Beyond karma, beyond atonement: A conversation on suffering, agency, and grace

By By Suvir Saran
New Delhi [India], February 7 : Karma. It is spoken of as though it were an immutable ledger, a balance sheet of sins and virtues, a script written long before we learned to read the world. It is wielded like a blade, slicing through suffering with the bluntness of cause and effect--"You suffer because you must, because you have erred, because you must atone."
But what if that is not karma? What if karma has been misread, misused, misunderstood? What if suffering is not a debt to be paid, not a consequence to be endured, not a punishment assigned to the living by some unseen hand? What if karma is simply the quiet movement of energy, not retribution but evolution, not judgment but a call to grace?
A reader wrote to me days ago, speaking of suffering as karma, suffering as atonement. And so I wrote, not to argue, not to negate, but to place my thoughts beside theirs, to offer another vantage point. I wrote about suicide and survival, about pain that consumes and pain that is endured. I wrote about the ones left behind, about the absolution they deserve, about the mercy we must extend to ourselves and to those who choose to leave.
And then, this morning, they responded.
"This too shall pass," they wrote. "And eventually, we all will. Death--the great leveller, the ultimate salvation."
Salvation. The word hung in the air as I read it aloud, my mother Sunita and my nephew Karun sitting across from me at the table. Karun, twenty-five, sharp, unflinching, unburdened by the weight of inherited beliefs, listened, then said, simply--"Suicide. Assisted suicide. Easy suicide."
"What do you mean?" I asked him.
"Why should anyone have to suffer?" he said. "Why should we tie suffering to karma? Why should we force someone to endure what they cannot bear?"
And then, turning to my mother, "Nani, if you had Alzheimer's, what would you want?"
She held his gaze. He held hers. And then he said, "If it got bad, if you wanted to go, I would help you. I would understand."
And I thought of the countries that allow it, the dignity of choice, the quiet civility of an exit that is not cruel, not prolonged, not forced into the shadows. I thought of how swiftly Karun had arrived at a conclusion that so many refuse to even entertain. No karma. No atonement. Just agency. Just compassion. Just the belief that suffering, if unbearable, need not be prolonged for the comfort of those who watch but do not feel its weight.
Then, another response arrived, from another reader--a retired bureaucrat, a thinker, a man who has spent his life in policy and pragmatism. His message was simple:
"Replace karma with compassion. Replace atonement with empathy."
And that was it. No explanation, no footnotes, no deliberation. Just a quiet correction of an ancient misreading. And I sat with it, and I let it unravel me.
Because isn't that it? Isn't that the answer?
Karma--not as a punishment, not as a price to be paid, but as an invitation to do better, to be better. Atonement--not as an obligation, but as an act of self-forgiveness, of release, of allowing ourselves and others the dignity of being human, flawed, fragile, free.
We cannot box suffering. We cannot explain it away with scripture, nor with doctrine, nor with theories that absolve us from the responsibility of looking suffering in the eye and saying--"I see you. I do not justify you. I do not call you fate. I call you what you are. And I meet you with kindness."
Kabir, the mystic poet, wrote:
"Kaal kare so aaj kar, aaj kare so ab,
Pal mein parlay hoyegi, bahuri karega kab?"
(Do today what you think can wait until tomorrow, do now what you think can wait until today, for destruction may come in a blink, and then what will you do?)
Perhaps karma is not about past sins or future rewards. Perhaps karma is the present moment, the choices we make in this breath, in this heartbeat. Perhaps karma is choosing empathy when judgment would be easier. Perhaps karma is letting go when we have been taught to hold on.
Rumi wrote:
"Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Let life live through you."
James Baldwin wrote:
"Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced."
Henry David Thoreau wrote:
"Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around."
And I think of those words as I sit here, between generations, between perspectives, between tradition and evolution, between the world that was and the world that must be. I think of the need for elasticity, for an open heart, for an expansive mind. I think of the ways we have corrupted the meaning of karma, of atonement--co-opted them, twisted them into tools of judgment, of justification.
And I wonder--if we are to claim morality, if we are to claim divinity, if we are to call ourselves evolved, then what is our responsibility? It is not to force suffering upon another in the name of a belief that does not belong to them. It is not to hold them hostage to our sense of right and wrong. It is not to trap them in a cycle of guilt, of shame, of forced endurance.
Our responsibility is to love. To extend grace. To say--"I do not understand your suffering, because I have never felt it in your bones, in your skin, in your breath. But I believe you. And I will not ask you to suffer for me."
Because that is what we would want, isn't it? If it were us--if it were our body breaking, our mind unraveling, our pain turning into something unbearable--would we want to be told that it is our karma to endure it? Or would we want to be met with kindness, with acceptance, with the freedom to choose?
Perhaps that is the true karma. Not a ledger of past deeds, not a debt to be paid, but a question--"How would you want to be treated? Then go, and do likewise."
And if we must invoke karma, if we must invoke atonement, then let it be in this:
Live well. Live gently. Live freely. And when it is time to let go, let go with love. (ANI/ Suvir Saran)
Disclaimer: Suvir Saran is a Masterchef, Author, Hospitality Consultant And Educator. The views expressed in this article are his own.