Karma is both a carrot and a stick; it cannot work without that duality. If we take away the karmic stick, the concept of karma crumbles. To me, a life without karma is a life without meaning — little more than a game of cosmic roulette. Yet, I wonder if karma is a self-limiting concept, designed to render one an evolutionary fossil.

Karmic retribution can manifest itself as mental suffering, physical suffering, or both. Science is progressing rapidly, and has done much to soften the physical pain of the karmic stick. Within the blink of evolutionary time, science will find cures for all the physical pains that afflict mankind today. Accidents, even the most terrible ones, will diminish in horror as we are able to block the receptors that transmit pain. Further down the line, we will be able to harness stem cells to re-grow every body part, much like newts and salamanders. By then, poverty will have been eradicated to the point where nobody on our planet will go hungry, thirsty, or without shelter or clothing.

As we learn to harness the human genome, we will be able to do a cut-and-paste job — out go the genes for cancer, for diabetes; out go the genes for deviant behaviours (alcoholism, criminality); in come the genes that increase longevity, bestow genius. What about mental disease, that is on the increase, despite rapid material gains?

Genetic engineering will present cures. Already scientists have identified a gene that is responsible for happiness, and another for unhappiness. Cut-and-paste again — out goes the unhappy gene, in comes the happy gene, the compassionate gene, the blissed-out gene. No more physical or mental anguish, only bliss. In this re-engineered state, doing the right thing will come spontaneously. There will be no more karma to cleanse.

... contd.