Is it possible to be affected by someone else's harsh Karma, to have it contaminate yourself?

Question

My friend insists that he is negatively affecting others lives through the burning of his own harsh Karma. He is convinced that he is contaminating everyone close to him, that their lives are becoming more and more difficult (to the extreme) as his own Karma is burned away. I have never heard of this and would like to hear from the most knowledgeable in the forum, especially Hindus and Buddhists (all ancient Eastern wisdoms). It does not make sense to me that others would have to pay someone else's Karma. Thank you for helping me to understand this.

Also, what are the consequences (Karma) for taking your own life? Don't you create even greater Karma?

How can someone take their life and NOT create even worse Karma. He seems to think that there is no judgment involved, that it is a "neutral" act, and perhaps he will pick up where he left off when he comes back. Because it is taught that we must not kill (ourselves included) it seems that the (bad, heavy, harsh) Karma created from suicide will somehow increase even more greatly...please guide me here. I deeply want to understand the consequences incurred.

Asha...how does he "shed karma that cannot be handled?" This concept eludes me.

Answer 1

Karma is a personal thing. It's your choice if you let others affect you.

Answer 2

This is a romantic, false view of what karma is. "Burning away karma", whats that supposed to mean?

Karma is a simple and ordinary process. It is all about what you DO. Karma is very simple-cause and effect.

He is just using the expression "karma" for one of two reasons,
1. It makes him seem like he actually knows about karma, to the people that believe he knows. He's fooling them, and maybe even himself.
or
2. He is not taking responsibility for his lack of action (to improve his situation), and has to use some "higher power" as a scapegoat. Its easier not to try, and then find an excuse for not trying. The more elaborate the excuse, the better. Saying that his karma is contaminating other people is as elaborate, and false, as it gets. He is sulking in his negativity.

Anyway, whatever karma is, it doesn't matter, in a practical sense. What matters is that he stops trying to explain his negativity and start DOING positive things. He can sit around explaining his negativity in great detail, if he's right about it, so what? If he's wrong about it, so what? What matters is what he DOES about it, its the only thing that matters, in a practical sense. Life is practical. Action is the key.

That's my answer, of course, I could be completely wrong.

Answer 3

It may appear that your Karmas are effecting other positively or negatively, but it's not true. People around will definitely get ripple effect of ones karmas, only if they have some give-n-take linkage in the past or past life! That's why we come back in groups to balance out our karma with each other.

Exception - Realized Saint can always exchange their karmas with other. They may also cancel ones negative Karmas. All depend upon their compassion. There are many historical and live examples.

Note : Karma are what you have done and doing in the form of thought, speech and deed, which can be good or bad. Bad Karma leads to negative situations, and good karmas lead to positive situations!

Answer 4

To discuss about "Harsh Karma" we should know,

What is Karma?

Is it a Credit and Debit balance of our good and bad deeds?
If so, then what is Good? What is Bad?

If some one give bread to a child beggar, it is good.
If some one kills some one, it is bad. Is it so..?

If so, it can be put in this way also. That is, by giving bread to a child beggar, we encourage his laziness; we appreciate his efforts of begging: Is it good..?

Likely, if the one killed by some one was a killer or a person troubling every neighbor to the core, then is it bad to kill him..?

As per Newton’s third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It means that for every Good happening there is an equal and opposite Bad happening

When there is an Up side there will be a Down side. It is natural. It means that every action is nullified by its opposite action.

Therefore, nothing is good. Nothing is bad.
So, there is no “Harsh Karma” or “Good Karma”

There is another view of Karma. If you need something; if you are always think about the same thing; your interest can be registered in your DNA and RNA.

In the theory of evolution, it was described in one book that fishes in the water want to escape from their enemies. Their need was registered in their DNA and RNA. The change took place after lot of Trial and errors through decades. The result was that the fishes got wings and called by the name “Birds”

So, whether, it is good or bad with respect to the time and place if some one thinks or does certain things repeatedly it may be registered in their DNA and RNA. (This can be considered as the reaction of the thought or will) This may be passed through generation.

So, One’s Karma (Deep and strong will or action may be passed to their later generation) may affect some one of his relation in the future.

Anbudan. (With Love)

Answer 5

From what I have read/ heard, some in the buddhist and hindu traditions believe that another (every time I have heard it, it is a spiritual elder, or guru to the individual) can take on ones karma if the person cannot themselves bare it, therefore releasing them from what is holding them down. They take it on because they know that they can overcome what the person is struggling with.
Hope that describes it a little better. I am by no means an expert on this matter so if someone has more experience in these religions, I would take his opinion over mine.

Answer 6

Clouds,

your mate's death by suicide would lower the quality of his karma in the next life - no escaping something that passes form life to life by ending your life - He would be making things worse karmically for himself

i really enjoy the idea of competing good and bad karmas I only ever thougth of my karma not it's interaction with others or even that it could until you introduced the idea to me, spot on! What would happen if karma was bad in him and something bad was due to happen to him like say a car crash what if his passenger had good karma, would the crash not happen as the good karma defeated the bad, would the crash not happen as the good could not come to harm thus protecting the bad, would the good karma bend for just once for accepting a person of bad karma into their life and the crash would happen? would the two karmas counteract each other slightly to make a less bad accident or maybe even a near miss. Would the good karma keep you away from the person of bad karma in the first place so you never got in the car? and I think I like good never comes to harm idea best - you would be protected from the bad by being the good, no matter how karma brought about that protection - so applying that to your mate he knows he has bad karma but so do the people around him or their good karma would protect them - he is not affecting them they have their own karmic problems already.

other answerers who seem assured they do know the truth of karma have indicated that it possible to take on someone else karma and indicated that it is not possible to do so. several seem elitist in their attitude toward knowing karma indicating failure to consciously know karma in part way removes you from it's effect (good or bad), I have no requirement for an academic understanding of karma (I know and love it without ) - and I believe people can have no idea of karma be moral and good people and still make a better karma. ignorance of the law is no defence against its effects if you ask me - Karma is Karma and no level of personal ignorance or knowledge of it is going to stop it affecting you. This elitism sounds just like the judeoislamochristian elitist ethic that accepting their way is the only route to paradise after death - utter crap!

Answer 7

It really depends on what your friend is doing. I myself, being Hindu, have never heard of this, and I really don't think it's possible for your friend's karma to affect others. It's possible that he feels negative energy coming from him and it's being mistaken for karma...
Like I said, it really depends...

Answer 8

The Law of Karma

i) According to the Law of Karma, for every action that an individual performs there is an appropriate reaction.

This is a subtle law that governs all the activities of living beings. There is a similar law in modern science, ("every action has an equal and opposite reaction").

ii) The Law of Karma is a law of cause and effect or action and reaction. This means that for everything we do there will be a reaction, 2nd for everything that is happening there is a past cause (known or unknown). Thus one can understand that we are presently suffering or enjoying the fruits of our past activities and that our present activities will determine our future suffering or enjoyment.

iii) No one can escape this law, however big or small he may be. And certainly, ignorance of the Law is no excuse.

iv) It works perfectly under the control of God, acting through material nature and time.

Different Karmic Seeds Take Different Time to Fructify

· Each karma we perform is like a seed that we sow. Every seed has its own, nature that makes it bear fruit at a certain time.

· If we plant seeds of papaya. mango, neem and apple, each will produce fruit at different times according to its intrinsic nature. One may bear fruit very soon and another very late, after several years.

· Similarly all karmic seeds will not bear fruit at the same time; rather, following their intrinsic quality (i.e. depending on the nature of the karma) they will fructify at different times.

· Some karmic seeds naturally take a short time to fructify, and some a long time. Therefore, according to their nature, some karmic reactions may come in this life and some in future lives.

Individual and Collective Karma

i) While we have to each individually face the reactions of our own karma, the sum total of the karma of a certain group of people may also affect the group as a whole

Examples are: plane cashes, earth quakes and such like, where people in large numbers suffer a similar kind of fate Their karma has brought them all together to die in a certain manner.

Similarly if one acts and others suffer, this is because they do not take the reactions of others rather they both or all are destined to suffer together.

Answer 9

It is not that you will pick up any of his karma. As he sheds off the karma he cannot handle he exposes you to a force that will open up and bring your karma to rapid conclusion. (A note) He cannot take it from you, and being close to you, he will be filled with great compassion.
There is only one way to step out side of the Wheel, or repercussions of karma. When the ego is dropped, there is no one to pay the debt. No action is inaction for karmic law. In death, you only get a reprieve.

Answer 10

Karma is not an illusive thing, not a coincidental thing, nor is it that which necessarily can be framed as happenstance. There is nothing that is not karma acting, but is otherwise framed as causation. Even nations, planets, whole universes have karma. Even the plucking of petals from a flower is karma. Karma categorizes according to set laws of the universes regarding an individual in no different manner than a banking account applies, with reserves, debits, and credits or that which can be, say, advanced to an individual for some purpose as set and agreed-to and adjudged by forces that shape all life.

When two people marry, say, they do take on the karma of the associations from cross-collaboration of energies derived from the two distinct collective karmas (or families) or causations of the two families; and this at every level, both subtle and gross: karma indeed is tied into the genetics and astronomical configurations of indiviuals and families.

No one pays another's karma because it is not probable to replicate the exact karma, but one 'can' take on another's karma inadvertently, that is, one's energy tides. Prophets, saviors, saints and sants, well as holy persons do this as a common course. However, such as these individuals of merit do approximate what they are working with and know how to pass the karmatic forces into the life stream safely as to do no harm to others. Say, it is cast in those parts of the universes in no different way than a salvage truck hauls off trash and retrograde materials.

And this occurs not infrequently, for few are there who know the dynamics of karma; and if they did, considerably would they know how a circumstance can be mitigated. Having knowledge about a thing can be everything...

If you so choose to frame it so, you could say that one 'can' "contaminate" another but not quite as if it were a vector likened to a viral infection. Where 'contamination' takes hold is where one individual interferes with another's work, which is already a pre-set plan, with something that has to be worked off or burned off at that given time and place, and where another dares interfere with this karmatic action, in which case that person who interferes does take on karma, but not the selfsame karma but instead one that catalyzes energies that otherwise sleep and now awaken, with a completely distinctive seed from which certain things commence.

In this instance, such interference or intrusion activates forces that would have been addressed eventually, something that would eventually have surfaced anyway but now has been accelerated and brought to the fore -- which can be a stretch for that individual who dared interfere, but in no way does the karma that arises exceed that person's ability to withstand it, for this is not allowed under high law, unless the person him- or herself chooses to violate that law...this is something I prefer not to address, however, that regards the breaking of the "golden bowl."

But rest assured, what 'is' allowed shall indeed be quite enough -- quite.

You friend will do well to better regulate these inevitable forces as they work their ways out of his personal universe. This he will do by his particular method of keeping to his spiritual exercises -- meditations, prayer, contemplations, and so on...in other words, however one chooses to commune with the Higher, not necessarily to talk or petition but rather, to 'listen' to what bears forth from within.