18 replies to this topic

[auraldesign]

Do you believe in karma? Explain your reasoning!

 

I most certainly believe in karma. I actually had a close encounter with it today. While at work (a Library Circulation Desk) a lady and her son came in asking for directions. I proceeded to pull out a map (visual aid is the best, yeah?) and show her our current position and the building she needed to get to. In the middle of my directions she interrupted me and said I was being of no help and needed to give better directions. I deal with some fairly rude people but her bluntness caught me off-guard! After I gave her explicit directions, down to the color and size of the building, she just stormed off and muttered under her breath that I was useless. The moment she walked outside, a gust of wind hit and broke her umbrella in two. It was quite a hilarious sight to see.   Definitely well deserved!

 

I'd love to hear your experiences with karma!

[Swar]

If Karma exists, it definitely doesn't work on me lol

[Rocket]

I'm a believer of sorts. I always try to put out good things in hopes that one day it'll come back around and reach me.

[Keil]

Karma only exists because we can't help but blame things outside of our control and praise things that coincidentally goes in our favor.

[Wombat]

I don't believe in it as any sort of mystic concept, but certainly treating people well and being positive can result in some definite benefits returning to you. 

[Sweeney]

The moment she walked outside, a gust of wind hit and broke her umbrella in two. It was quite a hilarious sight to see.   Definitely well deserved!

 

This kind of thing is called a coincidence, not karma. The universe doesn't give a crap about you.

[Savasana]

I don't need a cosmic reward to be nice to people or animals. 

[NapisaurusRex]

Yes, I do. It's literally the only thing I can think of that explains how I've lived this long.

[Romy]

Nope. Just nope.

[cara]

This kind of thing is called a coincidence, not karma. The universe doesn't give a crap about you.

 

While I deeply wish all my enemies would be smited by some magical power of the universe, I unfortunately agree with Joe.

 

It is, however, very disappointing to think that the rude lady who only put two cucumbers on my sub last night won't have her car shat on by a pigeon (or something else equally appropriate). 

[everlander]

I believe karmic rewards and punishment for our thought processes. 

 

If you wish to see karma "get back" someone, you will. If you wish to see karma reward you also see it.

 

If you think karmas not real, is that not also reward? 

[Rauul]

i've seen how karma works 

[redlion]

Religion only exists because we can't help but blame things outside of our control and praise things that coincidentally goes in our favor.

FTFY

For a more serious answer, there are many flavors of dharma systems, and karma features in most of the religions that have come out of South Asia. Consequently, it's kind of hard to generalize about a term that's as ubiquitous as, say, 'angels' or 'heaven' might be in Europe. But to my understanding, the interpretation of how much influence karma has on us, and vice versa, varies according to which religion you follow, and then by which sect, and so on.

Many dharma adherents from Buddhist schools might agree that karma is a concept best thought of as cause and effect. Nothing as Rube Goldberg as in the OP, but merely the first law of thermodynamics. The difference being of course, that one came about 4500 years before the Scientific Revolution.

[Karla]

Nope.  If it were real, I wouldn't be struggling to find employment, and my family would get the plague (or something).

[redlion]

Nope.  If it were real, I wouldn't be struggling to find employment, and my family would get the plague (or something).

See that's what I'm talking about. Karma doesn't explain individual events any more than the law of conservation of energy explains your breakfast.

It's all in the translation I guess. I remember J.K. Rowling saying that the Italian version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone featured one Headmaster Bumblebee, or the italian equivalent. Translation is a hard game. Particularly with short, old words.

[SnowfaLL]

The karma system that I learnt while growing up applied your cumulative karma - over your whole lifetime - onto your next reincarnation.

 

So if you're a good person, you either go to heaven (leave the karmic cycle) or get reborn as something nice, like a housecat who does no work, gets to snooze for 18 hours, and is fed delicious food when it wakes up.

 

If you're a horrible person, your soul gets placed into a rock at the bottom of the ocean and you get to sit there in the dark and the cold for a few million years.

 

 

 

Yeah, that means your Maraquan Rock probably has the soul of an evil genocidal dictator in it. 

[Mishelle]

I don't really believe in karma but I definitely love it when bad things happen to shitty people.

For my friend auroras birthday she wanted to go clubbing so we all decided to go down to Oceanside. Our friend Lerissa offered to be our DD. as soon as we got to the club Lerissa got drunk and left the club with some guy leaving us stranded in another town. She gave her keys to our other friend and told her not to let us take her car so we had to get our friend shonda to call her mom and pick us up at 2 am on a work night.

Embarrassing.

Lerissa ignored us the whole weekend and refused to apologize ever or admit she did anything wrong. But she did get a nice sized ticket for leaving her car parked in Oceanside overnight. Then 2 days later she was parked at a store and someone smashed her window to break into her car. And then by the end of that week she rear-ended someone and had to deal with the costs of that. We felt like that was karma for every person she left behind. Fuck her.

Edited by Mishelle, 06 July 2015 - 10:49 AM.

[Alexiel]

Not sure if it's karma per say... but there's definitely something out there in the universe.

Like all energies are connected somehow. 

An intricately woven web of life or something.

[Sweeney]

Not sure if it's karma per say... but there's definitely something out there in the universe.
Like all energies are connected somehow. 
An intricately woven web of life or something.

"Definitely" is a strong word.