RE: if I lost this account, would you care?
Karma exists, but not as some form of justice or punishment. That is an anthropocentric reduction of a far grander system or understanding.
There is no such thing as good or bad in the universe. These are purely human-made constructs to navigate our social communication and connection.
Did good or bad exist before humans existed?
Will good and bad exist after we are long gone?
So the universe couldn’t give a stuff about our concepts of justice, comeuppance and punishment.
Karma is merely an energy balancing protocol.
Actions cause reactions and ripples within the underlying energy foundation of existence.
Karma balances the ripples out from the source from whence they derived.
That is all.
How it balances it out may not fit the way we think it hope it does.
In fact, we might not have the capacity to perceive or understand how the ‘action’ and the ‘rebalancing’ are connected and resolved.
@nathankaye Well said. And once understood in this way every interception isn't a bad thing, just like every opportunity isn't a good thing. Everything (quantum) is in essence decentralized. That doesn't mean no way. It just means that each entity at it's scale has its way, and each compound entity so, and so on. All things experience entropy of form. All things experience constant transformation of form. All things experience reformation into form.
Lets take a movie from sun up to sun up. Then break it down into frames. Where does the sun live in the sky? It doesn't. ;)
@nathankaye, my concept of "karma" was a self-administered justice meted out by a guilty conscience, because of my intrinsic, ingrained sense of humanity
The concept of Karma often gets embroiled in this way. Probably a cultural hangover from fear-based catholicised dualism.
And we often just hope the 'bad guys' just their just deserts.
Nothing wrong with having an ingrained sense of humanity @katyclark.
In truth, an ingrained sense of humanity has no bounds and will afford us to seek and have compassion for people that are normally deemed 'bad guys' too. I mean, we are so conditioned to seek revenge, right? Almost every movie we watch is crafted this way.
When my friend was brutally stabbed to death 37 times by a man who broke into her house to apparently steal a computer and her phone (and subsequently only got 15 years in prison), I had to find a way to come to terms with what happened and forgive him.
I imagined him as a little baby and then the possible abhorrent things he must have endured as a child to shape his behaviour which would lead to him taking such an intensely nefarious action against someone else, like he did.
By seeing him as a baby, I found compassion for him and that allowed me to mourn my friend's death and celebrate her life properly.
THAT IS HOW AN INGRAINED SENSE OF HUMANITY UNFOLDS IN ACTION.
I've discussed this method with @clayboyn who shares similar views.
I'm sorry to hear about your friend. In an earlier career, I was a court typist, an occupation that desensitises one to the horrors of the depths that we humans can plumb. However, the kaleidoscope of crime revealed in that job never undermined or weakened my sense of humanity or compassion for others.
Thank you so much.
Nice chatting with you.
Thank you, @nathankaye :) nice chatting with you, too