Just out of my own curiosity, how many people here believe in karma? Do believe what you put out comes back you?
Have you ever had any experiences where you wondered or even knew karma was playing a big role in what transpired?

Yes, I believe in karma.  Not as some sort of 'universal' punishment or reward system, but as a cause and effect thing. Reactions to actions...that sort of thing.  Karma happens all the time, it's an ongoing part of life.  What we do and say in life causes a ripple effect to anyone who happens to be around us at the time ~ and beyond.  People react to those ripples and in return, we react to the ripples they send back to us.

Am I making sense? I hope so

I believe in Karma wholeheartedly.  It is part of my beliefs.

Now at risk of exposing my book nerdy side...

According to general Hinduism, there are three aspects of not-so-subtle karma and one aspect of a more subtle karma.  There is sanchita karma, karma accumulated from the past/past life times.  Then there is praradbha karma, the fruit that will be beared in the present due to the past/past lifetimes.  Finally, there is the current karma, kriyama/n karma.  The more subtle karma is agama/agami karma, the karma produced from thought. 

Essentially, actions have consequences, in one lifetime or the next, sooner or later, and so forth.  It is the law of cause and effect in the universe.   Rarely does God intervene with it, it is often produced by the individual soul.  Fate is free will.  There exists very few things that are fixed by fate (though those exist, too). 

I personally like Linda Johnsen's explanation of Karma when trying to find a simpler way to define karma in my beliefs.  There is the flexible karma, the karma that is easily deflected, the medium karma, the karma that can be changed with effort, and the fixed karma, which very much requires divine intervention to change (or luck or a miracle, depending on how you wish to view it).  It is a simple definition that very much sums the other karmas in a way where many people can understand it.

Without sounding condescending, I am sort of wondering if the three more obvious karmas is a possible root to the rhetorical phrase "threefold", or was at least a modification of sort, but I could be completely wrong and just am noting a coincidence.  It was just an observation and speculation.  :-)  Nothing more. 

All things in consideration, I do not see it my place to say "They had it coming from a past life!" when something goes wrong with someone.  Bad things happen to good people.  It is how good people deal with those bad situations, then make of it, that produces them certain fruit in the long run.  Unless I saw someone constantly steal and know they did it for selfish reasons, only to get arrested, or something of similar principle happened, I am not going to say "they asked for it."  I believe it is only God's place to judge where the soul rests on the karmic wheel, and the very few accredited spiritual masters out there. 

That more or less sums my beliefs on karma, plus a little bit of trivia for everyone else.  ^_^


Sincerely,
ResplendentSeraphim

Thanks Melissa.  :-)

And, on another note, some of the information above probably also depends on how much weight you put in reincarnation, and the beliefs surrounding it.  I personally believe in it, but that is me.  I also do not see it my right to judge how many past lives someone had.  I  think that, just like weighing one's karma, belongs in the domain of a higher power and not a mere person such as myself.  ^_^  So many con-artists are taking advantage of these concepts, and I would be damned to become one of them.   


Sincerely,
ResplendentSeraphim

Yes, I definitley believe in karma. I agree with what Goth said.