Recently, I stumbled upon yet another video shared by a close friend that talked about Karma. As I watched it, I didn’t feel fully convinced, there was still a nagging feeling that something crucial was missing.
From childhood, we’ve all been taught: "As you sow, so shall you reap." But does that mean if I experience even the slightest suffering today, my past karmas were bad?
We are taught that everything multiplies and returns to us. So, does a single mistake mean paying the price for years? And if that’s true, what about our good karmas? Don't they multiply and come back too? If I haven't intentionally hurt anyone, shouldn't I be sitting at this stage of life without the slightest sign of suffering?
Yet, that is rarely how life turns out.
When people try to explain this gap, they usually bring intentions into the argument. But even that didn't feel credible enough to explain the vastness of human suffering.
In my search for clarity, I found a different perspective - one that actually makes logical sense.
Life does not reward or punish us by holding onto a ledger of everything we do.
When it rains, nature doesn't look at a beautiful garden and decide to reward the flowers. Nor does a storm hit to curse a forest. Rain and storms just happen. Similarly, our hardships often have no direct correlation with our good or bad deeds.
Nothing happens solely through a single person's individual efforts or intentions. Think about a plant: for it to thrive, it needs fertile soil, adequate water, clean air, and sunlight. If any of these conditions fail, the plant suffers.
We humans are no different. We need several external and internal conditions to align in order to live without hardships. The suffering we face is often not a punishment for our past actions, but simply the result of the conditions surrounding us.
So, what do our good deeds actually do if they don't shield us from life's storms?
They keep our inner light alive.
Our good deeds preserve our humanity so that when the world outside comes crashing down, we don't lose ourselves.
When you face hardships, don't sit down with a ledger of karma trying to calculate where you went wrong. Let the storm pass. Your inner light will ensure you don't grow bitter, even when the world outside isn't fair.
