Timewarp: What is karma?

In September 2008 I dug a little deeper into karma to find out what it's all about.

Karma isn't what I thought it was

I thought karma was something like what goes around comes around, something that evens everything out, makes the world fair, an eye for an eye, etc. Like, if you punch someone one day and the next day your wallet gets stolen, that would be karma. But apparently it’s none of those things.

According to this book I’m reading, The Dharma of Star Wars, as I mentioned in my first post, karma isn’t really like that. It actually makes a lot more sense, it isn’t some mystical force which keeps the world in order. Karma would be stealing a computer game from a shop, for example, and feeling guilty about it afterwards. The action you did which you perceived to be negative, brings about other negative feelings. Stealing brings guilt, negative actions bring negative feelings. And maybe you feel guilty every time you play the game. That’s more karma still. Plus good actions are good karma in the same way – you do a good deed for someone, you feel glad you could help them, you feel good about yourself. A positive chain of events. It’s just…what happens in the world, it’s every day life. It’s not some mystical force, it just makes sense.

And now that I know that, it’s going to annoy me every time someone makes an incorrect reference to karma.