I've seen too much to believe in karma working on principles of human defined justice. In the interest of not starting an argument over belief I won't say why I believe it beyond stating that if the universe was as people who believe it is inherently just define it, then our world would be a very different place.
That said, I was once learning western occultism of the Hermetic tradition, and a teaching that made sense to me was that to build up harmful occult energies had to be experienced by the occultist as it was channeled through him, so to speak (I'm keeping this as simple as I can). There were ways around it, but even then if the target's aura was stronger (as it probably was, otherwise the occultist wouldn't need to resort to such an attack, which is why still more methods were available to prevent that from happening) then it would bounce back with its original strength combined with the strength of the aura it bounced off of (which means more than twice as strong, and they believed this is part of why the so-called
Threefold Law was invented by certain Wiccans, to try to prevent many would be curse givers from harming themselves, and to blame themselves should they somehow rationalize trying to cause harm anyway).
But I personally view karma as a blind machine. I can't seem to find a detailed explanation on the net that this board will allow a link to, so to briefly describe it, the effects of our actions continued to be felt through the generations. The Wheel crushes guilty and innocent alike (and may crush the innocent more because they watch their backs less), and as humans are fairly controlled by robotic reflexes then the violence and terrible deeds tend to outweigh the kindness and mercy that results in the mess we have today.
I wish I could explain it better (or better yet, could post a facebook link without this board's subroutines trying to turn it into a media link in some knee-jerk way). I can try to explain it in more depth later, if you wish.
Beyond that...I really don't want to believe in reincarnation as I consider it a deeply disturbing concept...to forget and be made into an amnesiac innocent, once again helpless and clueless...just no. Do not want.
🙁 I think if my choice is reincarnation or the annihilation of my consciousness, then I'll choose self-annihilation (unless there's some other benefit I don't know about to be gained by enduring such a terrible process). Given that it seems people with NDE (Near Death Experiences) feel no fear for such experiences, it seems an easy choice to make, but I wouldn't know until I'm there to make the choice (assuming I ever am). However, I don't feel comfortable in saying why I have come to reluctantly believe that reincarnation is real.
Though I might be willing to share how I incorporate it into a scifi I'm writing, though it's also disturbing (as opposed to the movie Cloud Atlas, which I found utterly fascinating and hope to one day read the book). Yet that's not exactly what I believe, but I do incorporate a lot of reincarnation lore into it (with a scifi twist with horror overtones).
Religious wise I'm fairly agnostic, though I do believe there are forces beyond our understanding that include paranormal effects. I'm more puzzled by it than holding faith. I might later share of my own religious journey through life as there were times I did deeply believe in gods and religion.
When I look at the stars, which I do often, I imagine thats where my soul will go
Going back to my scifi, sometimes what I imagine becomes so powerful that it's almost like an experience. It's not that I believe it, but the sensations can be incredible, sometimes it hurts knowing I'll never actually be able to experience anything like that (at least not in this life). Not too long ago I was describing a planet in a star cluster and it became so real...though I have decided against having any (active) sentient aliens in this story, I had a strong impression of subterranean lizards (or something to that effect), but they weren't mean. They had learned cooperation to survive, and their curiosity was stronger than their fear. And the underground water was filled with the most hauntingly beautiful luminescent algae that lit up the caverns...
I shared this with a friend of mine who has a physics degree and an interest in astronomy who made some guestimates about like the distance of the planet from its sun, and how the close proximity of so many stars would affect the atmosphere and encourage underground life from the likely radiation...and more so if stars that got close enough (some stars in the night sky looked almost like miniature suns, though the actual sun was distant so that some stars could be seen even in the daylight) had other life that might actually make journeys to other worlds with less than friendly intentions (actually this last part was suggested by someone else), and that the vision I described sounded as if it was more attuned to the ultraviolet spectrum, which seems especially likely with so many stars, and caverns filled with such glowing algae. She even had some ideas on why a species might develop more curiosity than fear (at least for others of its kind) which could be a result of its environment. It was all her musing, of course, but overall she said it actually made sense...and whether it's pure imagination or if there is (or at least once was) some reality to it, I felt such a longing to be there...but hey, if reincarnation is real, we wouldn't necessarily be limited to one world (and even if we were then that would say disturbing things since our own world can't survive forever, and I think the chance of any species to spread to other star systems is minimal at best).
Just sharing in case it interests you.
🙂
