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Capitalistic karma: reinterpreting reincarnation

Walking up in the mountains outside Kathmandu I contemplated the connection between the world’s inequalities today, the actions of one’s ancestors, and the idea of karma and reincarnation that I had been reading about in some books on the Eastern Religions.

Be they the ancestors who split from the group to discover new worlds fifty thousand years ago, or be they the innovators of new technologies that won them last century’s battles, the connection is pretty clear… and I wondered, is this what the yogis are talking about when they talk about karma? Are the people of today the reincarnations of ancestors, manifested through the processes of material, genetic and education inheritance? The closer we get to a person, the more the other embodies our ideas. If we, say, write a book and disperse our ideas, are we, on some level, reincarnating ourselves through the people that these ideas influence? Are our children simply more direct reincarnations of ourselves as they gain more of our energy through our genes and through the time we spend with them?

At the end of the day we are all responsible for the consequences of our own actions, be they consequences experienced our own lifetime, or in that of our children and childrens’ childrens’ childrens’ lifetimes. If we do bad to another person, animal, or to our environment, be it in our lifetime or in sometime in the distant future, the universe eventually balances itself out… Is this, in a wider sense, our “karma”? Could the cycle of birth-death-rebirth that the yogis talk about be less about a separate soul reincarnating (for example, that if you kill a bee in this life you will come back as an bee in your next life), and actually be describing the process of evolution (for example, if many people kill many bees, humanity will have to adapt to a world with less flowers and foods)?

When the caste system tells people that they have been born into their caste as a consequence of their actions in a past life I typically respond (in my head) with “what a load of bullocks!” But, when viewed from this understanding of karma and reincarnation, this idea starts to make sense… Could poverty actually be the karmic result of the decisions of one’s ancestors?

When I compare the capitalist system to the caste system I can’t help but appreciate the open opportunities capitalism provides. Sure it’s not a perfect system with the opportunities it provides not exactly equal (for example, children in wealthy families are sure to have more opportunities than less wealthy families) but on the other side I also think that if a person dedicates their life to provide such opportunities for their children, isn’t it fair that this child benefits from their parent’s hard work? Is such their good fortune, their parent or grandparent’s karma?

 

Or is maybe this just my wishful thinking, in hope of justifying the unjustifiable, I’m not quite sure. Karma and reincarnation aside, as I consider the advantages and disadvantages of capitalism and I wonder: if you take away the ability to transfer wealth to your children, will people still be motivated to innovate and work hard? At least in this system, children in the less wealthy family still get a decent education and decent amount of opportunity. While life may not be as easy as it is for the child born in the wealthy family, the challenges this presents can actually an opportunity for even more growth for that individual, and at least no one is completely left out of the system and being condemned to be an untouchable for all their future generations.

It is starting to seem to me that as we reincarnate ourselves, from generation to generation of cell to plant to animal to self-aware human, our creativity is growing, our sense of morality and ethics is deepening, and our capability to consider the future of the whole planet is expanding. And so I wonder, if we continue collective learn from each other and from the past, what incredible species will the reincarnates of humanity be like in the future?

Picture notes

Photographer: Edwina Hughes.

Taken at my sister’s wedding at Craigiburn in Bowral on the weekend, this photo doesn’t really have anything to do with this blog entry although I guess in a way it represents the passing on of traditions and possibly the beginning of a new generation of Bennetts. And it’s nice to share considering it was such an incredible wedding, very fun, my sister looked GORGEOUS, and my new brother-in-law spunky… Congratulations guys!

Shopping malls & traffic jams

Two entries in one day! Don’t know what’s gotten into me but I’ll probably be scaring off any readers if I have any… it won’t happen too often, I promise.

I just got home from Warringah Mall. I was standing in line waiting to return a digital frame to BigW (that said it played AVI files and MPEG4 files and after wasting much of my time creating such files decided it actually would not live up to its specifications) and I looked around to observe the commotion and busy lives of all the people surrounding me. Aisles full of bright coloured junk-foods, clothes, makeup, home-goods, and lines of people waiting to spend their hard-earned money on these things. I know shops play an important role in our lives, and that this “stuff” is what makes our world go round. But waiting there all the good feelings I took away from the pilates class I’d just taken seemed to disappear and my irritation with our capitalistic society began to build up. A pen and paper came out of my bag and I wrote a poem to express it. Random, i know.

Anyway, here it is:

Shopping malls & traffic jams

Is there any worse place to be?

Consuming carbon waste

From trucks to lungs

From aisles to homes

Children in trolleys cry as I wait

I vow never to have more than one

Shopping clerks to scan my items

Swipe my card – more junk is mine

Where does it begin?

Where does it end?

Our addiction to buy

Drives the trucks to deliver

We want more capital

We want more wealth

Our love of things

But do we love our work?

Spend money

Work to earn more

Exploit our earth

Exploit the poor

The spiral of death

Want; Work; Buy; Want; Work; Buy;

Pollute our minds

But WHY? WHY?

What is the solution?

What can be done?

WANT LESS WORK LESS!!!

Enjoy what you have

Share what you’ve got

Love our earth;

Love one another;

Love yourself.

Juliet Bennett – 17 Sept 09