Do you believe in karma?

[Loverskitten]

I try to be a good, honest person but I have found that it is useless. It seems those who lie, cheat, and steal are the ones who get ahead. For years I haven't believed in karma, I used to, but the older I get the more I realize how duped I was.
Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. It's frustrating.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The same rain falls on the just and the unjust.

Be the person you want to be, and strive for the outcomes you want. You have no control over assholes and nitwits. You have total control over you.

 

[Ropebunny]

I don't believe in karma. It is a nice, comforting idea and sometimes I wish I did believe in it because of that but I find any concept of a higher force or power uncontrolled by humans hard to believe.

I try to be a good, honest person but I have found that it is useless. It seems those who lie, cheat, and steal are the ones who get ahead.

I hope you don't really believe that being a good, honest person is useless. Yeah, it doesn't mean life will be good but I think that as long as I live by the ethics I have set for myself I will find some satisfaction and worth, no matter what happens.

Also, getting ahead is subjective. I suppose how I feel about that depends on what those people are lying, cheating and stealing for.

 

[bhndblueyes88]

I don't necessarily believe in "karma" as a spiritual force, but I do believe that, eventually, positive actions will result in a better ending than negative actions. It just might mean your happier ending isn't as blatantly "better", like swimming in success and money. It might mean you die surrounded by love, or that (even if you have some weeks of Ramen), the life you live is full and satisfying. I've noticed that some people who get what they have through negative actions still never seem as happy about it.

I also think that negative actions have a way of coming around to kick one in the ass. People will only tolerate mistreatment so long and inappropriate behavior builds behind you as you go...eventually it's going to tsunami your ass.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No good deed goes unpunished.

 

[LallyH]

One of my aunts has lost her only son and one of her grandsons in tragic circumstances. No other part of our family, so far, has experienced anything like this. She is no different to her sisters so why she should have to suffer not just one but two heart-wrenching tragedies is beyond comprehension.

So no, I don't believe in karma.

I do, though, believe in living your life in such a way that harms no-one and helps others wherever you can, not in the hope that you will get a 'reward' but simply because it is the right thing to do.

 

[Netzach]

I think it's funny when people raised with Christian philosophical ideology (as all people in the West are) talk about Karma.

Of course Karma makes no sense if you don't tack on a belief in past lives. This explains precisely WHY you can be good now and things suck now.

No, I don't believe in it, but I think that's a key ingredient.

You should do the right thing because you should do the right thing. It's just that simple, reductive, possibly unrewarding, but honest.

 

[Malich]

I try to be a good, honest person but I have found that it is useless. It seems those who lie, cheat, and steal are the ones who get ahead. For years I haven't believed in karma, I used to, but the older I get the more I realize how duped I was.
Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. It's frustrating.

I used to hope so but, I've been the best I can be and seen no benefit from it really.

That being said, I am who I am and I'm going to keep being the best I can be just because I hope it will make the world a better place in some minor way.

 

[KoPilot]

Are we talking nuage karma or the actual Indian conception of the thing, which is actually little more than the law of cause and effect?

 

[BiBunny]

I believe in karma. The actual Indian conception of it, I mean.

 

[midwestyankee]

I do think, as others have pointed out here, that it's important to distinguish between the Indian religious concept of karma and the more westernized version, which might more appropriately called Gettit, in which bad people do bad and eventually gettit back, so to speak. So you have karma 'n gettit.

 

[danger2no]

It's a lovely idea invented by story tellers, but all I see are the psychopaths winning in this world. I don't see many millionaires on death row or any Wall Street traders in jail. Occasionally someone really terrific comes out on top, but most of the time it's selfish jerks with their fuck-all attitudes that triumphs.

 

[graceanne]

I think it's funny when people raised with Christian philosophical ideology (as all people in the West are) talk about Karma.

I think that the word Karma is often used to express a belief in getting what you deserve, and so even people who don't believe in multiple lives use it.

You should do the right thing because you should do the right thing. It's just that simple, reductive, possibly unrewarding, but honest.

I agree. However, I do believe in the western idea of Karma, and it's a Biblical concept, too.

Galatians 6:7-8 ESV

Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

Job 4:8 ESV

As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.

Luke 6:38 ESV

Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”​

That's just a few - there are many more.

 

[Yasashii_Kaze]

I believe in a measure of cause and effect. Not everything we cause has an effect, either for the good or for the bad. It doesn't always add up. Like so many have already said, it is up to us to do the best we can with what we have been given.

At the same time, I've seen a lot of people who really had no chance in life. They had a crappy start, a crappy life, and a crappy end. I see this a lot with fellow foster kids who weren't lucky enough to escape the system early like I did. They are so overcome by the negative effects of the bad decisions their parents made that they have no chance to reap the benefits of a good life.

I can either leave it that way, or I can be someone else's "karma" when they don't get the choice to create their own because someone before them has already screwed their future.

I don't know if what I'm trying to say is coming across right or not.

 

[knot_sweet]

I think I must have done something completely beyond redemption in a past life, or be seriously defective somehow in this one.

I understand I'm a little screwy and hell yes I've made mistakes...

But I'm not sure even I deserve the level of hurt that gets dished out regularly, so it must be karmic debt.

 

[BiBunny]

I think I must have done something completely beyond redemption in a past life, or be seriously defective somehow in this one.

I understand I'm a little screwy and hell yes I've made mistakes...

But I'm not sure even I deserve the level of hurt that gets dished out regularly, so it must be karmic debt.

I know exactly how you feel.

Part of me hopes that in a past life, I totally fucked over the people who are fucking me over in this life. Or, if not, that I'll be able to do it in the next one.

 

[graceanne]

....Or, if not, that I'll be able to do it in the next one.

LOL..

 

[gypsy*seer]

Abso-freakin-lutely!
I've been lucky enough to see it first hand!
Powerful thing...

 

[desertslave]

I believe in Karma and I believe in the Pagan/Wiccan Rule of Three. Once in a while, I've been very privileged to serve as Karma's agent, or at least been allowed to watch Her in action.

 

[eastern sun]

I don't think you have to believe in karma. It just happens on its own.

 

[gypsy*seer]

I don't think you have to believe in karma. It just happens on its own.

That's the whole point of it being karma, isn't it?

 

[Primalex]

I believe in self-fulfilling prophecies.

 

[RubenesqueAphrodite]

Spiritually, no, I don't believe in Karma. I've learned that bad happens to the good, and vice verse. So, shit basically occurs whether you want it to or not.

Now, that does NOT mean I don't believe in treating others equally and with respect regardless of their socioeconomic, political, or religious background.

Everyone has my respect until you've lost it, and , well, then you're pretty much screwed.

 

[onlydreams]

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It is not up to one to beiieve; in time the universe will right things .........