Do you believe in karma?

[Bananadrama6]

I really want to believe in it to help me feel better about injustice and bad people seeming to get away with bad things. But I'm just such a logical, pragmatic person that I find it hard to believe. Especially if it doesn't occur in this lifetime and perhaps in future ones because then I have to believe in reincarnation too!

No. But most of us don't escape life without anything bad happening. It's not karma...it's just life.

Not really. But if you are a true arsehole to many people I do believe it catches up with you. I have a disabled child and went to a tribunal with a complete arsehole representing the LA. He was vile to a unnecessary degree. He was like this was many other parents. His reputation went before him in the end and shut down his desired carer path as had reputation for being a sociopath.

So in those cases when your repeatedly vile to many people I do think you reap as you sow.

Unfortunately no I don't, although I'd love to.

The person who sexually abused me as a child and basically fucked up all of my life's prospects is still smugly going about his retired life with ownership of multiple houses and lots of friends.

It pisses me off every day.

I on the other hand never did anything to "deserve" such a messed up life I was a child who never did anything wrong.

Karma is bullshit.

No

I do when it suits me!

No, I used to but honestly luck is luck and some massive arseholes have it in abundance.
I

I do. But not about other people. It's unhealthy to wish bad luck happen to others because of whatever they do. It's negative thinking.

If you do good, you get what you deserve. That's positive thinking, and do good for your soul.

No. I've done some awful things in the past - I was the OW and cheated on my first husband - but I've landed on my feet in life really. I've got a fantastic job, wonderful kids, and a lovely husband (who was my OM). We are very well-off and stand to inherit a lot more. We are proof that karma doesn't exist, really.

(I realise this sounds horrendously callous and goady. I have plenty of insight into how awful my previous behaviour was. But the fact is, there is no such thing as karma, because I have a fantastic life despite my past misdeeds.)

I don't like the word 'karma' as that is part of a religious belief.

However, I do believe in 'what goes around comes around'.

If people choose to go around doing negative things to others for their own advancement, then eventually all that negativity will bite them in the bum.

I've seen it happen so many times.

These people will be punished and the punishment will be that they have to live the rest of their lives with their crappy selves.

None of us knows what others feel on the inside.

How many people can we think of that appear to 'have it all' yet they bounce from one unsatisfactory situation to another. They go into a downward spiral of drink, drugs, porn, promiscuity, crime in an attempt to find something or lose something.

If you do good, you get what you deserve. That's positive thinking, and do good for your soul.

This ^ is sound advice.

I used to but not anymore. Karma is what we tell ourselves to give comfort when we/others have been wronged.

No, just look at Jimmy Saville

@OhNoWhatYouGonnaDo

But the fact is, there is no such thing as karma, because I have a fantastic life despite my past misdeeds.

But your life isn't over yet, it it ?

I think it's completely understood as lifted from Buddhism etc, as if it's a cosmic tit for tat. Broadly, if you treat people badly it will work out badly for you, that's about it.

@Comedycook

No. But most of us don't escape life without anything bad happening. It's not karma...it's just life.

This.

Karma is woo woo, but every life has bumps.

I do. Not in a woo woo way, but I believe you get out of life what you put in. Goodwill is contagious and if you are good to people you will be looked after by others.

I do. Even if no one “sees it”.

I believe you reap what you sow and you may face things like loneliness in old age once you realise no one can stand to be around you.

Yes, but not 'revenge by the universe', more like 'what goes around comes round'.
Karma is the belief that your actions in this life affect all your future lives. I don't believe in multiple lives, so my version is that it all takes place in this one.
As we go through life we will find ourselves in situations that are familiar, and if we haven't learned anything we will repeat the mistakes we made last time we were in a similar situation.

No. Not as some kind of spiritual reward/punishment system. That's just a type of mental crutch in the same way religion is IMO.

Where does it start and where does it stop?

Is it always karma when good and bad things happen to people? Or only when it fits with your own narrative (they 'deserved it' so it makes it ok)

What sort of 'karma' is it when children get ill for example? Or are they somehow exempt? See what i mean?

I believe in it for myself.

So I do avoid doing negative things, not just because of karma but mainly because I'd feel bad.

But on the occasions where I'm temped, I do think to remind myself of karma

Doesn't exist in the way people mean. Plenty of people who behave terribly and hurt others get away with it.

But there is at least kindness in the world and that will never disappear.