If you’re already comfortable with the words karma and karmic, you may not need to read this post. But if, like me, you come from a background where those words send shivers up your spine or make you feel a need to defend why you would never use that word, I hope you’ll take a moment to hear me out.
I come from a Christian background where the word karma drew wide-eyed looks signifying anything from confusion to horror. What terrible, evil language are you speaking?! We serve Jesus, the God of Love, not “karma”! (I can feel the disgust, like they just spat on the ground in response to this word. It’s just a word, people.)
As you may know by now, I’m a language nut, and in my experience, western language blocks us from understanding spirituality, mainly because narrow-minded people fear what they don’t understand.
It is somewhat more acceptable to use the word karma in the American English vernacular when a negative event visits a negative person. For example, we chuckle at “instant karma” when the huffy lady who just upbraided a barista for no good reason turns on her heel and instantly runs into another patron’s coffee, leaving her drenched. Somehow that kind of karma is treated quite differently than when karma comes up in deeper spiritual conversations.
So what does karma mean? It’s actually quite simple: cause and effect.
To get even more basic, the Sanskrit word translates to “action”. As in, “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Yes, it’s just a word, with a meaning, and an English corollary. That wasn’t so bad, right?
Hinduism and Buddhism both use the word in the context of how your actions, thoughts, and intentions create consequences. I think modern Christians get a little freaked out by it due to the idea of reincarnation inherent in these and other Eastern belief systems. We want to say that God doesn’t deal in karma. But just read the story of Lot’s wife and get back to me, ok? (Spoiler alert: God turns her into a pillar of salt for what most of us would consider a minor transgression. That’s instant karma meted out by God himself.) And if you want a less instant version of karma in the Bible, how about the story of the sheep and the goats? Look it up. (Ok, fine I’ll tell you that one, too: the “sheep” go to heaven for their beliefs and actions, while the “goats” go to hell for theirs. Is that not spiritual karma? At least in Hinduism and Buddhism, you get a do-over!)
So why do we care about the definition of karma?
In spite of my Christian upbringing, I have come to a place where the word karma and its adjectival form, karmic, have made their way into my vocabulary, and I use them often, including in this blog. I want you, my reader, to understand what I mean when I drop these words into a sentence without having to explain them. And I want you to start getting comfortable, if you’re not already, with seeing “foreign” words that have a meaning that translates into American English easily and simply. I hope to help you open your mind to a place of understanding people who use different words to mean the same thing you mean.
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