Though Karma can refer to the intent of an action, deed or work, it’s mostly viewed as a sort of astral ’cause and effect’. More specifically, we see it as a scorecard for our good, bad, generous and selfish behaviors. The concept of karma is very much at home in human psychology. Like religion and superstition, karma gives us a shortcut to explaining things that happen and a perceived methodology of controlling them. Paying attention to your actions and keeping your interactions with others benevolent does, in fact, produce mostly positive outcomes. Even keeping your thoughts and intentions positive seems to steer things in the ‘right’ direction. But what if someone’s karma isn’t adding up? Surely someone born into terrible circumstances doesn’t deserve what they are experiencing. Perhaps they’re paying for bad karma in their last life. When I see such cases, my mind often offers up that very notion by asking, “What did they do in their last life? Where they a cruel dictator? A serial killer? Did they torture animals?” It makes it easier to assume that difficult circumstances are due to some karmic debt. The same tendency goes for my own circumstances. Many times I’m inclined to follow the laws of karma and, because I believe it so, the results tend to be what I think of as positive. It’s okay to follow morality, religious principles or karma to guide your outcomes. There’s no question that many of those principles works but the question here is, “Are they real?” The NE principle assumes that objects and events are interrelated in ways that we cannot fathom. It also postulates that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are perspective driven. Things that we perceive to be ‘good’ are usually things that enhance our trajectories and the opposite goes for things that we consider to be ‘bad’. If good and bad are merely perspectives, then what are we left with? In the realm of physical existence, everything has causes and effects. The causes may be so indirect that they are mysterious to us, but all events can be traced to their origins. For those outcomes we can’t trace, understand that all is a combination of what would be. Though you have the ability to steer many results with your actions, all outcomes occur. This is the cause underlying cause of all circumstances. We’re all experiencing one set of possibilities from your unique perspectives. Even while understanding the true basis of all occurrence, I entertain karmic intuition because it leads to ‘good’ outcomes. When only logic will suffice, I must acknowledge that all occurs, regardless of intention.
-Jim Bond /