I've given some thought lately to the whole karma deal and I have come to a few realizations. I'm an atheist/ spiritualist. (a belief I define as not putting faith in god, gods, goddesses, or higher powers, however, I have seriously strong belief in Universe, a highly concentrated glob of kinetic energy that binds us all together. This Universe of Kinetic Energy does not have a definition for good, evil, indifferent or other. The Universe simply sees things 'as is'. It's humans who assert the additives of good and or evil...but I digress....) In my belief system, the thoughts of bad people being punished and good people being rewarded has become nonsensical.
There is no such thing as an all good, all bad person. People react to a situation by way of character development. This can be a responsible character or an irrational character or a dependent character...etc. It's created by childhood, mostly, and by the way others treat us early in life. If a person spends the better part of their childhood being spoiled or not being asked to work for things, chances are going to be quite high that this person won't actually grow into a person who believes that they need to work for survival, people's love and trust or to make a statement in life. If a person grows up constantly having to protect themselves from being emotionally damaged, then chances are that this person will grow up to believe that they will need to avoid people to keep from being damaged again or they will grow up believing that they need need to work very hard for people's love and trust.
Situations that call for us to make decisions based on honesty, integrity or ethics tend to have a two fold out come. The blending of emotionality and logical thought can bring about a confusing outcome. For example: Suppose I was left $10 on my desk at work. Suppose someone I did not know, came by and causally took the money. Is this person 'bad' for taking the money. I say not. Taking the money is a result of other things happening in this persons mind. Maybe they had no money and couldn't pass up the chance, maybe they took the money with the thoughts of returning it later, and maybe they took the money because they thought luck has shone upon them and they saw it as a gift. My take is that the person leaving the money should have been a little more aware that the possiblity of the money could be taken. Does leaving the money exposed make someone naive? Maybe the person leaving the money expected to return sooner rather than later, maybe the person leaving the money left it out because they were distracted and meant to relocate the money, and maybe the money was left because the person couldn't fathom something being stolen from their work place. I'm saying that both sides could have put more thought into their actions.
This brings me back to the situation of karma. In my scenario, the person losing the money could be experiencing karma. The person taking the money might then lose it. Is this karma? What if the person taking the money, tripped and broke their arm after taking the money. Is this 'karma' as well? Some even say that if something horrible happens to someone after they do a 'bad' thing, it's called instant karma. I have to wonder if this instant karma, reaping what you sow, getting your comeuppance has more to do with humans assigning emotionality to something that logically has no weight or basis in reality!
Instead of assigning situations as karmic, maybe we can be more aware of how bad a decision it is to leave $10 on your desk. Guilt often keeps us participating in situations that we know are wrong but it 's still a bad decision to take something from someone knowing that it's not yours. In the end, if you are found out, people will think badly of it, no matter what the excuse. The idea that karma is going to 'get' someone keeps us from realizing that people do things that are unbecoming, but they also do things that are wonderful. Depending on karma keeps us from growing, because if we expect someone to pay for their sins, and we aren't able to 'see' the person getting theirs can often cause mental stress. Learning how to see that logic and reason are the writers of your destiny and not karma will keep the ideas of waiting for things to happen at bay.
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