The Significance of Karma

Bowser

Bowser

Namaste
Valued Senior Member
I started a new job for a company that produces a means for killing people and animals in a more efficient way--a weapons manufacturer. Having been out of work for a while, I'm happy to be working again. The pay is very good, too. My question is, where does Karma play a role in this? I need the job, but I am actively participating in the weapons industry. Granted, I don't much like the people who will suffer from my efforts; however, I don't have any negative feelings towards the animals that will suffer.
 
I don't have any negative feelings towards the animals that will suffer.
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Then you won't have to worry then will you? Only people with a conscience will ever really care as to what they do.
 
It's a hard call. I really enjoy the work. I'm learning new skills. I like my co-workers. It's been an excellent opportunity to advance my career. It's only a six month assignment, however. My only problem is that it involves tools that kill. If I could find a job that offered as much as this one does, I would jump on it. Conscience plays a role, but at the same time, I support our military.
 
It is possible that karmic [actually, the proper word is "sam'skara", not "karma"] repercusions may, and probably will, ensue within your life.

"Need a job", "got to have a job". There are alternatives to capeetalism and commyism, and nature demonstrates alternative options that have proven to work. What we must create is that everyone is guaranteed the capacity to earn sufficient income to acquire their basic necessities, which currently, around th world, include: food, clothing, shelter, education, medicine. With job scarcity -- an intended consequence in modern capeetalism -- comes compromising one's morals just to get sustainence. The imorality is in the architecture and philosophy of contemporary life, which degrades people, their morals, and society at large. Learn more searching: "prout shows it"
 
Bowser said:
I started a new job for a company that produces a means for killing people and animals in a more efficient way--a weapons manufacturer. Having been out of work for a while, I'm happy to be working again. The pay is very good, too. My question is, where does Karma play a role in this? I need the job, but I am actively participating in the weapons industry. Granted, I don't much like the people who will suffer from my efforts; however, I don't have any negative feelings towards the animals that will suffer.
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Well, I will like to put it this way.

You might be in a factory producing kitchen knives. Now a set might have maybe six of them, largest and heaviest used for cutting meat.

If a man picks up one of the knives and kills his wife, will you blame the knife maker?

So be assured and the karma you selected to the best of your capability.

Karma means work, effort.
 
I would be very uncomfortable working for an arms manufacturer seeing as the purpose of those guns is to kill things, however you do need to eat.

I think it's the same answer as having a dirty house. Buddhism allows you to keep a clean house free of infestations, bugs, flies and so on. To that end, Buddhists clean house- removing these things from their living space. Some killing may be involved (Janists forbid this) but you end up with a clean house.

I think in this regard, it is OK to work for an arms manufacturer. It is gainful employment that pays the bills and besides- you offer no special skill to the company, just mindless manual labor that if not you, someone else would be doing.

But I wouldn't want to work there for years and years- personally I would feel guilt every day.
 
Even if the planet was inhabited by saints, there would still be a need for arms and a protective global militia. Earth is not the only inhabited planet in this vast Universe.
 
Bowser said:
I started a new job for a company that produces a means for killing people and animals in a more efficient way--a weapons manufacturer. Having been out of work for a while, I'm happy to be working again. The pay is very good, too. My question is, where does Karma play a role in this? I need the job, but I am actively participating in the weapons industry. Granted, I don't much like the people who will suffer from my efforts; however, I don't have any negative feelings towards the animals that will suffer.
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The best way to resolve such conflict is to read the Bhagwata Gita, the Hindu holy book that is part of the Hindu epic Mahabharat.

That discusses right from wrong and about duty to kill the enemy.

However I am sure there is a big difference between being a serial killer and taking part in a war to protect the innocent.

But, Karma always kicks in no matter what human consider justifiable war and what is not. Karma is all about cause and effect and is neutral in morality which is a human construct.

Karma works in microcosm as well as macrocosm...the Universe runs on Karma.

Here I define Karma as:

[Sanskrit, deed, action that has consequences, karma; see kwer- in Indo-European roots.]
 
jmpet said:
I would be very uncomfortable working for an arms manufacturer seeing as the purpose of those guns is to kill things, however you do need to eat.
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If your concious revolts against such a job, then you must not take it. Earning is just an alibi, trying to rationalise your actions.
 
Law of Karma is just like Law of crimes. Both are retributive. Both must be just ie not penalise an innocent but make sure that the guilty are punished. Neither rewards the law abiding citizens. In both motive is an important issue. Neither punishes you for actions taken in self defence, only you must prove that your reaction was proprtionate to the threat and in bona fide self defence. Both exempt those who are not of sound mind or very young children [hence not responsible]. Just a short list. Those who commit violence in the course of legal duty are exempted. We definitely do not condemn an executioner, he too has to eat.


Proverbially the law has a lonnnng arm. Yes, perps are apprehended even after 20-30 years, unless there is a limitation. But many still escape the justice. Law of Karma being morally natural SHALL catch up, and has not time limitation.
 
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The "law of karma", as it's being called, works, in reality, not so much like a wrathful infliction of vengeant justice, rather as a gyroscopic balancing act. Imagine yourself in a colloidal suspension while you're contained within a gyroscope in which you can feel your balance and you are dispersed in all directions equally. A tiny nuance biased in a direction fully alters your balance shifting the whole of your being at that moment. Consequently an alien wave passes along and affects your disposition, an amoebic environmental response, then another movement, another alien nuance, and another spontaneous response, till the gyroscopic suspension is all aflutter with multidirectional movement.

Focusing on the anchor of the original equipoise, anchoring in that equipoise through determined focus and an ever steadier mind is a key factor both in relinquishing sam'skaras and in attaining enlightenment.
 
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Cause and effect, action, reaction...chain reaction. We all feed off the same machine. All are tainted by wickedness and all are culpable, only a fool would beg to differ.
 
“ Originally Posted by Carcano
Guns and money are both karmically neutral. ”
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scifes said:
can't that be extended to almost anything?
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Yes. Every object that does not have a mind is karmically neutral. Depends how you employ them, and with what intentions.

Suppose you are driving a nail into a wall of a room, intention being to hang a picture. By a freak accident, you dislodge a brick, which falls on the head of a passerby. Are you culpable? No. Murder was not your intention.
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tablariddim said:
Cause and effect, action, reaction...chain reaction. We all feed off the same machine. All are tainted by wickedness and all are culpable, only a fool would beg to differ.
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Maybe there is a taint, or rather a tendency to be tainted. But you cannot absolve yourself on that excuse. After all, you have free will plus intellect to discern right from the wrong.
 
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How does Karma roll out for the child. When someone hurts them. Or a person who has consistently done good for others, yet is hurt or murdered, or they lose everything due to a flood or house fire?
 
rcscwc said:
Maybe there is a taint, or rather a tendency to be tainted. But you cannot absolve yourself on that excuse. After all, you have free will plus intellect to discern right from the wrong.
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I said, action, reaction...chain reaction. That means that none are free from the chain reaction. At its simplest level take money, as just one and very important example; all aspire to it, all need it, all make and spend it by various means, most people sell their souls trying to make it whether by its wasting their life away in an office or a shop doing a job they hate, or selling their body or selling drugs, or selling dreams that can lead to ruination (mortgages/loans), ultimately they (we), are all dipping our fingers into the same honey jar. Therefore, whatever you do that involves money taints you as an individual from the chain reaction regardless of your reasons, morals or political correctness.
 
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