..续本文上一页 makes us unhappy, our Kamma has come to show us our mistake. We must never forget that Kamma is always just. It neither loves nor hates, neither rewards nor punishes. It is never angry, never pleased. It is simply the law of cause and effect.

　　Kamma knows nothing about us. Does fire know us when it burns us

　　 No, it is the nature of fire to burn, to give out heat. If we use it properly it gives us light, cooks our food for us or burns anything we wish to get rid of, but if we use it wrongly it burns us and our property. Its work is to burn and our job is to use it in the right way. We are foolish if we grow angry and blame it when it burns us because we have made a mistake.

　　There are inequalities and manifold destinies for people in the world. One is, for example, inferior and another superior. One perishes in infancy and another at the age of eighty or a hundred. One is sick and infirm, and another strong and healthy. One is brought up in luxury and another in misery. One is born a millionaire, another a pauper. One is a genius and another an idiot.

　　What is the cause of the inequalities that exist in the world

　　 Buddhists cannot believe that this variation is the result of blind chance. Science itself is indeed all against the theory of Chance. In the world of the scientist all works in accordance with the laws of cause and effect. Neither can Buddhists believe that these inequalities of the world are due to a God-Creator.

　　One of the three pergent views that prevailed at the time of the Buddha was:

　　"Whatsoever happiness or pain or neutral feeling the person experiences all that is due to the creation of a Supreme Deity."

　　Anguttara Nikáya

　　Commenting on this fatalistic view the Buddha said:

　　"So, then, owing to the creation of a Supreme Deity men, will become murderers, thieves, unchaste, liars, slanderers, abusive, babblers, covetous, malicious, and perverse in view. Thus for those who fall back on the creation of a God as the essential reason, there is neither the desire to do, nor necessity to do this deed or abstain from that deed."

　　Ibid

　　Referring to the naked ascetics who practiced self-mortification, the Buddha said:

　　"If, O Bhikkhus, beings experience pain and happiness as the result of God”s creation, then certainly these naked ascetics must have been created by a wicked God, since they are at present experiencing such terrible pain."

　　Devadaha Sutta, No 101

　　Majjhima Nikáya, Vol. II, Pg 222

　　According to Buddhism the inequalities that exist in the world is due, to some extent, to heredity and environment and to a greater extent, to a cause or causes (Kamma), which are not only present but proximate or remote past. Man himself is responsible for his own happiness and misery. He creates his own heaven and hell. He is master of his own destiny, child of his past and parent of his future.

　　The Laws Of Cosmic Order

　　Although Buddhism teaches that Kamma is the chief cause of the inequalities in the world yet it does not teach fatalism or the doctrine of predestination, for it does not hold the view that everything is due to past actions. The law of cause and effect (Kamma) is only one of the twenty-four causes described in Buddhist philosophy, (See Compendium of Philosophy, P.191), or one of the five orders (Niyamas) which are laws in themselves and operate in the universe. They are:

　　1. Utu Niyama, physical inorganic order, e.g., seasonal phenomena of winds and rains. The unerring order of seasons, characteristic seasonal changes and events, causes of winds and rains, nature of heat, etc., belong to this group.

　　2. Bija Niyama, order or germs and seeds (physical organic order) e.g., rice produced from rice seed, sugary taste from sugar cane or honey, peculiar characteristics of certain fruits, etc. The scientific theor…

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