From what I understand about Hinduism, dependent upon how you act in this life, you could come back in your supposed reincarnated next life as a rock, or a tree, or a rat, or a monkey, or an impoverished tenant farmer, or a wealthy person of influence, so who/what decides how good or bad is your supposed karma?

Karma is essentially a natural law.

But who/what decides what somebody comes back as?

I understand it's not a who, more like an impersonal force. Your actions are like a weight on a balance, the classic image of justice.

So what supposedly is the impetus to force you into your reincarnated rock body, or monkey body, or human body, and who/what calibrates "the scales?"

I assume that good deeds and bad have a force like gravity, or a chemical reactant that fits into it's corresponding reactant. It's passive rather than a personal active force as in western religion.

Then shouldn't that all be measurable? (I do realize you said "like.")

And if the supposed mechanism for reincarnation is something that can't be quantified or qualified, doesn't that make it supernatural? So then, we would have a supernatural something or someone judging good and evil.

Quite so, the traditional concept of Karma has supernatural aspects.

I think there is a natural kind of karma, which is simply an implication of the fact that everything is connected. Our actions can echo through time, our bodies are copies of bodies that came before, it's all cyclical.

Then to reincarnate would be a supernatural event, with a supernatural arbiteur deciding which actions and thoughts in our lives are good, as deemed by the decider (cue to pile on Bush), and which actions and thoughts are bad, so how does the great decider know what is good and bad?

It could be interpreted that way, but karma is not necessarily a supernatural concept.

I see no other way to describe reincarnation other than supernatural.

And if bad folks come back as toads, and good folks as rich influential folks, what supernatural intelligence decides such? Matter can't make decisions, so it must be an intelligence, a being.

Reincarnation is going on right now. Matter is becoming incarnate when you eat, it makes decisions when it is incorporated into a nerve cell. When you die, your material doesn't go away, it goes into the soil, and turns into plants, which again get eaten.

I don't think individuals are born as other beings based on the accumulated merit of their lives, but the problem lies with what we call self. Your sense of self is not self-generated, but inherited from culture. This survives independently of the body, and is reintroduced to every new body through social contact. This is why people get reborn. To break this programming is to break the chain of rebirth.

"Matter.... makes decisions." Huh?

What do you mean "people get reborn," and so, what is "to break the chain of rebirth?"

IceAgeCivilizations:

The nature of the desire produces the incarnation in the species one ends up as. In essence, where the manifestation of one's desires and drives can best be realized, they are.

Example: Someone who really likes to steal things, might come back as a crow.

Or if you like to snorkel, you'll come back as a whale, but what does that have to do with "good karma" and "bad karma?"

Good karma basically is "do good, good will come back to you" whereas bad karma is "do evil, evil comes back to you".

It is rooted in the same foundation as the stealing and snorkeling analogies (as crude as they are) we made. Karma essentially works, it is claimed, on the principle.that inherent in all actions is a predisposition and desire for a world which one experiences of that type.

From what I understand about Hinduism, dependent upon how you act in this life, you could come back in your supposed reincarnated next life as a rock, or a tree, or a rat, or a monkey, or an impoverished tenant farmer, or a wealthy person of influence, so who/what decides how good or bad is your supposed karma?

to begine with karma is a mundane mechanism for dealing with the activities of conditioned souls (it would be incorrect to say that an unconditioned soul receives 'karma' even though they may act in this world - but that is a seperate subject)

So karma comes in three varieties

karma - generally the good sort, although it binds one to material existence (ie birth, death, old age and disease), so even to become rich by dint of karma, it is as a few cons.
vikarma - "that which seperates one from the result of karma" , in other words sinful activity
akarma - that which exhausts ones stockpile of karma and akarma, ie transcendental activity


so the first two ar e within the juristiction of yamaraj (other wise known as dharmaraj or the demigod of death or justice, and the last one is in the jurisdiction of visnu - so I guess we will be focusing on the first two.

To begin with yamaraj is not a grim reaper figure (although he has attendants called yamadutas that fit such a description) - he is an incredibly pious living entity that by dint of their previous karma (mixed with akarma) they get designated the status of "yamaraj". So the laws of karma are established by visnu or god, but the empowered personality who deals with it is yamaraj, much like an ambassador or secretary is 'empowered' to perform various official tasks for a monarch

there is an interesting conversation between the yamadutas (servants of yamaraj) and the visnudutas (servants of visnu) in the incident of Ajamila, a man who was born into brahminical culture but who later on got degraded due to bad association

chapter summaries here
intro to ajamila (http://srimadbhagavatam.com/6/1/summary/en)
discussion between visnudutas and yamadutas (http://srimadbhagavatam.com/6/2/summary/en)
yamadutas going back to yamaraj to determine what's going on (http://srimadbhagavatam.com/6/3/summary/en)

So Vishnu decides what is sin?

So Vishnu decides what is sin?
Visnu is the existential reality that sin/piety rests on
Manu elaborates on it (for mankind)
Yamaraj enforces it

Is Yamaraj the one who decides what people will supposedly come back as?

How does Manu elaborate on it, and what is it?

Is there a Hindu god who created the universe?

Or so says the superstition. Let's be sure to make that point lest someone think there is evidence for it.

"Matter.... makes decisions." Huh?

What do you mean "people get reborn," and so, what is "to break the chain of rebirth?"

In this case, what generates self is society, it is not inherent within the body. This is what gets' reborn.

Is Yamaraj the one who decides what people will supposedly come back as?


yamaraj carries out what is elaborated upon by manu and which is established by visnu.

Like for instance, due to being envious of god, the living entity comes to the material world in the mood of sense gratification, as opposed to service to god.
While in the material world there are many scriptural recommendations on how to regulate one's sense gratification (eg - scripture gives warnings about eating food stuffs in the mode of ignorance and instead advocates foods in th emode of goodness or foods offerred in sacrifice)
One who fails to take heed of such instructions runs the risk of taking birth as something lower (if one is sincerely interested in eating anything and everything there are better life forms - like the pig, simialrly if one is interested exclusively in sex there is the pigeon, and why waste time at the gym when you can solve all your issues at birth by becoming an elephant). Thus they go to the hellish planets, under the decree of yamaraj to get "trained up" to become an animal.
One can also go th e hellish planets to get higher denominations of suffering than what the earthly planet (its a middle planet) can dish out - for instance if one is a mass murder it is more efficient to go to the hellish planets where one can get the results of one's previous actions more quickly - similarly if one is amazingly pious one can go to upper (material) planets for a better scopr of sense gratification.
In short, the laws of karma are incredibly difficult to negotiate, since there are questions of one's attachment to activity which can not be so easily legislated by simple "do's" and "do not's" - like for instance its not like everyone who has ever been to a gym will take birth as an elephant or that anyone who has ever had sex will take birth as a pigeon (that said, its no coincidence that the ratio of humans to animals is miniscule) ..... Therefore the conclusion of all scripture is that one should strive to serve god without material motivation, which is the surest way to achieve a good result, rather than striving to anticipate a great material reward for one's spiritual pursuits



Is there a Hindu god who created the universe?
Visnu

or more specifically from the Sātvata-tantra

"Viṣṇu has three forms called puruṣas. The first, Mahā-Viṣṇu, is the creator of the total material energy [mahat], the second is Garbhodaśāyī, who is situated within each universe, and the third is Kṣīrodaśāyī, who lives in the heart of every living being. He who knows these three becomes liberated from the clutches of māyā."

more detailed explanation here (http://science.krishna.org/Articles/2000/06/00018.html), at half way down the page titled "A summary of the Vedic version of creation"

Spidergoat -

I am assuming you are familiar with Buddhist thought? Your ideas seem to be of a much less dogmatic (and/or fatalist, if you will) view of karma that is expressed in Buddhism (the negation of it leads to Enlightenment, some of it leads to reincarnation).

LightGigantic -

You should also indicate that some Hindus do not specifically believe Vishnu created the Universe. In some sects, the Universe is an extension of Brahman, and in others, Shiva creates it.

It's one way to conceive of the essential connectivity of all things. Being connected, a product of seamless cause and effect, any action in the present becomes the future. Even the memory of a person lives into the future, and continues to be the cause of other events. Who we are is a relative thing; as someone said, semantic. We are our deeds, our words, our interaction with the environment, a product of the people we encountered. Self is a cultural artifact. A cultural artifact can be reborn, as can iterative processes like DNA replication.

To become a real individual is both enlightenment and a cessation of personal karmic processes that lead to suffering.

You are the Arbiteur of Karma.

What you do determines your destiny.

It works by way of perception.

What you see, is, so when you see it another way, then it is another way.

Ayodhya -

You should also indicate that some Hindus do not specifically believe Vishnu created the Universe. In some sects, the Universe is an extension of Brahman, and in others, Shiva creates it.

Siva and Brahma are accepted as guna avatars - so since the gunas have a role to play in the universal development (brahma particularly with the secondary creation, siva particularly with the annhilation), they are certainly unique, but they are clearly not referenced as activating the unmanifest material nature from a transcendental vantage point (they don't have abodes in vaikuntha)

You are the Arbiteur of Karma.

What you do determines your destiny.

It works by way of perception.

What you see, is, so when you see it another way, then it is another way.

I would agree that we are responsible for our karma, but once we have made a decision it is very difficult to avoid the results by determination - like for instance a criminal that is holed up in a building who decides to change his karma the moment the FBI kick down his door will have great difficulty avoiding a jail sentence, no matter how determined he is

I would agree that we are responsible for our karma, but once we have made a decision it is very difficult to avoid the results by determination -

Does that "but" mean to equate arbitration with avoidance?

Karma is a continuous process, present karma as the arbitration of previous karma, in so far as one is mindful of this.

Ergo, without that arbitration one suffers a self inflicted injustice.

It is not like the Final Judgement, as if all saved up for a nasty surprise at the end of it.

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=1280649#post1280649

I would agree that we are responsible for our karma, but once we have made a decision it is very difficult to avoid the results by determination -

The whole point is that at you have to deal with the result by determining: Everything we do determines.

Your previous karma is the case before you for you to try, so if you let yourself off too lightly beware of an eventual repeat of the same offence tried a second time over.

The arbitration is not avoidance, rather a discriminative process of purification:

By oneself is evil done; by oneself is one defiled.
By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself is one made pure.
Purity and impurity depended on oneself; no one can purify another.
By oneself is evil done; by oneself is one defiled.
By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself is one made pure.
Purity and impurity depended on oneself; no one can purify another.

(Dhammapad Vs. 165)

I would agree that we are responsible for our karma, but once we have made a decision it is very difficult to avoid the results by determination -

The whole point is that at you have to deal with the result by determining: Everything we do determines.

Your previous karma is the case before you for you to try, so if you let yourself off too lightly beware of an eventual repeat of the same offence tried a second time over.

The arbitration is elimination rather than avoidance, a discriminative process of purification:

By oneself is evil done; by oneself is one defiled.
By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself is one made pure.
Purity and impurity depended on oneself; no one can purify another.
By oneself is evil done; by oneself is one defiled.
By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself is one made pure.
Purity and impurity depended on oneself; no one can purify another.

(Dhammapada Vs. 165)