Bad Luck or and Karma

Padmini has brought us a topic oh-so-Indian today and I sit at the disadvantage of being surrounded by Indians as I write upon it.  Surrounded by Indians?  Where have I heard that before?  But, I digress ...

I am neither Indian nor Hindu (in this life), but I rather like many of their concepts of the universe.  It is simply a statement that not being born to that tradition and teaching, I can only approach the ideas from a Western perspective, being American.  So, rather than being helpless, I approach it from the perspective I am born and bred to, the study of Physics, using its understandings to approach one of the core concerns for all beings, the question of what does all that happens to me come from and what is its meaning.

Padmini picks the dilemma well, for it is argument between the accidental universe with randomly created physical laws and results and the argument of meaning in greater depth in the affairs of man.  In the first case, events just happen in sequence and so it would seem at first glance in the argument of greater depth of meaning.  Karma is the law of the greater depth of cause and effect, one action leading to another by deeper laws of attraction.  It shares with the former view the concept of sequential happening and causality.  But, you know me by now, for I intend to cast doubt not upon the idea of bad luck in favor of karma nor karmic laws in favor of bad luck.  No, I intend to try to upset both apple carts and bring in a load of new fruit!

Take a look at this excerpt from an article that appeared this week in Wired reprinted from Quanta Magazine:

ALICE AND BOB, the stars of so many thought experiments, are cooking dinner when mishaps ensue. Alice accidentally drops a plate; the sound startles Bob, who burns himself on the stove and cries out. In another version of events, Bob burns himself and cries out, causing Alice to drop a plate.

Over the last decade, quantum physicists have been exploring the implications of a strange realization: In principle, both versions of the story can happen at once. That is, events can occur in an indefinite causal order, where both “A causes B” and “B causes A” are simultaneously true.

Without going too deeply into the physics, for those armchair fans like me this is a result of superposition at the quantum level only resolved by measurement.  Boiled down, this is saying that only when events are observed by consciousness is position in space and time (spacetime) established.

Out of this, I argue that this escape from sequence as primary is an escape from the wheel of time itself!  Time is not primary, it is part of the screen upon which physical reality is projected from greater depths.  Perhaps achieving experience of those depths below the physical phenomenal, closer to the source of that projection is how we escape the confines of the karmic cycle, for we experience deeper organizing principles than causality.

My, this presents some dilemmas.  I conceive these things, but I still drop a plate and it falls and shatters, startling Carol in my world - but at least she has an induction stove top that won't burn her unless we really up the level of iron in her blood!  So, what am I to do?

The Eastern approach is probably as good as you'll find.  Go to a quiet room and meditate!  Let the world form itself within and there is a glimpse of the escape from the karmic bind.  Try to carry that back into the next illusory room.  See if there is something in simply growing in Being that automatically sorts events, eliminates "bad luck."

Or, take the Western approach.  Drop some acid or eat some mushrooms, hop on your horse and head for the wilderness.  Good Luck!

Please check out my other blog mates' takes on the same topic brought to us by Padmum, at their blogs.: 

Maria

Padmum
Raju
Ramana
Sanjana
Shackman

Srinivas