a lot, RN Billington, I don't think that was Yeah, if you've got a good deed that you did to somebody that you would consider good karma, right, do you

think you deserve a little good karma for it. Let's have a karma off, or how about this and have evidence of that return, like you did a good deed and you won the lottery, like the good one. That's a good one. Um, well, we're holding a little mini contests. Whoever has the best one in our opinion will make it to listener mail. That's right. But it's not a real contest. It's unsanctioned. That's right. I didn't even use the word contest just now, did I know? There's no prize,

no nothing. It's a karma off. Anyway. If you want to let us know about that, you can tweet it to us at s y s K podcast. You can also go on to our Facebook, Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, or you can send it old fashioned email at stuff Podcast at how Stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore them as promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought

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