The subject of karma seems to raise a lot of questions. Sometimes it is viewed as the basis of all religions including Christianity. And sometimes it is viewed as the basis of oppression and the caste system in India.

To study and acquire knowledge, over-used labels like karma need to be avoided, because they carry too many prejudices with them. A generic terminology must be used. We can then see that there is a path involved in Christianity and in karma, and they have some similarities.

It would therefore be highly informative to compare the path in Christianity to the path in karma. The first thing one notices in Christianity is that conservatives (fundamentalists) do not mention a path. Instead, they claim they get saved by being chosen and zapped in some way. For Protestants (now all fundamentalists), they supposedly decide to accept Jesus, and they are then zapped into perfection, and that means they are born again. Catholics (who are also starting to become fundamentalists) claim that a little more ritual is needed for the same thing. Seven sacraments are used to create the perfection instead of an instantaneous zap.

The point is, the path which Christ described is not found or mentioned in either the fundamentalist zap or Catholic sacraments. Sometimes, traditionalist Catholicism (before Vatican II) would include knowledge of the path as a background concept.

So what is the path that Christ described? It is overcoming sin by learning constructivity. The lesson is only effective when doing good deeds for the needy. In modern times, it is much more difficult to help the needy than it was in Christ's time; and therefore, the most effective way to follow such a path is to be needy. Then a person is forced to solve problems by working constructively with other persons, which is the essence of morality. In short, the path is humane poverty with moral concerns.

Karma is more difficult to summarize. Often it is described as cause-and-effect relationships, and an example is the golden rule—do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Mat 7:12). Notice that there is not enough explanation of how to convert the philosophy into a practical results. In fact, there is not enough philosophy to explain any of the complexities. Perhaps the information exists in the oceans of philosophy that have been produced in Hinduism, but it is not clear and simple enough to be found and applied.

Notice this problem: Among the Hindus there was not one authority who could produce the last word on the subject and explain it in simple enough to terms to prevent the essence from getting lost. Even in Christianity, the essence got lost in most of the applications, as mentioned above. But Christ words are still there describing the truth in simple and clear enough terms for truth seekers to find.

The reason why karma can be misused to oppress people is because there is not enough information with it to show how to properly apply it. Specifically, the Hindus don't know that if you do good deeds for others with love, it will not only break the cycles of sin but overcome the psychological conditioned reactions of sin inside of a person's soul. Not knowing this, karma is applied randomly, trying to avoid sin without knowing the most effective way to overcome it. Without this knowledge, karma can be misapplied by telling people they need to be slaves to improve their karma.

Oppression prevents people from living and robs them of the opportunity to learn constructivity. Oppression is not constructive. It is not a path to life. The path which overcomes sin is also the path which creates life. Doing constructive things overcomes sin and creates life. Oppression inhibits constructivity; so it inhibits overcoming sin and creating life.

The path to life is not just personal improvement, because one's own sin is not the only force destroying life. The external forces of oppression need to be overcome. Truth ends those forces, because sin cannot exist in the light of truth. In fact, it is primarily truth that solves problems for the needy. Only truth feeds the hungry. People can solve their own problems when allowed to, and all they need is to end the injustices which prevent them from living. Truth does that. Far more than money or food, the needy need the truth which ends the injustices.

Karma is too simplistic, philosophical and incomplete to include all of these important elements of the path to life. Even if the element of karma can be found in the Christian path, it is only a very small part of the path. Directing life towards overcoming sin by helping the victims of injustice with what they need more than anything—the truth about the injustices—is much more than karma.

But this subject cannot be left in purely abstract terms, because there is a tendency to go through the motions of helping the needy or producing truth, while the results are too superficial to be relevant. The superficiality is only replaced by significant results when their is love. Love is the concern for going beyond superficialities and producing real results.

Then there is the test for the results. The test is in human relations, which shows up most directly in communications. All of a person's corruptions show up in his communications. Communications show that people have been learning too much nihilism, strife, jealousy, etc. It isn't morality until it relates honestly to the concerns of other persons.

Reality Based Religion