Karma

[Guest guest]

" Do unto others as you would have them do unto you " , is the gist of karma.

My understanding of karma is that ii is like a big ledger sheet, where

everything is recorded and balanced. You get a reaction for every action.

Some reactions are immediate, like someone mentioned the aggressive driving.

Or you are polite to a reservations person even when the thing is all

screwed up so they go out of their way to help you.

Some reactions comes later in life. You were kind to someone at some point

and years later they remember it and help you in a jam, or maybe not even

them personally, someone else does. Or the reverse, like the story recently

told about the high school tormentor and how she was seen at the fair in a

degraded condition.

In the Hindu and other traditions, if there is an unfulfilled balance at the

end of life, it carries over into the next. Depending on if it is a good or

bad surplus, the next birth is higher or lower. You may go to a hellish

condition, but eventually you return to get another chance. Even if you take

birth in a heavenly planet, after the good karma is used up, you have to

return to a human form of life. This cycle of birth and death is called the

samsara.

Most religious systems believe that while you need to do the best you can,

to ultimately escape the samsara, you need the mercy or grace of a Higher

Power, or someone who is an intersessory. Like Jesus, for the Christians.