Do you believe in karma?

[AlexL]

The possibility that karma is a real force in our lives fascinates me. The article below summarizes the Buddhist view of karma. I'm interested in what people think about this as a real idea, that we all have a destiny that we ourselves continuously create. What do you all think?

Happiness in this World » An Explanation Of Karma

AlexL

[Brown Eyed Mystic]

I think I do. When I say I think, its because it resonates with my ways and thought processes all right, but I still need to find/hear/see something more related to karma on a personal account. Yet that is.

I read the article, and incidently, the writer and I are on the same page, almost. A major part of me believes in karma too, and the other part wants to believe. I believe with some more time to the self awareness to further evolve I may be able to completely believe in karma with no doubt. I can't prove it to you or anyone, its just a feeling deep inside coz it makes a lot of sense. Just what I think.

[ComplicatedSimplicity]

I am almost 100% certain karma is true.

Of course I or anyone else cannot prove this.

But from personal experience's, I know it to be true

[Beuford]

I was playing some online game and I kept raiding peoples villages who had no defence and taking all their resources, then someone who had been playing a lot longer wiped my entire army with one swipe. I suppose that is karma.

Although I don't necessarily believe karma exists itself, I accept it as a way to describe something which happened that would be kind of like revenge but it could be a coincidence and not something that was influenced by past actions. If that makes any sense.

[brendannz]

I believe in Karma, almost 100% I'm not sure if there are mysterious forces causing karma but I think it's only logical that what you give you get, think about it, if you're really rude to everyone, you're not going to be worshipped by everyone

[mirandaom]

Karma is most definitely a real thing. Even if a person lives his or her entire life as a complete and total jerk and nothing ever happens to them to balance it out, it will in the next life. It's inescapible and certain. And the good part is, you don't even have to believe in it for it to work! It's always there whether you think it is or not.

Proving its existence isn't really necessary. Deciding what feels right to YOU is the important part.

[Dreamline]

Karma is neither good or bad. It's just a reflection, back at you, of what you have given the world. It can even extend over many soul lifetimes.

Yes, I believe what goes around, comes around.

You cannot escape your karmic debt, except through the grace of God.

But karma has nothing to do with destiny, per se. Your daily, freewill choices have more power than karma. Though eventually you will pay, in some way, or gain in some way from your karma. Even in your next life.

Jennifer

[Erin Pavlina]

Karma is not punishment. It's reaping what you sow. so if you reap violence, you receive violence back. Karma is learning from your actions. The universe is kind enough to reflect back to you what you've done.

If you murder, it does not follow karmically that you will be murdered. If it did, who would murder you and wouldn't they then have to be murdered in return? Instead, you will be given circumstances in which to learn compassion and empathy.

Karma means you get what you give. You give misery, you will be miserable. but it does not follow that someone else has to serve it up to you. karma is not about revenge. it's about understanding the effect of what you've done and having the opportunity to change your ways.

[MidasGirl]

Yes, I know Karma to be an unbreakable law of life. It's inescapable. Whether or not I believe in it is irrelevant. And Jen's right (how many times shall I say that?) it's neither good nor bad. It just is. It's impersonal. It's just a universal energy balancing system. The energy you put out creates imbalance (whether it's positive or negative) and you must experience an equal reaction to balance it out. One of the best books to help understand Karma is Gary Zukav's The Seat of the Soul.

[Anagogy]

Originally Posted by AlexL

The possibility that karma is a real force in our lives fascinates me. The article below summarizes the Buddhist view of karma. I'm interested in what people think about this as a real idea, that we all have a destiny that we ourselves continuously create. What do you all think?

Happiness in this World » An Explanation Of Karma

AlexL

I see karma as spiritual inertia.

All forms of energy balance within their own dimensional continuum. Cold is balanced by heat, dark is balanced by light, and hate is balanced by love.

Karma is the energy balance that takes place within the dimensional continuum of consciousness. Its a universal truth that all energy ultimately seeks equilibrium.

The domain of consciousness is experience -- that's what it does: experiences things. When negative experience occurs it causes an imbalance in the field of consciousness, because negativity is really just the perception of separation, which is a state of imbalance, energetically speaking.

So the moment you have separation, of any kind, you have karmic imbalances. This "disharmony" must then be "worked off" so to speak, in order to come more into alignment with universal consciousness. It even has a sort of "gravity", in that it will "pull" you towards balancing experiences. But some souls become extremely resistant, and fight this process, which merely delays the lessons they must learn in order to progress to a higher spiritual vibration.

Since this mis-alignment was brought on through disharmonious experience, it can then only be re-aligned through experience of yet an opposite nature -- that being the positive, which is the domain of balance itself.

So say you kill someone -- this act can throw your spiritual energy into a kind of chaos, depending on the ramifications of this action (how consciousness interpreted the event). Think of it as creating a gash or cut on your spirit. These gashes can only be healed through love and forgiveness. Forgiveness and love are stabilizers of karma. They are the positive energy that heals the negative. And they are positive because they extend naturally from the concept of oneness -- one is all, and all is one.

So this kind of karma would NOT be be balanced by the murderer getting murdered himself, as Erin pointed out above. However, oftentimes you will see souls place themselves in similar circumstances as the one they put their victims in, in order to understand what they did. Its to invoke compassion within them for what the other soul experienced. THIS is how the karma is actually resolved. Its always about love.

All experience is shared ultimately.

So you can see how, ultimately, karma is there for our spiritual benefit. It's to lift the soul force and bring it back to the absolute point -- the oneness.

[simpo]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

Karma is not punishment. It's reaping what you sow. so if you reap violence, you receive violence back. Karma is learning from your actions. The universe is kind enough to reflect back to you what you've done.

If you murder, it does not follow karmically that you will be murdered. If it did, who would murder you and wouldn't they then have to be murdered in return? Instead, you will be given circumstances in which to learn compassion and empathy.

Karma means you get what you give. You give misery, you will be miserable. but it does not follow that someone else has to serve it up to you. karma is not about revenge. it's about understanding the effect of what you've done and having the opportunity to change your ways.

I fully agree to what you wrote

[Ariel Bravy]

Isn't the question "Do you believe in karma" similar to the question "Do you believe in gravity"?

It seems it's not so much whether you believe in it... rather if you simply recognize the dynamics of how Creation operates... which is itself somewhat of a paradoxical statement given the importance of how deeply the nature of Creation depends upon our beliefs, but I digress...

[Ariel Bravy]

Also, keep in mind that in order to judge someone as XYZ, you yourself have to first bring yourself to the vibrational level of that judgment.

Our beliefs and thoughts create a sort of filter upon the neutral backdrop of reality, thereby creating our experience of it. We simply project upon it our own inner "stuff" and claim it is really what's "out there" that is XYZ, when in reality it is us. It is all us.

Those of you familiar with the LoA can then see the correlation between bringing yourself up or down to a particular vibrational level and the resultant manifestations that seem to be the work of a mysterious force called karma.

[Acting Like Godot]

Karma is .... simply the Law of Attraction.

In more-conventional discussions, we talk about "good" and "bad" deeds/words/thoughts, and the corresponding "good" karma and "bad" karma.

"Good" and "bad" are our own labels. You can also perform deeds/words/thoughts that are morally neutral, and they also attract corresponding consequences.

Eg visualising a blue feather ....