Most people have heard of karma, they know about good karma and bad karma, and also about the idea of “cause and effect”. Karma is often paraphrased with expressions such as “what goes around comes around”, or “you reap what you sow”. Many people however confuse karma with justice. They do expect to reap what they sow, and then get annoyed or frustrated when they see good acts going apparently unrewarded or bad acts going unpunished. This article will attempt to dispel some of the misconceptions around karma, and to ease the minds of those of you who are frustrated at the length of time it takes for “payback” to kick-in.

Karma - a definition

The word Karma is a Sanskrit term. One definition of Karma (from Hinduism & Buddhism) is “the total effect of a person's actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person's existence, regarded as determining the person's destiny.”

A shorter definition of Karma is “the consequences of acts done in this life and past lives.” According to Buddhism, when we attain enlightenment we escape from the wheel of Karma and reincarnation, and of course the Buddha himself did achieve this.

But it is not as simple and straightforward as that. Did you know that our personal karma can also be wrapped up in family and group Karma, national and even planetary karma? This makes things complicated, as it is not only a person’s individual thoughts and actions which determine his good or bad karma. For example, you may also benefit or suffer as a result of the karma created by your ancestors, which is playing itself out in your life right now.

Also, let’s be clear, karma is not the same as judgment. There is no old man sitting and watching us, twiddling his white beard and brandishing a big stick, who dishes out punishment for “bad actions” whilst rewarding “good actions”. It is more a question of the Universe keeping itself in balance. The Universe is always in balance.

Secondly, it is important to understand that Karma has nothing to do with helping or hurting people; about being good or bad. The Universe does not understand “good” and “bad”, these are human concepts. What the Universe operates on is energy and vibration.

Everything is energy, and everything is in vibration, in constant motion. Science has already verified this. As every school boy now knows, at the atomic level, everything is made up of particles, and all of these particles, and therefore everything, is in constant motion, constant vibration. Nothing is ever still, not even inanimate objects, like the desk in front of you, or the chair you are sitting on.   

Everything is energy, even our thoughts, and everything is in vibration. Positive, passionate, joyful, inspired thoughts vibrate at high frequencies, where as thoughts of anger, fear, depression, or anxiety are low energy vibrations. So-called “good things” have a higher level of energy and vibration and “bad things” have a lower level of vibration. We can all feel this.

If you send out high vibration thoughts, words and actions, then that is what the Universe will send back to you. And if you send out low level energies, then that is what you will get back. When our vibration is at a high frequency, we attract “good things” and circumstances, or “good luck”, and of course the reverse is also true. 

Thanks to “The Secret” and the legions of similar books from authors trying to jump on board the gravy train, we are all now familiar with the Law of Attraction, which basically says the same thing. We vibrate at a certain frequency or level, and attract to us “stuff” which vibrates at the same frequency. This is simply how the Universe works, and has always worked. “The Secret” is not new. Esther and Gerry Hicks and their teachings of Abraham have been teaching this for many years – but that is another story.

So Karma is the energy and vibrations that we or others in our groups or families (in this life or previous lives) have sent out into the Universe, now coming back to us.

Some people complain that “bad people” don’t get their just deserves quickly enough. They want to see them punished; to know that justice has been served. Well, Karma has nothing to do with justice, and there is also no way to know or control when or how the consequences of our actions will come back to us. Nor can we ever know the full effect that our words or actions will have on the lives of others, either now or in the future.

Some say that the more spiritually advanced we are (and therefore the higher our frequency of vibration) the quicker personal Karma comes back to us, arriving at the point where it can be almost instantaneous.

This also implies that those who are at a lower level of spiritual development and frequency of vibration will wait longer. This might explain why we rarely see the consequences of “bad actions” visited on the perpetrator. It does not mean, however, that the perpetrator got off “scott free”.

So, rest assured that you cannot negotiate with Universal Law, and that even if there is no apparent pay back, it will all happen in good time, and sometimes in ways that we could never imagine even if we tried.

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Copyright (c) 2009 Michael Curley. All rights reserved.