As I missed the movie ‘Accident’ accidentally when it was screening, I purposely (i.e. ‘not accidentally’) made a point to catch it on a flight. The story tells of a gang which makes money from planning ‘accidents’ to kill those targeted by their clients, so that the latter can profit from huge insurance claims. Ironically, or ‘poetic justice’ karmically, during the implementation of one such assignment, a gang member is killed… in what seems to be a freak traffic accident. As he gasps for his last breath, he asks ‘Is this an accident?’ The hyper-suspicious leader answers gravely, ‘This is not an accident.’
Shortly after, the leader’s apartment is broken into, and his ‘hard-earned’ dirty money is stolen. As the police check his ID to investigate the breaking and entering, one is reminded that just as every victimser is a potential victim, every victim could once be a victimiser. The leader becomes severely victimised by his paranoia. The elaborate liar comes to to think that those around him are lying. The guilty one suspects everyone of guilt. He even terminates another partner via an ‘accident’ due to his conspiracy theories. It turns out in the end that the death of the first partner in crime was really an accident.
But hey, as we know, man-planned or ‘natural’, it is true that there are no real accidents, as karmic cause and effect in inter-meshed with material causality in action. If accidents do defy the workings of karma, it’s like saying ‘randomness’ of physics can overrun the orderliness of karma. Of what use is positive karma then, if it cannot safeguard us from chaotic misfortunes? Karmically, it is true that those who create accidents can die by what merely appear to be ‘accidents’. The leader is killed when his hellish suspicions of an innocent man drive the latter to kill him in anguish. Killers do often get killed in some violent way due to the great negative karma they had created. There are no accidents.