It seems the ancient practice of Karma, or doing good to others and finding good in your own life may have some scientific backing now as scientists uncover the ancient teachings of Karma and how they can actually cause real changes in peoples’ lives for the better. Karma, it would seem, has been validated scientifically. But how will the study take the next step? Will kindness technology tell us the most efficient way to get the most out of doing good for others?
Karma is a practice that involves doing good for others and receiving positive “energy” in return. Some interpretations of this philosophy suggest karma will result in good things happening by chance out of each act of kindness performed, while others suggest it is a spiritual progression that doesn’t manifest until after death when the spirit is reincarnated as something else. And so after that Karma is a means of assessing how well a life was lived. The experiment was designed to look into this concept and attempt to assess whether participants were living with good Karma and what would change when they increased their Karma. What they found was astounding.
The study, coming from York University, involved 700 participants who were told to either be kinder to others for five minutes a day and improve their relationships through random acts of kindness or (if they were in the control group) to change nothing about their lives and live as though they weren’t participating in the study at all. At the beginning both groups reported varying levels of depression, malaise, and other general problems. But after spending five minutes a day doing kind things for others the Karma experimental group reported a profound increase in happiness, a sense of purpose, well being, positive emotions, and general good feelings. Neither study had done very much different about their lives at all aside from being extra kind to others or not.
One of the elements of the experiment that should be noted is that it was specifically made to study the actions and interactions between different individuals helping one another. It didn’t measure giving money to charity or simply not doing bad. The experiment was studying good in the most traditional sense of the word – actually helping others in whatever way you can.
And so it seems even now a better form of happiness can be attained using only the tools we’ve been given from birth. With time and good intentions turned to action we can benefit and others will as well. And that’s a scientific fact. Those who say selfishness is the only way to go appear to have come to the conclusion based on science that is as of now out of date.