Karma™: The Spiritual Credit Score

 

Humanity invented religion, apparently because simply being a decent human being was not fun.

Why say, “Don’t hurt people” when we can create a 5,000-year-old metaphysical accounting system to determine exactly how many spiritual points you receive for helping your neighbour?

Welcome to Karma™

The OG rewards and punishment program.

No app required. No terms and conditions accepted. 

But you allow this system to track your activity.

The basic idea is beautifully simple:

Do good = collect points.
Do bad = receive punishment.

Do something confusing? 

Consult a religious expert.

And if you can't figure out whether something is good or bad?

Don't worry.

There are thousands of books, commentaries, gurus, priests, monks and philosophers waiting to explain it to you.

For a small fee.

Imagine that somewhere in the universe sits an accountant with an enormous spreadsheet adding and subtraction your karma count.

Rahul helped an old lady cross the road

+10 karma - Rahul donated money

+50 karma - Rahul got angry at someone in traffic

−7 karma - Rahul secretly enjoyed watching his neighbour fail

−23 karma - Rahul had an inappropriate thought at 11:43 PM

SYSTEM ERROR: INTENTION DETECTED

Please consult scripture.

And this is where the fun begins.

Your mind has become a slave to this ecosystem, and you’re not even getting paid for it.

You have to constantly audit yourself.

Was that good karma?

Was that bad karma?

Did I have the right intention?

Was my intention pure enough?

Does thinking about doing something count?

What if I almost did something bad but didn't?

Congratulations.

You have turned your consciousness into accounting.

Then comes the ultimate authority.

God.

God is no longer merely the creator of the universe.

He becomes the CEO, HR department, auditor, judge and performance-review manager of your soul.

Every action goes into your permanent employee file.

At the end of the cosmic financial year.

 

Its time for “Performance Review”

Attendance: 100%
Mistakes: Numerous
Good deeds: Acceptable
Spiritual productivity: Needs improvement
Final rating: Pending rebirth

You don't even know the exact performance metrics.

The religious handbook is thousands of years old, written in languages you don't speak, interpreted by people who disagree with one another.

And you're expected to get the appraisal right.

So the average human being begins the most important yet most confusing project of their life.

Figuring out what counts as good karma.

Should I eat this, marry this person, change jobs.

Question a religious rule? … Be Careful.

Because karma has an answer for everything, until you start questioning the rules themselves.

Suddenly a 70-year human lifespan becomes a massive research project titled: “Understanding What God Wants From Me Before I Die.”

And the irony is magnificent.

You spend your entire life studying instructions about how to live...

...instead of living.

And just when you think you've understood the system, someone introduces previous lives.

Excellent.

Because now there are consequences for things you don't remember doing.

Imagine being punished for a crime committed by you...

But you have no memory of being you.

That's convenient.

If life is going badly:

“Maybe it's your past karma.”

If life is going well:

“Definitely your good karma.”

If something completely random happens:

“Karma is a Bitch”

At this point, karma becomes the spiritual equivalent of saying: “The universe did it.”

As if the universe has nothing better to do than ruin your happiness.

We accept it without further investigation, coz we have accepted the Karma like we have accepted the God.

And here the joke stops being funny.

Because karma can sometimes become an extremely convenient explanation for human suffering.

We've successfully created a system where the victim can potentially be blamed for a crime they don't remember committing.

Imagine telling someone: “Don't worry. You don't know what you did. You don't remember when you did it. You don't remember where you did it. But the universe remembers.”

Eventually, the person becomes terrified of making mistakes.

Not because they want to hurt anyone.

Because they don't want to damage their cosmic credit score.

They become experts in avoiding bad karma.

We've officially completed the philosophical circle.

While we're busy calculating karma, life is quietly moving forward.

Your parents are getting older, children are growing up, your body is aging.

Opportunities are disappearing.

And somewhere in your head you're still thinking: “Whats a good karma score to make it to heaven?”

Maybe the more important question is: “Am I actually living?”

If you help someone, perhaps the important thing isn't whether the universe gives you +50 spiritual points.

Maybe someone simply needed help.

If you love someone, perhaps you don't need cosmic cashback.

If you apologize after hurting someone, perhaps you don't need to erase karmic debt.

You simply need to make things right.

Perhaps common sense doesn't need to be a complicated cosmic “Karma” system.

It is spending your entire life trying to become a perfectly compliant human being from the religious book which you have neither read nor understood. 

All the cosmic knowledge you have learned is either from your religious baba or from social media algorithm, without verifying it by yourself.

If God exists, perhaps God doesn't require humans to constantly monitor their behaviour like a spiritual scorecard.

Perhaps humanity could simply try something revolutionary: 

Think, be kind, be empathetic & take responsibility/accountability.

After all, there is no guarantee that the universe keeps a spreadsheet.

But there is definitely someone sitting next to you who can be hurt by what you do.

That consequence is real.

And maybe that's enough. 

Karma promises freedom from the consequences of your choices by making you a permanent prisoner of your fear. 

In this case you are either a prisoner of religious text or you are a god-fearing person.

Or maybe both.

That's when karma becomes slavery. 

Not slavery of the body. 

Slavery of the mind.