Hemant Mehta

[emjay]

Thanks for your answers but I see two major problems with the whole idea:

1) It seems to me this 'system' breaks down when animals are considered... that at the level of humans, with their karma, it's fairly well defined, but where 'devolution' to animals and 'evolution' from animals is concerned, it becomes decidedly vague and arbitrary, down to the arbitrary decisions of this 'cosmic thinker' who one can imagine, as you describe it, as keeping a ledger on every person, recording their punishment arbitrarily in the form of x lifetimes as say, a worm... or any variation on that. In other words there appears no systematic means for 'non-karmic' consciousness to 'evolve', only the arbitrary decisions of the cosmic thinker. So is that how you see Karma? As essentially no different from the Christian god doling out arbitrary punishment... ie not a systematic cycle of some kind... which is the impression I'd got of what you meant when reading you in the past... but rather an arbitrary judgement?

1) A Christian God has got the hell as punishment and that is hate which it doesn't make any sense.
There are two things that God can not do.
One is that He-She (God has no sex) can not hate because hate means that there are imperfections in God creation so considering that God is perfect is impossible that He create imperfections therefore hell is not possible.
Yoga on the other hand is all for rehabilitation and at the end all the problems will be solved.

Nice point you've got there about the impossibility of hell  

2) Now let us talk about your idea that karma is a punishment.
Not true Em.

It wasn't my idea of karma... in all my readings on Buddhism (not the same as Yoga I know, but similar in some respects) I've never understood it to be about punishment, just cause and effect... but I just got the impression from how you were talking that it was how you saw it... hence asking you if that was the case... which you've now answered in the negative. So we can drop that now.

Suppose that you are a teacher and one or some of your students fail.
What would you do?
Would you punish them?
No, you would not but you rather would fail them so they will repeat the year.
If these students are not ready to go higher in their studies it is obvious that they can not pass and go
higher.
Their consciousness and intellect is not ready to go higher so the only logic thing to do is to repeat and wait for an other opportunity to go higher.
At the same time if humans are not good enough to be humans they should be lower to the level of animals, plants or matter waiting for future opportunity do become humans once again and do right this time.  

Of course to be lower down is felt as a punishment but it really isn't.
It is like a jigsaw puzzle.
There are many pieces and there are many puzzles.
The rule is that every piece must go in the correct puzzle as every creature must be located in the correct place whether is in a human body, animal, plant or matter.

The question still remains though, what role do you ascribe to the 'cosmic thinker'? Ie whether punishment or rehabilitation, as an arbitrary judge/teacher, assigning devolutions on a case-by-case basis? Basically, as an intelligent agent making arbitrary decisions? As opposed to some systematic cycle without need for any arbitrary element.

2) More importantly, once punishment has been administered and a being begins his 'sentence' as it were... x lifetimes as a given animal or whatever arbitrary variation on that the 'cosmic thinker' has decided upon, the resulting animal lives lack the conscious faculties to understand why they're being punished. Ie a punishment is only any good if the person being punished knows why they're being punished... but there's no way a worm for instance could understand what human transgressions it was being punished for, and thus surely it renders the punishment moot?

It doesn't work like that Em.
There is no such a thing as punishment but as I just explain above is all about putting a particular consciousness in a medium that most fit it in order to perform better.
If a human behave like a dog then a dog body is most suited to his-her ability to perform and when that dog will be sick and tired of being a dog then he-she will develop the intuition to go higher and reach once again the human consciousness.
If however some people like killing other people they may be reincarnated as carnivorous animals and when these animals will be sick of killing then they may be reincarnated in something else that doesn't required killing.
It is all about what people wish to do in life.
If they do bad and are turned into lower form of lives then they wouldn't know why they are in an animal body since their consciousness has been lowered.
Why should they remember?
They have chosen that change.
The feeling to go higher once again will help them to change for the better.  

But I would argue a similar point to my previous point; that since (at least most) non-human animals lack reflective capabilities (at least presumably) then it's still the same problem as before... that a non-reflective animal cannot wish to be anything other than it is, and therefore seems that in those cases there can be no impetus for 'evolution'.