Continuing on from yesterday’s post on Karma – yes if we intend to harm someone, then we get bad karma. Conversely, if our intention is good, then we earn good karma. But what if we don’t intend anything? i.e. our action is unintentional, but has resulted in the other person taking it negatively.
One can only surmise, but here’s a thought experiment. Imagine you are a school teacher. Your intention is to ensure your students learn the most and become the best possible citizens. But let’s say the students have a different goal. They don’t want to study, or even attend class. No matter your good intention, they still harbour irritation and hatred for you. But your intention is still good – so you should ideally get only good karma?
If we step on an ant unknowingly, then will we accumulate bad karma? From the ant’s point of view, it has been a massive wrong-doing. From our point of view, we didn’t do anything at all – except take a step forward! Perhaps if we’d tortured the ant to death, then…
Does this also come back to choices and consequences? If you bite your tongue while eating, there is immediate pain – no matter the biting was unintentional or not. So the consequence of the action exists. But whether one incurs sin or not, is a different matter. The best saints are always mindful of their every action – living never for themselves, but always for all living beings around them. With selfish action and selfish intention out of the way, the spiritual path thus becomes clearer. More tomorrow…