Karma

in it’s endless, pointless, senseless repetitiveness and as the twin doctrines of Karma and Samsara developed the revulsion against never ending-life through never ending death in a manifestly imperfect world become more and more extreme (Zaehner 1966: 61). The Brhardaranyaka Upanisad simply sates “By good actions one becomes good, by bad actions one becomes bad”(4. The Bhagavad Gita (probably composed in third or fourth century B. In the process they introduce profound metaphysical and religious ideas, such as Karma and Samsara. So, even at this early stage of Hinduism, the idea of Karma played an important role in the Hindu’s worldview. The goal for many Hindus became at this time to gain Moksha (release from Samsara) which meant a person’s atman would be released from the cycle of rebirth and therefore become one with the ultimate reality, Brahman, like a drop of water into an ocean. Intertwined with belief in Karma is the idea of Samsara, which is the cycle of repeated births and deaths that subjects an individual not merely to one death but to innumerable deaths (Koller 1982:9).