What if we “deserve” everything we get? What if we’re neither lucky nor unlucky, imagined states that seem random and unfair, but are actually living within a law—the law of karma? When we are trying to attach some kind of meaning to the course of our lives, learning more about karma enhances our efforts.
Although the suffering we experience in life comes from many causes, some of it comes directly from our own decisions. Most of us will try to accept the suffering that results from a bad decision because it makes sense—we clearly deserve it. Because doing so will affect future decisions, connecting suffering to the bad decision preceding it is an important step in gaining mastery of our lives. In fact, people who are unable to do this are considered unhealthy. The cause and effect nature of karmic law is easy to comprehend because we naturally look for the reasons why things happen in our lives.
Let’s see what Dr. Steiner has to say:
“… Only methodical observation will lead us to the recognition of the law of karma; and therefore, if we want to study the law of karma, we must make these methodical observations in the right way.
Let us start, then, with the study of the karma of one special person. Fate deals a man in his twenty-fifth year a heavy blow, which causes him pain and suffering. Now, if our observations are of such a nature that we merely say, ‘This heavy blow has just broken into his life and has filled it with pain and suffering,’ we shall never arrive at an understanding of karmic connections. But if we go a little further and observe the life of this person in his fiftieth year… we shall perhaps come to a different conclusion which we might be able to express thus: ‘The man whom we are now observing has become industrious and active, leading an excellent life.’
Now, let us look further back into his life. At 25, this trouble came upon him, and had he not met with this blow we may now say that he would have remained a good-for-nothing. In this case, the severe blow of fate was the cause that at the age of 50 we now find him an industrious and excellent man.
Such a fact teaches us that we should be mistaken if we considered the blow of fate at the age of 25 was merely an effect. We cannot just ask what caused it and stop at that. But if we consider the blow not as an effect at the end of the phenomena which preceded it, but place it rather at the beginning of the subsequent events, and consider it as a cause, then we learn that we must entirely and essentially change the judgments we have formed by our feelings and perceptions with regard to this blow of fate. We shall very likely be grieved if we think of it only as an effect, but if we think of it as the cause of what happens later on, we shall probably be glad and feel pleasure over it.
So we see that our attitude is essentially different in so far as we consider an event in life as cause or as effect… Thus the law of karma itself may be a source of consolation if we accustom ourselves to set an event not only at the end, but at the beginning of a series of events.”
Excerpt from: Manifestations of Karma. Lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Hamburg, May 16, 1910.
Not all suffering comes as a direct result of a decision we make, but with a little imagination, we can look at this simple example of karma and extend it outwards toward suffering that comes to us seemingly unbidden. Eckhart Tolle says, “Every person on Earth will experience some difficulty that they cannot change. This fact can either imprison you or enlighten you. When you encounter difficulty, accept it as if you had chosen it, experience it and figure out what you can learn from it.” Accept it as if you had chosen it. Suffering can be a starting point and a teacher.
This first idea of karma is just scratching the surface. For example, it does not address why we make the decisions that lead to suffering in the first place. Nor does it address the suffering that comes from without, from the death of a loved one to that from natural disasters, war, accidents, etc. Steiner gave more than 100 lectures about karma, so we can anticipate explorations of these questions and many more as we delve deeper into the study of karmic law next month.
Pico Iyer: The Value of Suffering, New York Times, 7 Sept., 2013 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/opinion/sunday/the-value-of-suffering.html?pagewanted=all
https://www.yogabycandace.com/blog/2013/9/10/lessons-from-suffering