quotations about karma
Karma is often wrongly confused with the notion of a fixed destiny. It is more like an accumulation of tendencies that can lock us into particular behavior patterns, which themselves result in further accumulations of tendencies of a similar nature... But it is not necessary to be a prisoner of old karma.
JON KABAT-ZINN
Radiant Mind
Karma brings us ever back to rebirth, binds us to the wheel of births and deaths. Good Karma drags us back as relentlessly as bad, and the chain which is wrought out of our virtues holds as firmly and as closely as that forged from our vices.
ANNIE BESANT
Karma
When we cross the gates of death, our karma is all we take with us. Everything else that we enjoyed in this life we leave behind.... Our karma is the only thing that will count in determining our rebirth, for our next life is nothing but the effects of our karmic tendencies that materialize in our perception.
TULKU THONDUP
Peaceful Death
Many people think there's nothing they can do to change their karma--it's preordained so why bother trying to change their situation? This is what scares people. These folks think that to accept the reality of karma one must be passive. It simply isn't true. Karma is active. We can--in the blink of an eye--make decisions that will shape our futures and transform the parts of our lives that are causing us unhappiness.
MARY T. BROWNE
The Power of Karma
The law of Karma is the law of the conservation of energy on the moral and spiritual planes of nature.
WILLIAM Q. JUDGE
The Path, Sep. 1886
I must have killed a lot of cows in a past life for Karma to hate me this much.
KATIE MCGARRY
Pushing the Limits
For the keynote of the law of Karma is equilibrium, and nature is always working to restore that equilibrium whenever through man's acts it is disturbed.
CHRISTMAS HUMPHREYS
Karma and Rebirth
Karma is like the patterns of a formal dance or a familiar song. No variation is possible, and the highest ideal is to move through the measures correctly.
KIJ JOHNSON
The Fox Woman
The law of karma is neither fatalistic nor punitive; nor is man a hapless, helpless victim in its bonds. God has blessed each one of us with reason, intellect and discrimination, as well as the sovereign free will. Even when our past karma inclines us toward evil, we can consciously tune our inclination towards detachment and ego-free action, thus lightening the karmic load.
J. P. VASWANI
What Would You Like to Know about Karma
Karma differs from fate or destiny because it encourages us to take an active role in life. The Law of Karma requires the spiritual seeker to follow the highest code of ethics.
TODD CRAMER
Eckankar: Ancient Wisdom for Today
Karma karma karma karma karma chamelion,
You come and go, you come and go.
Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams,
Red gold and green, red gold and green.
CULTURE CLUB
"Karma Chamelion"
Karma is like a bank deposit, from which one can draw depending upon the consequences of one's actions.
P. KOSLOWSKI
The Origin and the Overcoming of Evil and Suffering in the World
Karma directly demonstrates God, for it can but be the eternal expression of infinite Will: and through this--a revealed aspect of the divine.
JEROME A. ANDERSON
Karma: A Study of the Law of Cause and Effect
Karma applies itself in the most exacting and clever of ways. If we deprived another human being of freedom in a previous life, we'd probably have our freedom curtailed in this life. This experience would give us time to reconsider our views and learn the Law of Love.
TODD CRAMER
Eckankar: Ancient Wisdom for Today
The burden of Karma is heavy. All alike have heavy debts to pay. Yet none, so the Wisdom teaches, is ever faced with more than he can bear. Whether or not we can grin, we must bear it, and it is folly to attempt to run away.
CHRISTMAS HUMPHREYS
Karma and Rebirth
One has to reap the fruits of his karma. The law of karma is inevitable and is accepted by all the great philosophies of the world: 'As you sow, so shall you reap.'
SWAMI RAMA
Living with the Himalayan Masters
You must understand that good actions cannot change your karma. Good actions may make some kind of happiness, but this happiness is also karma. People sometimes call this good karma. But good karma is still karma, and karma is created by thinking. Everything that is created by thinking always changes. So good karma eventually runs out and becomes bad karma. If you truly want to change your karma, do not make good or bad. That is correct practicing.
SEUNG SAHN
The Compass of Zen
The law of karma is the principle of cosmic justice that holds that all good actions will be rewarded and that all wicked actions will be punished. Sometime. Somehow. Somewhere.
CHANJU MUN
Buddhism and Peace
Whatever karma a soul has acquired through its own prior needs,
it will obtain the good and bad results thereof.
If one can obtain results from the deeds of others,
then surely his own deeds would be meaningless.
Except for karma earned for oneself by oneself,
no one gives anything to anyone.
Reflecting upon this fact, therefore,
let every person unwaveringly,
abandon the perverse notion that
another being can provide him with anything at all.
ACARAYA AMITAGATI
Collected Papers on Jaina Studies
The point in the path where one develops a direct knowledge of the workings of karma is the level referred to as the realization in one taste. At this level, one achieves a definitive realization of the single nature of all phenomena beyond good and bad. At the same time, as a result of that realization, there is also a direct perception of the working of karma, which is called "the manifestation of interdependence."
KHENPO KARTHAR RINPOCHE
Karma Chakme's Mountain Dharma