Clarifications

Last week’s Shalom piece was titled “Is Karma the same as Gaba?”

The ancient religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Jainaism, according to Wikipedia, believed in Karma. It was considered to be the result of an action or the action itself.

I was wrong in concluding Karma was exclusively on something positive. The truth of the definition is Karma can be both. If the action is good the result has to be good. If the action is bad, because of karma, the result has to be bad.

In our Filipino cultural behavior Gaba is always a curse, and therefore clearly negative. The two incidents I narrated in the previous Shalom were personal experiences. I witnessed them.

Now the question I posed. When gaba does not happen, how does our culture look at it? Is it just a delay because gaba is something supra human, a divine punishment? Gaba has to happen. Otherwise God would be a liar. So delay is one explanation.

Suppose, the evildoer or the offender remains alive and strong, he or she is not accursed. Why?

I said our answers, which are merely guesses or suppositions, should come from the perspective of faith within Filipino popular religiosity, and not from politics and economics.

So, one answer could be, the victim is simply carrying his/her cross as part of the demands of discipleship (“If you want to be my disciple, take up your cross and follow me”, Matt 10:38 / 1Peter 2:21-24).

Another can be one according to which a person is being vilified or maligned because God is allowing the harm in order to teach him/her a lesson. Or he/she is suffering because of failure in the performance of duty or obligation so that change and transformation can happen. The evil or the victimiser is a blessing in disguise. This is also an answer within the perspective of faith. As an example, some people see the attacks against the Church as a blessing, a healing, due to some failure of the Church in the past like lack of good catechesis. Not a few will disagree especially if they reason out from a political perspective.