How karma should be practiced: be nice to strangers, respect life, do not cause harm, all else being equal, choose the path which generates the greatest good for the greatest number.
How karma should not be practiced:
- To ease your mind that someone who was mean to you will eventually get paid back in full.
- As an excuse to be stupid.
- As a substitute for business sense.
- To harm yourself for the good of others in order to earn ‘karma points.’ This attitude is actually a rather self-serving one, once you think about it.
- As a means of making money to pay you back for your own generosity (you won’t be).
- As an excuse to be mean.
- To justify to yourself the suffering of others.
- To explain other people’s successes/failures.
- As a good-fortune system whereby ‘karma points’ are redeemed for your own future good fortune.
- To expect good fortune.
Frankly, I think most people miss the point when it comes to karma. Karma is not an actual system that exists, it’s a philosophy. And even if it were a system that occurred in the real world, you should still treat it as a philosophy. Be good to others and the reward is a greater amount of good in the universe. This should be enough, if it isn’t, then you’re looking in the wrong Eastern philosophy, try Kahn, Genghis.
Don’t expect payback, don’t look for evidence of the system, don’t seek to explain anything (positive or negative) through karma, and don’t try to manipulate the system. Finally, and most importantly, don’t cite karma as a excuse to not act. Karma will not pay anybody back for you, it’s not really its business to. When it comes to revenge, karma is too sloppy and too slow. There’s another philosophy that can help you in these situations: it’s called vengeance.
