Karma is one of those ideas that is often misunderstood and misused by many people. There are many that wish to use Karma as a type of curse upon someone “if you do that, karma is going to come back to bite you…” In fact it was just such a conversation as this in the forums that made me curious as to what Karma really is exactly.

I found that Karma is shared by several religions; Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism being the main proponents with Paganism and New Age religions following the Three-Fold path which holds very similar ideals.

Karma is (in its simplest form) consequence of action, or cause and effect. You get back what you give. Unlike when we are children and we break our mother’s vase, however, this may not be an immediate consequence that we face. The effect of the actions we take may be years in the making. Some Karma may not even unfold in this lifetime, but be bestowed upon us after death. If you believe in reincarnation or rebirth – then your Karma transfers over with you to your next life. If you believe in Heaven, then Karma would come in the form of judgment.

Karma can also be divided down into what is called accumulated Karma and fruit-bearing Karma.

Accumulated Karma is the Karma that transfers from lifetime to lifetime. It is made up of lessons and deeds that are too great for a person to fully appreciate in one lifetime. For instance; we might have been a terrible bully as a child and now that we have children of our own we can see how much our actions back then would hurt someone else. Yet we cannot go back and change the past. So in our next life we might be born with more compassion.

Fruit-bearing Karma is Karma that has immediate consequences here during our lifetime. By constantly berating other women and criticizing the other mothers around us, we find that we have no close friends and are extremely lonely with no one to turn to in a time of need. This is a consequence we have brought on ourselves.

Karma is not only the bad, however, it is the sum of everything we bring into our lives and that we pour out into the world. This is where Karma has been the most misunderstood – thinking that it is some bogeyman to wish upon someone we don’t like. Karma means that the nurse who so lovingly cares for her patients in the nursing home will be the one to get the promotion to Head Nurse. Karma means that the person who is unable to conceive in this lifetime, but is caring and loving will find themselves with all the family they could want in the next.

Above all, Karma is personal. It is not for us to wish upon someone else, however hard that may be. Karma is our own reckoning with our actions and deeds that we have done. Each person on this Earth must face the consequences of the things they have done at some point in their life, even if it is only at their death bed. We must always remember that we never truly know what is going on in a person’s life, unless we are walking in their shoes. Think of the number of celebrities who “had it all” that committed suicide.

All we can do in this life is focus on our own selves and be the best person we can possibly be. If each person in the world did this – then we would truly have an amazing world.