Do you believe in karma?

[secular_mom]

No one ever talks about their bumptious hedonism or the fact that many of them make a living scamming and manipulating other people. I don't understand why they're given a free pass...to get back to the original post, why should someone saying, "Well, it looks as though karma is kicking him in the butt!" should be any more socially acceptable than someone saying, "I'll be laughing my head off when he's burning in hell!"

Some people do, just not in 'mixed' company ;) (as in, not in the presence of people who might be offended by such commentary).

ITA with that last sentence. I think that 'most' people don't focus on new age stuff because most people don't experience people pushing those beliefs onto them (I've never had any new age folks come to my door trying to convert me or wanting me to donate money to send them on a 'mission' to another country).

 

I think most of the time people just say things that have become a 'figure of speech' without really thinking about what it is that they are saying. I think sometimes people know darn well what they are saying.

[Peela]

I

I should also mention that someone once informed me, in the most somber and concerned of tones, that the reason I had been molested as a child was because of karma from a previous life. You can guess where I told her to put her star chart. I know this is only anecdotal experience, but for me the most insensitive and rude comments from people pushing their ideology have not been Christians...it's been new agers. I wish new agers weren't portrayed so positively in our society -- either as harmless, gentle people or even as enlightened gurus who just might have magical powers after all. No one ever talks about their bumptious hedonism or the fact that many of them make a living scamming and manipulating other people. I don't understand why they're given a free pass...to get back to the original post, why should someone saying, "Well, it looks as though karma is kicking him in the butt!" should be any more socially acceptable than someone saying, "I'll be laughing my head off when he's burning in hell!"

 

Rudeness is rudeness, callousness is callousness, no matter where it comes from. Even if she believed the comment, how useful was it to say it to you? That sort of thing is often said in my circles (as a possibility) and its not generally meant unkindly, but people shoudl be careful of throwing around concepts they know little about but which provide pat answers to complex life situations.

 

I completely agree that many people use the concept of karma to be less than kind to their fellow man. It is commonly done in my circles- for example, when someone gets an illness or even cancer, a less than compassionate person might say " that's their karma" in a way that is suggests that that person is less than conscious, because they wouldnt have got sick if they were truly enlightened or aware. This can be said in such as way that removes the sayer from being just plain helpful or kind- it is patronising. I know of cases people have done this to people who have got sick. But in eastern countries, in my understanding, that isnt done so much in that way....because it is good karma to help someone who is sick, even if it is their bad karma to get sick in the first place! There is not that sickly spiritual superiority complex I see so often, that distances oneself from those with bad karma.

 

I was pretty shocked after Michael Jackson died though, to hear some Christian friends gloat and the mother and teen son exchange glances and smile at each other knowingly, and make the comment- well, we know where he went (meaning he went to hell). It felt really sick to me. Its not that different from karma in some ways, but extremely different in others- with karma, one always has a chance to redeem oneself, to improve ones situation. Always. There is never a time in all eternity when there is no possibility to improve one's karma, no matter how low one has sunk. In Christianity, there is this concept of hell and eternal ****ation....I find karma a much, much more compassionate concept.

[IsabelC]

I kinda believe in karma as loosely defined, but not in a supernatural, religious, past lives sort of way. I think it's more like a psychological phenomenon, related to things like the placebo effect and self-fulfilling prophecies. I go out of my way to do something nice for you. That makes me feel warm and fluffy and gives me a propensity to react to subsequent events in an open and optimistic fashion. My attitude makes is both more likely that something nice will happen to me and more likely that I will appreciate this as being connected to the good deed I did. (OK, that was a very simplified explanation, but you get the idea.)

[Sara Mac]

Definitely yes!