Years ago (in 2012), our local paper in Malaysia (The Star) featured an article on 30 medical students from University Sains Malaysia Kubang Kerian who had shown disinterest in medicine after being convinced or brainwashed that “they should not become doctors as the act of treating patients will interfere with karma”.
As the result, these students wanted to opt for transferring out to other courses and their relationship with their family members are strained due to the differing opinions.
Here, I would like to offer my humble opinion related healing and interfering with other people’s kamma.
I spent about 1 year in Thailand after quitting my previous corporate job. In which, there are things which I’ve learned related to sickness, healing and kamma. In this blog, I do occasionally talk about kamma and illness but I do my best to keep minimal and unless there are things I’ve seen that I know I cannot bear to keep quiet on.
Yes, I believe that kamma has its role to play in a person’s illness. Especially those illness that spring out with no apparent reason and cannot be cured despite all types of treatment options (conventional, complimentary, holistic, and traditional). Even medically, a lot of diseases fall under “unknown causes”.
For what a person do, so must the person accept the effects and take responsibility for the past actions performed. No one can really can bear your wrongdoings on your behalf.
But it does not mean that we need to leave a patient to suffer or die just because we suspect is the person’s kamma. If you are a good swimmer and you see a person drowning, you cannot just stand and watch the person drown to death because ‘hey, it’s just too bad, man. It’s that fella’s kamma’. If you can swim, you must do whatever you can to save the person as there is an ancient Chinese saying, “saving some’s life is as good as building a 7 story pagoda” (as building temples are considered to be very meritorious).
Once a man told me that when he was young, he saw a young girl nearing drowning in the seas of Singapore. Without second thought, he took off his shirt, jumped into the sea and dragged her to safety. Then he quietly went off and disappeared in the crowd- without any expectation of anything in return. Decades later in his 60s, he had lung cancer. He is not a rich man, so he cannot afford expensive treatment- but he got healed after undergoing chemotherapy treatments. He shared that his illness had made him relook on certain aspects of his life and his relationship- he had always had trouble relating to others emotionally- and this illness made him open up (sometimes illness does play a role because as we undergo healing, we heal both physically and emotionally). However, I would that think that despite his closed self, he is by nature a kind man and because he does things like saved the woman’s life spontaneously, his life was saved by the doctor in turn.
Does doctors/ healers interfere with a person’s kamma?
Being a doctor a noble profession. You use the latest knowledge in medical science and do your best to heal a patient. In being a doctor, you heal with the knowledge and experience that you have learned through the years of medical textbook studies and clinical practice.
Studying medicine is one of the toughest course and take the longest time. It’s not easy to qualify into medical school and if you have managed to work your way into medical school, don’t give up the profession. What you learn would equip you with the knowledge to be used at your disposal.
Like the swimmer example above, you use the knowledge to attempt to save somebody’s life or to at least relieve a person’s suffering. If you are not doing it just for the money but with a genuine intention to heal, it’s noble.. You should not give it up.
Back to the subject of interfering with another person’s karma. Yes, there is another perspective into this: example, if you see a strong man beating up another person in a quiet back alley- do you interfere with the fight? Even though you try to help, if you interfere, you would also risk being beat up and killed. Two dead persons is no use. So some school of thought may advise the person is best not to interfere.
But there’s another way of looking into this- you see another person taking revenge and if you have sufficient power, you may be able to negotiate with the revengeful person to give up revenge- provided the attacked person (who had wronged the vengeful person) was willing to make amends. Because an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. If we continue taking revenge on those who had wronged us, there would be no end to the suffering of the world. When one person realises the mistake and willing to make amend, it will end the cycle. Kammic debt must be repay back with kammic deeds- and I know some spiritual teachers would negotiate with the vengeful entity to let go and forgive provided the wrongdoer was willing to make amends- like performing spiritual practice and dedicating the merits to the kammic debtor. So, the healer still intervene and help.
Kamma can result from self doing- like if a person eats and eats junk food and do not exercise, getting diabetes, stroke and heart attack are the results of that act.
But in other case like abortion, it’s different- it involves killing another human life. I know what I am about to say will invite a lot of critism, but I will say it anyway. I don’t care what other pro-abortion groups have to say about this- but having an abortion had strong kammic consequences. It’s a soul wanting to take birth and abortion is denying that soul of that chance- imagine you’ve waited desperately for that opportunity and you find that that chance is taken away (for you to take a new birth)- you would be angry, vindictive. From 17 years onwards after the abortion took place, the effect start to take place- women who had undergo abortion would start to be afflicted with illness- in the form of cancer, stroke (that paralyses or turn the person into a vegetable), severe back pain that cannot be healed and dementia as well as other misfortunes and illness. I was told that due to the angry spirit taking time to gain strength and energy to capitalise on the person’s weak areas and to weaken the person enough through to lodge a ‘full attack’. When I first heard about this about 10 years ago, I find this hard to believe. But I keep my options open and after my observation and knowing a few healers with psychic abilities, with proven cases then I start to believe.
So, for those who want to be a doctor, don’t open a clinic that help women abort their babies even though it is one of the most profitable niche.
But then, what a person have done in the past could be due to ignorance and mistake. We still cannot let the person suffer or be in pain because of something performed in the past. We must do our outmost power to help and heal them.
A disease that spring from kammic cause can only be healed in a kammic way and by the doer himself or herself. You cannot pay another person to perform religious rites to get rid of your sins. In most religions there is repentance- and that we ask for forgiveness for all the bad things we had done- we ask for forgiveness of the person/beings whom we have wronged and learn to forgive others who have wronged us so that we reduce the kammic energy between both.
Sometimes people have a chance to be healed
Through observation, I’ve seen that our live contained certain cycles. There are certain timing of our life where we can be ‘in danger’. Sometimes these are fatal times where one cannot escape. Sometimes, there is a 50-50 percent chance of coming out of it alive. And whether to make it through or to be healed or not depends on the person’s life energy force- and these energy force can be increased through consistent mental practice of ‘do good and avoid evil’ as well as keeping the mind central and focused instead of being scattered and drawn by outside stimulation.
A doctor or healer can play a role into this- if a person have a 50-50 chance of being healed, you help to heal a person, it’s good for you. If a person cannot be healed, then no matter what you do, the patient’s condition would not improve or may be even fatal.
If we have not cleared our kammic obstructions, we would not be able to find the doctor or healer who can take away our illness. I always remember what a kind monk told a group of us student during my university days. He was working for the government till he had seen certain events that made him decide to become a monk. He said that an illness can be kammic or physical but from his observation, most are kammic. He said that some people die from cancer while some survive. Cancer is not a disease differenciated by social, caste or wealth. Even with the best and most expensive treatment, the patient can still die. But some people who had cancer, being so poor and unable to afford any treatment- when told to drink their own urine (it is a very old belief and practiced by old folks as urine is known to contained previous minerals)- they get healed from their cancer.
So if you want to be a doctor or healer and be afraid that it may interfere with other people’s kamma, think of it that way- perhaps the person have a chance and the kamma had expired, that is why he/she found you. But if the kamma have not expired, no matter what you do, it may not help much- but we are not to judge a person (by saying, ‘oh you suffer because of your kamma’)- our duty is to administer healing based on the collective knowledge that we have acquired through medical and clinical practice. You need to let go after that. The rest is up to the patient.
Through running this blog, I’ve came to know that different healing methods suit different people. So my approach is that I explained whatever methods that I feel can help (either because I’ve tried it and it works or because it works for others)- and I always leave it up to the person whether to try it or not.
For example, I personally feel the Holistic Gallstone Removal technique is very good and effective- the very least, it can allow the body to detox. A reader even wrote to me to share with me his success- because of the method he need not go for surgery. But if you read horror stories published in Quackwatch.org, you would know that there are real reported cases of people who have tried this method ended up getting worse after the stone gets dislodged in their gallbladder duct- which requires emergency surgery for removal. Even though not reported, there are those who die on the operating table for a normal surgery to remove gallstone- that is why before any surgery in the hospital, you are required to sign a release form that releases the hospital and its staff of any responsibility should anything happen on the operating table.
My mom shared with me that years ago, there was this very promising state sportsperson who came in the hospital for a very simple procedure- a simple operation to fix her dislocated shoulders. Unfortunately, not sure why, the anesthesiologist wrongly gave her nitrogen instead of oxygen. This girl survived the operation but became a vegetable- losing all body movements. The hospital was sued and the family won a huge settlement. But all the money in the world have no use. And I am sure the anesthesiologist would never ever did that on purpose. It was an unfortunate mistake.
Perhaps some people have some obstruction- so regardless of whatever method they try, they will run into difficulties. That is why over the article on holistic gallstone removal, I’ve had many people writing to ask me if it is okay for them to try this method when they have a gallstone of XX mm or if they have certain medical condition. I always give the same answer- if in doubt, they need to check with the doctor if they could just try that method first and see if it works instead of doing straight for surgery.
In summary, if you have the opportunity to study to be a medical doctor, go for it. Equipped with the knowledge, you can choose to heal a patient. The workings of kamma is too complex and hard for anyone (even with psychic abilites to predict past and future) to understand. The patient’s kamma is none of our business. We just do our best to help the patient.
I had a few strange serious but unexplainable illness that were healed by different healers when I was younger. I was told the illness had a kammic cause. If it is not due to my good fortune to meet them, I would not be alive today to sit down and type this long and lengthy post for your reading pleasure. I would not be able to do a day job that helped other people or continue my contributions into causes that I feel strongly about.
Perhaps equipped with your knowledge as a qualified medical doctor, you may one day explore into alternative ways of healing- like what Dr Amir Farid Ishak is doing. Dr Amir as conventional trained gynecologist to applying holistic and integrative medicine- even though he was initially scorned by some of his peers. As he went towards the journey, he discovered more ancient healing methods of healing. With the solid medical background knowledge he had acquired through his formal practice, he was then able to differentiate the facts from fads and become a better healer.
This post was originally written by me and published on 7 October 2012.
