Theos-Talk Archives (December 1996 Message tl00422)

kymsmith@micron.net wrote:
>
> Tom wrote:
>
> >3) Is there good and bad karma, or just karma?
>
> I guess I think there is "just karma," which, I must say, BY ITSELF,
> certainly seems pointless, almost bordering on cruelty.  We create karma by

-- chunk deleted for brevity --

> Karma's a handy little tool, but it doesn't seem to work for all
> construction jobs.

	I see karma as the agent that separates Unity. When there is no karma,
Unity is restored. At a certain level of evolution, we can perceive
karma, and avoid creating personal karma much the same way one avoids a
truck while crossing a street. Until then, the only clue that we have is
that the way to avoid creating personal karma is to avoid acting
personally.

	In the meantime, karma acts as an instructor; if we get hit by enough
of it, we start to perceive how it works. Short-term karma (if you hit
someone, they're likely to hit you back) is easier to learn to avoid
than longer-term karma (if you eat too much, you'll gain weight), which
is easier to learn to avoid than multi-lifetime karma.

	Karma from "evil" deeds does not necessarily come back as evil, and
karma from "good" deeds does not necessarily come back as good.
Theoretically, divination methods such as Astrology, Tarot or I Ching
can help us determine the effects of karma, IF we could figure out how
to work them...

	From what has been written about it by people who claim to know, the
best way to deal with karma is to ignore it; just do the right thing,
and hope for the best. Note that the fact that an action that releases
someone from a great deal of karmic debt is not at all justified by that
release; you cannot justify actions against a person merely because he
or she "deserves" it.

	Bart Lidofsky