Fate and karma

[confuseddotcodotuk]

I was wondering what people thought of fate and karma, as I seem to be thinking about fate a lot recently, and karma seems to be appearing on MN a lot over the past few days.

Do you believe in either of them? I've kind of got to a point where I'm a firm believer in fate. I generally don't plan things very far in advance as I enjoy going with the flow and I look back quite frequently and think that most of what has happened seems to have happened for a reason, iyswim?

I think that whereby the 'unirverse' has a fate mapped for people, this can be altered somewhat by events. I don't believe that for instance an abused child that turns into an addict has had that fate mapped out for them but i don't believe in ever identifying someone by their actions. In that instance the person isn't an addict they are choosing an addiction as a coping mechanism, they are who the universe decided them to be but they have been blocked from achieving/discovering it..

I believe in karma, however most people do not realise that it doesn't come back on the person who behaves 'badly'. The negative energy goes into the universe so it makes it negative for us all. All of our actions count toward everyone and all things.

Karma can cancel fate in some ways.

That's my interpretation of fate as well, that it can be changed, and changed drastically, but there is a general path it seems to follow and things seem to click into place.

I never knew that about karma. I knew the concept of it going to the universe, but didn't think about it much further.

Karma as i interpret it (buddhist), is any act which is committed which does not have true good intent behind it (or outright maliciousness) creates negitivity. Life force flows around the universe, if we produce negitive energy it then also flows and effects both people/planet/animals etc.

You cannot justify your own actions based on the actions of others. You are totally responsible for your own behaviour.

All religions have a version of this, they just refer to the components differently.

I believe in both, but not strict fate. I tend to think that fate is very apparent but only based on choices made, iyswim, like there are paths that are written by fate but we choose which one

I've just finished a book called 'There are No Accidents' - its a fascinating read - largely based on Jung and full of anecdotes of coincidence and the meaning behind them. Oddly I picked it up for myself in a charity shop and my somewhat sceptical husband picked it up and described it as life changing. I highly recommend it as it provides real insight into why we assign meaning to coincidence.