Karma/Personal Choice

Karma/Personal Choice

Eckankar borrows notions of personal choice and karma from Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh traditions. For ECKists, Karma means “the spiritual law of cause and effect". Individual souls shape their future by their past actions. Furthermore, an ECKist views everyday experiences as "gifts from God, given to Soul for Its spiritual unfoldment.”¹

The basic idea of karma is that "action has consequences" and "to whatever extent one is capable of intentional and willful action, one is responsible for it and eventually will experience its consequences.” The idea of karma places "a very high value on the cultivation of careful and consistent patterns of thought and behavior.”³  Harold Klemp, in suggesting a practical way to live harmoniously, offers “two spiritual laws discovered by author Richard J. Maybury: 1) Do all you have agreed to do, and 2) Do not encroach on other persons or their property.”⁴

The idea of karma places a very high value on the cultivation of careful and consistent patterns of thought and behavior.

Mark, a guest speaker at a Worship Service at the ECK Temple believes that in practice, ECKists understand karma to imply that “every experience has a lesson.” In one of the classrooms at the ECK Temple, there is a painting of a child planting a tree. In describing the spiritual significance of the painting, John offered this as the moral: “Things we do in our lifetime will grow into something bigger.” John also told a story of how his karma from past lives serves to affect him in this one:

"How the past life may be affecting this life is the important part, not the actual past life. For example, in a dream, I saw myself in a previous lifetime as that guy on a Roman slave ship who whips the rowers to make them go faster. I will run into people in this lifetime that I have abused in the past. I’m pretty sure one of the people I whipped on that ship was a boss of mine."