Karma and Spirituality: Three Reasons People Don’t Believe in Karma

We've interacted with thousands through our work and often ask people if they believe in the concept of karma. Karma is simply defined as what goes around comes around, meaning you reap exactly what you sow, including (and perhaps mostly) rewards and challenges from past life actions. About 60% say they do believe in karma, 15% say they don't know, and about 25% say they don't believe in it.

We've concluded that those who don't accept the concept of karma appear to reject it for one or more of the following three main reasons:

1) Some are simply more analytical, rational, of the if-I-can't-see-it-it's-nonexistent frame of mind and need proof. They don't have a good reason to accept it, so they're rejecting for now.

2) Some have misconceptions about the concept. They may mistakenly feel that karma is all about punishment, and since they don't believe a higher power would punish people, they reject what they perceive karma to be.

Our work has convinced us that karma is not about punishment, but a spiritual law of energy; whatever you do and say, both "good" and "bad," will return to you, even if you don't believe that it will. This really is a universe of justice, but it understandably doesn't seem that way to those who focus only on the circumstances of this lifetime.

It's also common for people to think that karma only happens immediately, in this lifetime, but it often takes more than a lifetime to balance itself out. For example, it was not "his karma to be dumped" just because he broke up with someone else a year before. The act of breaking up with someone, by itself, does not incur negative karma unless it's done in a negative way.

Another misunderstanding about karma is that many don't realize that the more you try to balance karma yourself through negative actions, the more negative karma you'll create for yourself.

Does that sound like too passive of a disposition to you? There's nothing passive about changing what you can and letting go of what you can't change, or that is not your right to change.

Yet another misconception about karma is that due to your subconscious and super-conscious self (soul, or spiritual self) being beyond your conscious personality, simply forgiving yourself or confessing your sins won't eliminate your karma. While doing so, your higher-self is smiling and shaking its head, saying, "That's one more circumstance you'll have to experience directly from the receiving end in a future life."

3) Another reason some reject the concept of karma is that they seem to have great difficulty in taking complete responsibility for their actions, would rather maintain a victim-consciousness, or refuse to admit the reality of their behavior. This group of people is likely to be in denial about things they've done or said and don't want to face the possibility that they will eventually need to experience directly what they've inflicted upon others. No matter how good someone is at justifying their actions and convincing themselves of their own lies, they still must face the music of the karma they generate at some point in the future.

These types of people are less likely to do "the right thing" in all situations, especially when no one is looking. They assume, incorrectly, that if no one catches them, they can get away with anything. Based on our past life regression and astrology and numerology charting work, we've found that the eyes of truth really are always watching all of us, at all times.

What is doing "the right thing," you ask? Ultimately, it's treating others as you want to be treated. But it's not easy to fathom exactly how karma functions through traditional, earth-bound thinking.

A good way to envision how karma works is to imagine a spiritual tie to everything you say or do, like an invisible, indestructible golden link that only detaches itself from you once you finally balance, often unknowingly, the energy. Each time you're born, your soul is still attached to all the golden links from previous incarnations and you deal with some of them directly in the current life according to what your soul planned before incarnating.

Whether or not you believe in karma, don't do or not do something just because you "should," or "shouldn't." Remind yourself you're doing the right thing because you don't want to deal with the repercussions at a later time, and more importantly, because we're all in this together.

Copyright © Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo