Karma

I believe in Karma. However, I don't believe we have anything to do with another person's Karma. Karma is very personal. Karma is a debt we create for ourselves. And, one way or another, It gets paid.

Nothing to do with aspiring to be a saint Ana, Yorkshiregal has been waiting fifteen years for retribution, fifteen years !

As I said, a bit of grim satisfaction is OK in my book, but that's as far as it goes.

Yes definetly a little bit of. 'Yes justice!'

My dad always used to say be good to people because what goes around comes around. I've largely found this to be true.

So those who have wrongs done to them are/were bad people? This is the problem I find with belief in karma

I think it's just basic human nature to indulge in quiet satisfaction when the jerks in our lives get what we think they deserve!
Karma has allowed me to witness firsthand the tribulations of one or two people in my life who deliberately wronged me. What I learned was that the gloating was short lived and overrated. What actually happened was that I ended up feeling sorry for them.

I like the idea of karma though I can't help but think what about people who are kind, decent people who have done nothing to deserve horrible things happening to them. What's that called then?

I think Anniebach points out the illogicality of a belief in karma. If you take the "what goes around comes around" principle to its logical conclusion, doesn't it imply that people who are suffering now have done something in the near or distant past to deserve that suffering?

When I look at many countries in the world where people, en masse, are living in the most appalling circumstances or are experiencing terrible trauma, I can't believe that they have done anything to deserve such a fate.

To my mind, it's a very random and irrational concept - some people experience misfortune because it's just the luck of the draw, whereas others have bad luck because of some sort of mystical pay-back system. It is, I feel, an inconsistent and irrational idea that serves no useful purpose whatsoever.

I do like the concept of Karma but don't think it really exists, as bad things also happen to nice people. However, I do feel a certain satisfaction that I've had and still have a very enjoyable life, whereas my ex was apparently disliked by his step daughters and is now suffering from Altzeimers. I don't have any regrets about the divorce, which was years ago, and I have our 5 very loving children and 8 grandchildren living close by whereas what has he got -having ignored his own children for many years they don't want anything to do with him.

Incidentally I think the actual saying is "Revenge is a dish best SERVED cold".

For Karma I read justice, sometimes it happens, more often not. I often feel the unfairness of some people's life, sure they did nothing to deserve it. Losing a child, accidents that are life changing, no Karma can make that right.

Karma isn't revenge, as some people have said, it's more seeing someone get their comeuppance.

I'm on tablets that do that !

Anniebach, Faye, Eloethan,

I think many people misunderstand Karma. In the spiritual sense Karma (good and bad - not that there is such a thing) is a good thing as it promotes personal and spiritual growth.

Like they say, it's not what happens to you that causes the suffering, it's how you respond to it.

Pain is inevitable suffering is optional.

Back on topic. Personally, I don't get any satisfaction in other people's misfortune. I just hope they understand that it's not all bad, and that they are not being punished.

Still do not believe in Kama sorry, if a drunk driver mows someone down then the victim accepts it? no anger, just total acceptance ?

"Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional". I'm sorry, though I suppose it's tempting to hope that something good can come out of physical or emotional pain, I find this a very difficult concept. In reality, can little children being blown up, losing limbs or losing their parents, really be thought to be able to benefit spiritually, psychologically, intellectually or emotionally from such trauma?

I, and I expect many people, have on occasion found themselves fleetingly hoping that someone who has hurt them gets their "comeuppance". Though it may be a common and sometimes understandable reaction, I don't really think it's a very admirable or healthy one. I think to experience pleasure at hearing the news that someone is slowly dying from a horrible illness is quite chilling and I believe that feeling such bitterness must be quite corrosive.

I agree with you eloethan and I think that harbouring bitterness instead of putting things in the past where they belong is perhaps a factor in some illnesses and conditions.

I don't think that we are harbouring bitterness or actively hoping something awful will happen.
Rather it is the quiet sense of satisfaction when something goes awry in the other persons life.
A very dear friend of mine was devastated when her husband left her after 39 years of marriage. He told her he had never been happy in all that time. She is the kindest and most generous of people. She has taken me out every week since my knee has been bad.
He moved on very quickly, so quickly the new wife had obviously been in the picture for some time.
Not too long passed before the second wife developed dementia and my friend, who doesn't talk badly about anyone, just said " I wonder if he still thinks the grass is greener" Perhaps that is what I think of as karma. Nobody wished it, it happened.

How can there be any satisfaction when a person developes dementia

Quite, annie.
ann someone up the thread said they had been waiting 15 years for karma to strike, or something similar. That struck me as bitter.
You only have to look at that other thread to see raw bitterness.

The satisfaction is not that the person has developed dementia for goodness sake. It is that the H is not having the !ife he expected when he abandoned his wife and mother of his sons and married a very well off woman who now can't go on the holidays he had planned and it is very sad she can't enjoy life either.

What ever happened to the concept of forgiveness? Karma is a buddist concept and it would never, ever, be condoned to wish it upon someone. That is totally against the idea of karma.

"Karma is certainly something to cling to when confronted by someone who is being nasty to you." NO That is not "Karma"

Ths thread is all about revenge It has nothing to do with karma. Just call it revenge instead

I'm sure lots of you have come across my (and other people's) rants about sons in law who continue to cause problems for their daughters and grandchildren. I am not bitter - how could I be when I have two fabulous grandchildren - but I am fed up of the Idiot mucking about with their lives and do have a quiet smile when his life has a hiccup. I'm not bitter but human.

Ann, the problem I have is the pick and choose just when this karma strikes

Your friend's husband second wife developes dementia - karma

Was it karma that she was left devasted when her husband left her, had she caused harm in her life?

Your knee is giving you problems, is this karma for hurt you have done?

But Ann he cannot have the life he hoped for with his second wife because she now has dementia