Watching Karma Play Out

[GotH]

There have been a few times where I've seen certain people throw out really bad intent toward someone but get whacked over the head in the end.


Example...

This one woman had such ill feelings and an obvious jealousy toward another woman and her children. She sent off some dark energy with the intent to cause harm to her. It was pretty scary to see that harm did indeed come to the woman she disliked. She ended up freakishly falling and completely destroying her wrist in her presence. The woman eventually healed up from the accident but a few months later, the woman who threw out this bad energy completely lost her uterus when she had been trying desperately to become pregnant.

There was another person, a male, who wished ill to his own brother socially and career wise. The good brother never really climbed the career ladder but the bad bro ended up with a slew of problems, including becoming physically ill with something incurable and becoming ostracized at work.

These two incidents with the woman and man were so obvious to me as the timing seemed to indicate that this was definitely karma related. Coincidence or karmic, have you ever witnessed something like this?

 

[nisaba]

I certainly don't think the brother thing is coincidence, and it may not even be karma. We know that the body falls ill in response to strong, continuous negative emotions. He made himself sick by being bitter and twisted. Ever known a bitter, twisted person in fine health? No, nor have I.

My feelings about karma are more traditionally Eastern. Karma is the situation you find yourself in, good or bad. It is not a reward or a punishment. It is an opportunity for you to see where your life is heading, and change its course, or improve what you are doing.

The Sanskrit word Karma literally translates as "opportunity to take action". Reward-and-punishment, which seems very Judeo-Christian spiritual expectation to me, is a whole nother thing.

 

[GotH]

So the Eastern definition of Karma has nothing to with the threefold law? And no, I haven't met someone who was bitter twisted and in good health. Perhaps that explains the power of forgiveness as healing energy as well.

 

[nisaba]

So the Eastern definition of Karma has nothing to with the threefold law? And no, I haven't met someone who was bitter twisted and in good health. Perhaps that explains the power of forgiveness as healing energy as well.

The Threefold Law is quite different to karma. Karma gives you an opportunity to re-evaluate your life and fine-tune it by making changes. The threefold law indicates that whatever energy you put out there will return to you once for your intention, once for your action and once for the result.

And it's an energy thing, not a tit-for-tat thing: if the doings of a millionaire robbed a poor person of $100, something a millionaire wouldn't even notice but which might just result in eviction and destruction of a poor person's entire life, the Threefold Law indicates that in theory the "payback" may not even take the form of money at all, but of something that would hurt the millionaire as much (say, the loss of a beloved spouse to someone else in a glare of publicity?)

And why do we blithely believe that every event that occurs is the *start* of a cycle? It may be the finish, the payback, and whoever caused the unhappiness might have no debt to answer.

 

[GotH]

Ahhh so Karma is about what you do or not do in regard to self and 3 fold is about what you do in regard to others?

Thanks for the education on this.

 

[celticnoodle]

I agree with Nisaba, and like how she explains it here and in her second post. There are times though, when I think karma can work like you say it does, GotH and perhaps I even WANT it to--but when I really sit back and think it through, I think it is more like Nisaba posted.

I have seen things happen to people whom were awful to others and I can't help but to wonder if it is karma coming back to haunt them. I remember one person who constantly ridiculed a co-worker who was a very soft hearted and a quiet type of a person--a loner to a big degree at the work place.

He was a supervisor (not hers though)-a person in a position of power, but he would make fun of her and ridicule her & and get others to join in too at work. Though she was always still very nice to everyone, including him. She knew they made fun of her, I don't know why she took it like she did really.

Then, a few years later, she left for a better position elsewhere and was still a bit of a joke to these guys at her old work place. Then one day the company where she worked was having to lay off people and they were kind of cut throat about it and guess who was the first on the list to be layed off and not hired back? Yep! the very man who made that womans life awful there. He was a few years away from retiring and he had been with this company for over 25 years even, but it didn't matter--he was layed off!

I do think it was sad too, for him, because he still had a wife to support and children in college--so it was a real hardship for him. He had it REALLY rough and had to even get help from the Church by getting food baskets to help feed his family. Very sad, but a part of me can't help but to think it was karma coming back to hit him for being so mean to that woman.

I lost track of him as time went on--so not sure how things turned out for him by retirement age--or even if he was able to retire at 65 like he had been planning. But, I can't help but to think it was karma that got him. So, yes, I've seen things like this that really seems like Karma will get you if you are mean to others like this.

 

[nisaba]

Though *is* that Karma, SN, or is it the Threefold Law? He made her life in one of her various workplaces unpleasant, he lost his whole career. Sounds much more like the Threefold Law than like karma.

Karma would be if he took advantage of the sudden loss of income to re-evaluate his life and go backpacking across the world to sacred sites, or volunteer to work pay-free at helping fight against bullying or something. Did he?

 

[celticnoodle]

Though *is* that Karma, SN, or is it the Threefold Law? He made her life in one of her various workplaces unpleasant, he lost his whole career. Sounds much more like the Threefold Law than like karma.

hmmm...I'll have to re-read your post on the Threefold Law and decide.

Karma would be if he took advantage of the sudden loss of income to re-evaluate his life and go backpacking across the world to sacred sites, or volunteer to work pay-free at helping fight against bullying or something. Did he?

no, he didn't do anything like that, I'm sure. He was always just a worm of a man. I can't imagine him doing anything for anyone on a volunteer basis--or even doing anything where he didn't get something out of it.

 

[danieljuk]

such an interesting thread

I find how people use or think of Karma, scary! A bit like Nisaba suggested, it's used like religion to control "bad behaviour" but our opinion of that. It's used for judgements against others. I have seen people online and heard them in real life, talk about someone has bad karma who is chronically ill or disabled and that is just horrible! That is not a punishment because the sufferer didn't go to church enough or conform to a clique in society, it's just bad luck.

I will always be shocked at how some people cannot be happy for other people. You can see it on social networks, if someone posts something positive or going good in their life, there will be at least one comment which is better and negative!

I have found my life much more happy since I always wish everyone their happiness and kept my nose out of other people's business. But if I wished someone ill will, will it come back to me? I don't know! there is plenty of horrible people in the world who just keep being horrible! they are mostly extremely rich

 

[prudence]

From what I have read and what I have gleaned from actual Buddhists, Karma has more to do with what may happen to you in your next life, and has a lot to do with what you have done in your previous incarnations than it does with this one right now. It is a long term thing, not an instant thing. When the pseudo Buddhists say things like "oh his karma will get him soon" it makes me think of John Lennon's song, Instant Karma.

It really has become one of the most over used and misused words in the Western world, imo.

The three fold law to me seems like a set of hand cuffs placed on anyone who has chosen to practice whatever form of magic they are attracted to, in order to keep them from actually doing anything substantial. I have read in different books that even the act of asking for prosperity in ones own life is harming someone out there in the universe, so one should not ask for such things. Poppycock! Do what you gotta do in order to survive and try to avoid shooting people with actual guns, since shooting someone would be actually harming someone in the here and now. New Age warnings and admonitions are so full of crap it makes me want to vomit.