Karma & The Game of Probability

What is not the law of Karma?

Everyone knows Karma, in its simplest sense. Each action has its impact. You reap what you sow. These are all vague, surface-level inferences. They are not not-true. But they are not enough to understand Karma completely, as it can be elusive. One of the examples of that nature is this statement: “My life, my rules”. 

My life, my rules?

Need not announce that

I think everyone has heard this statement or seen it as someone’s WhatsApp description – “My life, my rules”. If the intention is to warn others not to interfere, then that’s fine. Although I feel that’s a very strong way to say that, which is needless to be announced in the first place, if you’re wise enough. [ If we are saying it and using it as a reminder to construct our Life intentionally, making ourselves accountable/ taking responsibility, that’s good, but let that be from a point of awareness. Let’s see what all we should consider.] 

Liberation or delusion?

Yes, objectively, there are no rules as to how one should live one’s life. And yes, that is and should be liberating. You have the power of choice. In that sense, you are the author of your life; you can choose to write whatever you want. But there are rules of this world in which we live that we must keep in mind to better construct our lives in it. If not, the statement “my life, my rules” will be another delusion ( also read, Delusions – 3) trapping the person and eventually ruining his/her life. So let’s see we should see this statement and ensure we don’t fall into that delusion. 

1. No Eraser – Karma – As long as you are ready to face the consequences of your thoughts, emotions & actions, the statement is fine. But if one thinks he/she can escape that (the law of Karma), then they are delusional. 
2. Beware of writing in another book – Dharma (We’ve slightly talked about this in Blog 114: Shades of Dharma ). Yes, it is your life, your rules. But only till it is not interfering with another person’s life. Ironically & evidently, we know that it’s hard for this generation to keep their life to themselves. Ensure there is no hypocrisy here. 
3. Who is the author? If one is blaming his boss, parents, children, or someone, or the system as a  whole for his state of living, then how is he truly living that life – “my life, my rules”? And if at all one has achieved that societal freedom, the next question will be, Is the author smart enough? – Awareness – And here too, there are multiple aspects within. One is how much do we know ourselves? Do we know what kind of life we need? We’ve discussed not thinking enough in the blog The biggest problem for humanity. We must be highly self-aware to be able to construct a beautiful, intentional life aligned with what we truly need. Otherwise, you’ll just die repeating that statement but never truly enjoying your life. And then there is the lack of fundamental understanding of life. Yes, the traditional education system has failed to provide that. But one cannot blame that. If you need, you’ll have to figure it out. Again, we’ve discussed a lot of aspects regarding the same. And one among those, we’ve also seen Viveka, to be a crucial key in understanding LIFE!
4. Pages are limited – Intentional Trade-offs – In the blog, read your obituary we saw the significance of having the mortal nature of our life as a reminder and a framework/perspective to look through life. We must remember that mortal nature and realize that one cannot become everything; there will be trade-offs. If not for quantity, quality. And Vice-versa. 

There are other key aspects as mentioned; however, we will focus on the first one, Karma, for this blog. 

Why is Karma elusive?

Karma is elusive because:

1. Time – It’s not instant. The compound effect is often overlooked. Why? Same reason, the results of those specific actions are not visible instantly. Our world would have been the most boring place if people could receive rewards of their actions instantaneously. Would any person harm any other creature if he/she was killed immediately after? Would any person eat and not exercise if they knew they would bloat and die immediately? No. The cycle of Karma might not complete instantly like that. It may take a few days, months, or several years for one cycle to complete. So what does this do? It can even make us forget that Karma exists. 
2. Type – If you study well, you’ll get a good score in the exam, right? That’s a simple scenario that we can understand. But not all scenarios are that way. A person who killed a snake by hitting it with a wood-log, might not die the same way. Instead, his loved one might get a terminal illness or something like that. Basically, for most actions, results are not of the same type. 
3. Complexity – There are too many variables for us to comprehend. That’s just the nature of life. And there are too many actions that needs to get their result.
4. Contextual – Or in other words, how does an action play out is subjective to every individual. But the catch is, we don’t even know our context properly. When people ask “why me?”, that’s what it means. 

What have we established so far? The Maya we live in makes us forget the law of Karma, when that’s a key to get out of it. So, to make it easier for our brains to comprehend, we can look at it as this framework. 

Life is a probability game. 

What does that primarily suggest?

1. Each action has an impact, and through a probability/percentage of probability 
2. No one action has 100% probability; that is, no one aspect/action has a guaranteed result of 100% probability.
3. Absolute control is not in our hands

In this life, all actions we intentionally do are in efforts to increase or decrease the percentage of the variety of probabilities. Entire self-help is based on this. All habits that we try to establish are based on this. Ex: not smoking does not guarantee lifelong healthy lungs or a longer lung span. However, it definitely increases the percentage of probability of those. 

You take anything for that matter. Yoga, reading books, meditation, believing in God, chanting, etc. Once we know this, then it’ll become very clear that instead of seeing everything in just black & white, we’ll see them as grey. And there’ll be less or no stress at all, as you know you’re doing what you can to increase the probability.  

Karma and the game of probability are not the same, but one is in the other. Karma is the promise through which the game of probability can exist. It’s as the relationship between hope and Karma. We hope because we know the consequences of our actions will surely arrive. 

Mind you, The Game of probability is just the way we are seeing life as. We can think of life as “The game of probability” only because we know the laws of Karma. And what are the laws of Karma? That’s, ‘’how’’ life works? So, in reality, there is no difference between any of these. It’s like seeing the difference between life, and life-rules. Then why are we seeing all these as separate? For better understanding. Even to realize all these are one, you need to know them properly. Ok, that being said, let’s summarize our understanding of the lens – The Game of Probability. 

The game of probability considers all these:

1. It’s a prediction tool. We are using it knowing that Karma is not instant. We are acknowledging & considering the effect of any current thought, choice & actions in the context of the future. 
2. We use what we know. We may not know what specific problems we may face due to our past Karmas. But what we know for sure is that certain actions (particularly Anushtāna) can melt that huge iceberg of our past. If not literally, definitely by providing the awareness required to do that. Will try to write an entire blog about this, soon. 
3. As we know that there are more variables than we initially see, we acknowledge that and try to find other variables we do not see at the moment. And then use actions we know of to counter the results.
4. As we know that it is not the same for all, we calculate based on our known history. And also, acknowledge and understand when our calculation fails. We’ll then adapt our strategy accordingly.

I hope this helps when you are stuck in what seem like conflicting dilemmas, when actually you are exhausted calculating the incalculable. That’s when you use frameworks such as those mentioned in this blog and that we saw in Blog 126: 9 Highly Useful frameworks for life!

Thank You

Sanath Kumar Naibhi