Sikhs hold rebirth and karma without much of the machinery — no elaborate hell-realms, no ritual technology for improving the next birth, no priestly class selling passage. The human birth is described as the rare opening, and the standard Punjabi phrase for wasting it is blunt. Where Sikh doctrine departs from its neighbours is that karma is not sovereign: grace overrides the ledger, and the scripture says so often enough that theologians have had to work out how both can be true. The usual settlement is that karma governs the ordinary run of things and the Guru's grace is the exception that can be granted at any moment. Funeral practice reflects the doctrine — Sikhs are told not to perform shraadh or feed Brahmins for the dead, because the account is already settled elsewhere.