Treadmill or merry-go-round?
Samsara is the Wheel to which we are all shackled to. It is said that we will forever ride this wheel until such time we attain Nibbana. Does this mean an Aathma of some form surviving the Birth-Death cycles through this long journey?
This is a journey fuelled by Karma - the bad Karma extending it and good Karma, or Merit, shortening it. Well, that is my current understanding.
You see why everything becomes so complicated and intertwined. Samsara makes sense, to us laymen, if one allows for the presence of an Aathma as in Hinduism. There, the Aathma is supposed to cross the boundaries and acquire itself a new suit, commensurate with the acquired Merit.
This is where I hit problems. The new manifestation of a life is supposed to be determined by the acquired and accumulated Merit/Karma of the past manifestations. If that were the case, we ought to be aware of, or be able to recollect the good and/or the bad actions one has perpetrated in the previous manifestations...
As one of my nephews one day observed, is this concept of Samsara, a shrewd political construction? A device to keep the poor where they are, attributing the present misfortunes to some bad actions in a previous manifestation, in order to justify keeping them there? Promoting good behaviour, proper conduct etc. etc. guaranteeing higher status in manifestations to come, as a way of extorting the masses to work harder and demand less?
Can this be a construct invented by the Hindus to maintain caste structure? A legalisation, even in the eyes of the Creators, the authority to tread on wretched people who are born into 'lower castes' simply because of an accident of birth?
Ah, they might argue that such birth is determined by the Karma of the previous Rebirths!