The Theory of Karma: Answering Many Questions Not Answered by Other Religions

The law of Karma and the theory provides answers to many things that are not understandable, things which are left unanswered in other religions including specifically the beginning of the world, the existence of animals etc. According to Karma, God is "paramatma" i.e. supreme soul. When a part of the supreme soul feels the desire for material pleasures, since God loves all souls so much, it doesn't say no, it gives it a life in material world.

During the life on earth the soul gets the opportunity to fulfill its material wishes. But this world isn't the real world and as a way to remind that to the soul, there are sufferings in this world. A soul can stay in the material world as long as it wishes, but it also has to bear all the sufferings in its share. There are 8.4 million species of creatures on this earth with different life spans (including all animals, insects, birds and fishes, trees and the variants in their species). A soul has to take birth of every single specie one after another and hence experience life and sufferings every possible way. In some births a soul assumes the male form, in other births the female form and hence, the soul itself is not male or female.

After going through all the 8.4 million species the soul gets human birth again. This is a cycle. If a person wishes to free himself from this cycle of birth and death he has to fill his account with "good karma" i.e. good deeds. Deeds have been defined as good and bad by religion. Even common sense and a person's conscience tells him which things are good and which are bad - like hurting, killing, swearing, insulting, unnecessarily making unhappy other souls (all species) are considered bad. And loving, caring, helping, comforting, praying to God and meditating are good deeds. Human being is most superior in intelligence amongst all the species and hence deeds only in this birth are considered and this is the only birth in which a soul has a chance to free itself.

After the human birth if the good karmas of the person are more than the bad the soul merges back with the supreme soul - the spiritual world i.e. the real world. Else it has to go through the cycle again. And, the bad karma on balance will be returned to the soul in forms of sufferings (either physical or emotional) in the births to come. Sometimes the bad karmas come back in the same birth and sometimes anytime during the next few births. Thus, a soul may enjoy (and suffer) in this cycle forever and make it look never ending, or free itself immediately in the human birth itself.

This process is 'eternal' i.e. it has neither a beginning nor an end. It has been going on since forever and it will go on forever. I won't get deeper into the Vaishnava Philosophy about the occurance of time periods i.e. eras like Satyug, Kalyug etc. in this article but these eras will come and go and there will be destruction of the entire universe after several yuga cycles and then there will be creation again. This process too is eternal.