Karma, why are horrible people so often successful?

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   Popitposted 10 years ago

   As someone who values honesty, integrity, selflessness and compassion, I am astonished by the amount of self serving people that cross my path, who go out of their way to be mean and cash in on the misfortune of others.  Obviously, I do not seek out their company but from a distance it would seem that they are happy being what can only be described as; parasites.  Obviously, I am misunderstanding the concept of Karma.  Why are horrible people so often more successful than nice people?  This is not so much the old question of 'why do nice guys come last' as 'why do nice people get mercilessly trampled underfoot by horrible people, who prosper no matter how vile they are?'

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      janesixposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Because life isn't fair. It's unfortunate. There is no karma.

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         Popitposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         So there's no natural justice?  That's a shame.  Having said that if there were, wishing that people would get their just deserts would probably invoke bad Karma on the person wishing it.  Gosh it could get complicated!

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      Claire Evansposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      It's because this world has sold about to Satan.  The good, the honest, etc, are trampled on by the weak.  Many people live by the Satanic ideology which is, "What is good for me is what I can have in life and what is bad is anything/anyone who stands in my way."
      
      Jesus was the ultimate victim of this.  So if one is persecuted or is treated unfairly, know they are sharing the burdens of Christ.  The wicked will get their day.

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   relacheposted 10 years ago

   Karma is the belief that your past and present actions will have an effect on your future existence.
   
   Since beliefs are a choice and not everyone believes exactly the same things, evaluating the lives of others based on beliefs those people most likely do not share with you can be somewhat problematic.

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      Popitposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you, this is interesting.  So for those who don't believe that their actions will have consequences, there are none?

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   bilkaskincareposted 10 years ago

   The answer to your questions is: ancestral imprints.  If a person comes from a lineage of poverty, generation after generation struggling, suffering in poverty,  all of that suffering makes imprints on the DNA.  Apart from the DNA imprints, it is also scientifically acknowledged how environmental factors influence the fetus, so for example if the parents are worried about money, the fetus is impacted upon.  Then when the child is born and begins growing up - everything that he/she observes impacts on him/her.  So if the parents are not confident, do low level jobs, for small pay, those traits will be perceived as normal by the young child and the likelihood is that they will become the child's traits too.  Of course there are exceptions, but the general tendency is that successful confident families will produce successful confident offspring.

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      Popitposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I'm not sure I am understanding you.  Do you mean that people from poor backgrounds are more likely to be horrible?  I can't say that my own experience bares this out.  I've come across far more horrible people who were spawned in middle class society.  And does being successful and confident mean that a person is naturally self serving and spiteful?

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   bilkaskincareposted 10 years ago

   I clearly discussed only successful and not successful, and have not mapped those onto nice and not nice.  My discussion is very clear.

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      Popitposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Ah I see, my mistake.  So what is the explanation for the children of the successful and confident embarking on the path to embarrassingly non productive lives, leaching off their parents and unable to take over the the business, (poor little rich kids?)  Or is nurture cancelled out when you get everything you could possibly want?

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   bilkaskincareposted 10 years ago

   You don't know those privileged kids what internal tortures they have and why they end up on drugs etc.  I just don't feel comfortable to judge other people.  Personally I have been on each side - rich and happy, rich and unhappy, poor and happy and poor and unhappy, and the worst of these realities for me personally was when I was rich and unhappy in love.  Out of the 4 realities I mentioned above, that was the worst and if I had done drugs I might have been judged as leaching on the other person, and my point is; don't be so void of compassion for others just because they are rich it does not mean there is no suffering in their inner worlds.  Since then I have learned to see the good and bad in each of these realities.  There is no ultimate good or ultimate bad reality. As I have fluctuated in the ranks of success and failure I have also got to meet many people occupying these ranks, and in my experience - kind people can be successful or not successful and bad people can be in each of the ranks as well. I really don't believe that success has anything to do with whether you are nice or not.

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      Popitposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I agree.  Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, wrote about an officer in one of the camps, who was particularly cruel and sadistic.  Quite an achievement in such a place.  Later this officer found himself an inmate in a work camp in Russia, where it was reported he was brave, kind and altruistic.  Frankl argued that people have the capacity to be both monster and saint, dependent on the circumstance,
      
      My question is really about why horrible behavior in every day life, the drip,drip, drip of petty meanness, the arbitrary acts of conscious callousness, the people who go through life like social vampires, sucking the happiness out of people; why do they succeed when others don't?  Obviously, success doesn't equate a horrible person, and one should never judge others, however tempting it might be.  My point about poor little rich kids, was just a point.  I'm sorry that it offended you.  As Victor Frankl would say "Suffering is not a competition.  When you suffer, you suffer, it is not for others to judge which suffering is valid and which is not.  What might seem trivial to you, might be devastating to another. 
      
      I'm just bewildered by the lack of cosmic justice.  But there again, I would not want to wish it on any specific person.  It's just interesting to here what others have to say about it.

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   bilkaskincareposted 10 years ago

   No one knows the mysteries of cosmic justice and certainly I am not a specialist on the subject, but I can share what an enlightened person told me.  On the day of my mother's funeral I contacted Tamsin Palmo, the second person in Buddhism below Dalai Lama, and asked her why my mother never got rewarded for all the good she did and why she got taken away so soon. This is lack of positive cosmic justice, similar to the lack of negative justice you are talking about.  And Tamsin Palmo replied straight away which is very kind of someone of her rank.  She told me one of her nuns had breast cancer and spent the last years of her life in tremendous pain and could not figure out why after spending her whole life in devotion and meditation she encountered such a harsh end.  And then during one of her meditations she received a vision of herself being a soldier and having another soldier in her feet and that soldier begging for mercy.  But she still stuck the sword in the chest of the soldier on the ground. That vision allowed her to obtain understanding that justice does not have to make sense in this lifetime, and we carry a lot of karma from previous life times - both good and bad.  This is what I was told and I accepted it and gives me peace in my life.  I wish you to reach the peace you seek.

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      Popitposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      This makes a lot of sense.  When my father was dying and in great pain, he told me that the only explanation for suffering that made any sense to him was that it was a lesson needed for the next life and without it, he could not progress in his development.  It makes sense to me too.  Thank you for your comments, I have enjoyed reading them.  I hadn't thought of Victor Frankl in a long time until I began this conversation with you and am the better for it.  Thank you.

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         bilkaskincareposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you too.  I enjoyed the research you mentioned and the good positive vibe from you.  Blessings on your journey ahead.

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