Question: What is karma, and why is it normally considered bad?
Artimus - Knowledge Guide - 12.03.2023
Karma is not bad. It is natural. Karma is a part of both spiritual and material life.
Side note: as far as I am aware, you can only accumulate and be effected by karma in the material world - hence the reason we come here. I will ask more on this topic later...
Everyone knows the saying, as you sow so shall you reap. This is karma.
So, every action has an equal reaction. We hurt someone, someone will hurt us. Yes, karma can work this way. But it is far more complicated than that. Some of the things that come into play are: -
- what kind of karma it is
- is it old or new karma
- what we have chosen to work off in our material life
Those details will come later. Everybody on the earthly planet is born with a certain amount of karma, either from their previous lives, familial or collective karma. Christians would call this original sin. A lot of karma can be generated over our numerous lives if we keep missing the lessons that we have set for ourselves.
Let us say our main goal in this life is to overcome selfishness. However, each time we are faced with the opportunity to act on selflessness, we go back to our default of putting ourselves first. Each situation would differ as individual aspects would determine how much karma you receive. If your selfishness was the cause of great harm or strife, you would accumulate more karma than a smaller incident.
It works in the opposite direction as well. The greater the good deed, the better the karma. So good karma negates bad karma. It cancels it out. We need good karma to progress. Not only does good karma mean progressing in your spiritual life, it also creates a more balanced and happy life on earth. Once the lesson is learned, you no longer need the challenges thrown at you in order to grow. That challenge is complete. According to the choices made before birth, you will either move on to your next challenge, or more or less live the rest of your life in peace. Sometimes one aspect of your karma can take lifetimes to work off.
Never ever believe that this is not how it is meant to be. It is all worked out by a very large team, including yourself, before you come to earth. Please know that all things are handled with much compassion and you are never judged or made to feel guilty for what you have done. We all know how difficult the human condition is, and we all know that everyone will do their penance. No one but the highest of souls, and of course God, is totally free of their karmic chains. As long as these chains are bound to you, you will have to repeat the cycle of birth and death within the material plane. The ultimate goal is to free yourself of these chains. The only way to do this is to learn the lessons that your life will be presenting to you. Overcoming fear, realising and improving on faults, paying for unthoughtful or bad deeds, and not repeating them. Learning how to love ourselves, to forgive ourselves, and in turn love others.
There is always free will, so even if you have set these challenges for yourself, it does not necessarily mean you will overcome them. It may take several attempts for you to do so. There may also be familial karma, that can only be released once a member of the family sees the light and frees themselves and future generations from their plight.
In it´s essence karma is not good or bad. We manipulate or morph the karma according to our actions. Killing another being can generate an enormous amount of bad karma. Making personal sacrifice can bring much good karma. While overcoming a personal hurdle (selfishness, jealousy, etc) can wipe certain karma clean.
Many misunderstand. Good karma is obviously better than bad karma and will aid you in your material life and your spiritual growth. However, this is not the ultimate goal (-to accumulate good karma).
Clearing your karma, as in having NO karma, is. Having no attachments to the material world and living purely in spirit. No more personality traits that need to be worked on.... It´s being a spiritual being without attachment to the material. We cannot re-unite with God fully until we are completely free of karma.
To make advancement we must work through the bad karma, without creating more.
SIDE NOTE: It was once explained to me that karma is like a fan. When it is plugged in, it is running at full impact and we feel the results of it turning through the wind in our face (karmic reaction). Once we pull the plug - as in stop creating new karma, and only creating good karma to negate the bad, the fan still keeps on turning, and we still feel the reactions of our previous actions. But slowly, as the blades start to slow down (we are not feeding it with any more karma), less and less wind will effect us, until eventually it will stop. That is why sometimes even yogis or other highly spiritual people will have to experience difficult times and challenges in their lives.