Berig     Created on Thursday, 19 January 2006 16:56  
  Karma  
 
Many of you hear this word mentioned frequently, but do you truly know what it is?  To truly understand karma, we must dispel all concepts of karma being a level of spiritually based upon an animal, or something we can attain with money and items.

Simply put, karma is the result of actions in the past and present that shape how life is for you now, and how it will be in your future.  Positive acts on your part encourage positive karma, while negative acts encourage negative karma.  That is only scratching the surface of what karma truly is however.

Karma is the potential energies residing in the inner realm of life which manifest themselves as various results in the future.  The Sanskrit word karma originally meant action, which in Buddhism was interpreted to mean mental, verbal and physical action: thoughts, words and deeds.  Every action, both good and evil, imprints a latent influence on ones life.  The karma, when activated by an external stimulus, produces a corresponding effect.  According to this concept, one's actions in the past have shaped his or her reality at the present, and his or her actions at the present will determine his or her future.

Karma is a potential force to influence one's future.  In is also called latent karma, non-manifest karma, or karmic seeds.  Though the idea of karma predates Buddhism, it was further developed in Buddhist teachings.  Karma is broadly divided into two parts, mutable and immutable.  Immutable karma never fails to produce a fixed result, while in the case of mutable karma, what kind of result will come about is not absolutely fixed.

Karma is much more than a simple force that may take a hand in the governing of your life through your deeds, it even reaches out much more than what you can simply see.  One can view karma as a large body of water stretching out, its edges at the coasts of many different lands.  If you toss a message in a bottle out to sea it will travel to another coast brining with it the message inside.  We do not pay mind to our karma simply to be sure we do not fall victim to its potential negative forces.  We keep mindful of our karma and the karma we send out in a constant quest to do what we can to increase the positive forces between us all, not just for ourselves.  Like a great body of water if you pollute the flow karma even just a little, it will eventually spread to the whole body, however thin that layer of pollution may be.  Also like a great body of water you may not always see karma or feel it flowing between us all, but if you dig deep enough you will always find it.

-Janken
-Vexiplex