I have found out a former friend has Parkinson’s. He was part of the cause of brake up of our coven. He did many things that were down right despicable, but I let it go months ago and tried to just forget about the whole thing. We had a lot of fun while friends, but the things he said and did left him few friends in the local Pagan community.
I would not wish Parkinson’s on anyone; it is a terrible illness of the brain. The person who told me said it was Karma for all the bad he had done. My only answer to her was, "If that is so what have I done to deserve MS" She had no answer for that one.
I don't think there is a religion in the world that deals well with chronic illness. It seems much easier to blame the patient than to than to say it is nature and it could happen to you. Karma I just don't buy it anymore. What do you all think?

I used to believe in Karma, but I, like you am starting to have my doubts.

To quote one of my favorite songs, "Only the good die young," which is why some people I know are going to live forever.

Focus on whatever gives you strength, Darkwind.

as my signiture says "you can try to fight death but at the end of life you cannot resist" he got this not because of what he did but because it was natures intention to try to put him down. . . nature is all powerful and will do random things because it can. all the bad things he did could have also brought this on him because of divine forces who live around you knowing and feeling that he must pay. im not an expert but my main religion type is anamitistic because there is such power in nature. he didnt deserve this though because everyone deserves a second chance.

I believe in Karma. Well my family kinda does. I did something & karma bit me. By making me hit my finger on a table at school. It hurt.

Some people do deserve a second chance though.

i think karma only effects you if you believe in it, its just your friends time i guess, i dont think karma is responsible

We have bodies and they sometimes break. They are complex bio-electric machines things go wrong much like a computer. A bad CPU is a bad CPU what are you going to do other than replace it, we can't in the case of our brain we have to limp along as best we can. Nature is a vast web of life form brachium to whales, all of which interact and combines in an infinite number of ways. Nature has no intention to do anything. If a virus finds you a good breeding space you get the flu.

I have another friend who went through a bad depression after his father died. He is a Pagan, so he called the Gods and asks them for help they told him this is a human problem he needed help from other humans. That made since to me what do Gods know of illness if they never get ill. They seem to do what they can to help me cope with being a human. Maybe that is enough.

Well.. I don't know if consoleing you about your former friend is in order.. I mean if he's not.. however parkensons is not a good (what is?) terminal illness to go through.

However, on to the question..
No. After everything I've been through.. my family's been through, I don't believe in karma. Because I know that my family hasn't done anything to get what we've been through. My father was a kind and gentle man. He did not deserve to have "karma" take that all away with strokes and congestive heart failure.. He's been dieing since I was 12. And he just loses more and more of himself every year. And watching him suffer... *sighs*

You know.. Karma is like Gods... believe it it, and fear it. If you do bad.. you get punished. If you do good you get rewarded. Yeah well I've done good.. and I get sh**. I get shafted finacialy to the point I couldn't finish going to college.... but no, I ain't going through my personal crap over this. Karma's not real.

Ive spent my whole life watching my mother go in and out of hospital and It does leave one wondering about karma,
I think its slavery to even think that you should suffer for something you have done and simply lie down and accept it like the caste system over in india. IMO it doesn''t matter if karma exists because unless I take responsibility and accept that these things happen without a reason and I push threw them then it makes me stronger, and it is just another challenge to face and accomplish.
Besides I see disabled and i'll people as the most fortunate people out there because it gives them a reason to be grateful for life.

In conclusion then I suppose I see karma as a state of mind, not to simply think you deserve it or are earning something but simply because the world has no meaning and you take alot of crap and soldier on threw it. It's a hard knocks life

Karma is a God-like thing to some people. What goes around comes around, everything is fair.

That's what everybody wants, we want things to be fair.

In the end, maybe all things do become fair. Maybe they do not, we can't know yet.

I think that karma should be a personal thing that somebody employs into their own actions. The golden rule, treat others as you would want to be treated. If everyone could do this, the world would be such a wonderful place.

Although, I do not think karma should be used to justify vengeance. Vengeance is never good, it is only fulfilling our needs to see someone else suffer as they caused us to. I think guilt enacts vengeance enough upon someone who has wronged another.

I was always thought to believe that most religions believe that karma not only is goes and comes around in this life, but may take several different lives to come back to you. Only if reincarnation is true though.

I believe in choice and consequence and that every action changes the next. Fate and Karma are only real if you make them real.

If each and every action have an equal and opposite reaction.. then each action taken may may change our next move..(choice) There should be some magnatic field working for this opposite reaction.. may this wave they calling as KARMA? Again beliving it or not.. all in our choice..

"There should be"...doesn't make it so. Every human choice or action doesn't always result in an equal or opposite action.

To believe in Karma one must believe in good and evil. Whatever controls Karma decides what is good or evil. But what of the shades of gray? What is the opposite of gray?

SkyDancer, Being disabled is a lot different than looking at it. Sometimes it is about enduring cause your alive and this is all you got. Grateful, not really, bitter, no point in that, just endure it and make the best of it. As long as I have things to learn, I will endure. The Gods keep throwing things in my Path to keep me going.

I agree, Cadetak, what is the opposite of Grey? Grey is what you see when you spin yin and yang. Karma, is for dreamers who think life is fair. I have no illusion about the fairness of life, cause it is not.

If you want what karma and fate want, then nothing can go against your will!!!

'Life is not fair'

To be honest, I think this is rubbish. It's not that life isn't fair, it's just part of a natural process. It has no sense of 'fairness' or 'unfairness' about it. That would imply some sort of interference from some 'greater cause' is possible to affect your life. I don't believe this sort of interference happens.

Originally karma was simply cause and effect. Now it has become synonymous with some sort of interference from on high. A godly retribution for bad deeds or reward for good deeds. I prefer the original meaning.

I never said life is unfair. Like you say it’s neither. (I love chaos theory, it explains things so nicely.) I do believe in Gods or if you want Trans-Dimensional Beings who have an impact on my life. They don't make is sick and they don't cure me, they help me cope. They guide my Path but always give me choices. Whether anyone else believes it I don't care it works for me.

But I do get sick of the whole guilt trip people put on chronic ill, people. Whether its chronic fatigue, Parkinson’s, or MS, people start saying it is Karma. They blame the lame for being lame and that is just LAME.

When I got MS, I thought at least they can't blame it on being fat. lol I should known someone would come up with some kind of blame. I guess if people blame the person who is ill then they are free, they don't have to think it could happen to them.

I guess got to phone my friend before the Karma freaks get him.

Dark, i know what you mean by the karma analogy, i think its stupid, i have great respect for those that have physical disabilitys and becasue of them we can learn so much, to infer its something bad IMO is ignorance, Many who have walked in disability have been humaitys hope such as Chris Reeves, Micheal J Fox etc....Dark in my book you are of that caliber , a hero to me and a very inspirational person and don't beleive anything otherwise (((Hugs)))) i lived with a very sick grandmother and i tell you because of her i learned more about health then from any place else and will always be grateful she taught me so much, do not ever think that you arent' touching lives too....

It all depends on how you define karma. To me, karma means patterns, not punishment. I see patterns in my life and those around me... Punishment has a tinge of 'religiosity' written all over it -- God forbid. A dear friend of mine told me once that everything happens for a reason, and that God wouldn't let anybody go through a situation if he or she is not ready for it. Besides, I believe in a just, loving God, the many sides of unconditional love. Pettiness is for small-minded humans. This Divine Energy doesn't even need to be worshipped like Rock stars and starlets and others. It loves us, regardless. Basically, we just can't see into the future, what wonderful creatures we are to become. This is inevitable, even if it takes millions of lifetimes -- think about it. This Energy, of course, is a very conscious Force, and everything in this world is meant to make us grow, whether we like it or not. Surely, one would not want a care-less God, who simply ignores the believers. There is logic to this world, but are we adult enough to accept it? Then again, I always have my sincere prayers if things get out of hand, become too overwhelming. Sincere prayer is truly a miraculous thing. In the end, God's Will is beyond our human minds. It takes a giant ego to outguess God. We really could only go by what is infront of us, and in my life, that's quite a bit, tons of work. Again, do we have the stamina to accept what is infront of us? Since God is infinite, and our soul eternal, surely, there are countless scenarios stored for us..., for us to grow and grow and grow. Punishment? It doesn't compute in my system, unless it's a sexual game of some sort.

I've always thought of it kinda like that for every action you perform there is an opposite reaction upon yourself kinda thing, so its not about punishment or reward, but rather more like balancing the equation.




Are you sure? Just because you don't see it happen doesn't mean it doesn't happen

You believe that life is not fair, and yet, you endure and learn things. I think that's wonderful. It is also great that you have enough care in you to express yourself. You seem like an ethical person from the words you choose. Many people have off themselves..., BUT, you did not. Could this be a good pattern in your life cycle? I think so, if anything else; however, keep your mind focused on the learning process, not so much on memories, past events, that dragged you down. In the end, "karma" is just another word, meaningless, imperfect to describe anything real, just like countless of spiritual terminologies.

I believe in Karma but I also believe Bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people. Maybe its bad karma catching the good people from past lives when they were bad, maybe its good karma catching the bad people from past lives when they were good.

Or then again like the book of Job teaches, God does as he wants even if we dont understand, who are we to question he who created our complex minds and bodies, the cosmos and reality itself.

I believe karma exists, but as the hindu belief in reincarnation, where if your bad you are reborn in a lower state of existence, or if your good you raise up, I do not believe this because I dont believe we know everything. Things like reincarnation and karma exist, but we will never fully understand them just as we will never fully (or even partially in this case) understand God, and why God does as God does.

But someday we just may.

Another great point.

Thanks for putting me bak on the fence, gang!

I used to believe in Karma, I still kinda do...I think.

My dad's mother was not a pleasant woman by any stretch of the imagination. She treated most of the family like garbage. She put "her boys" on a pedestal, which is fine. But did she really need to be so nasty to my mom & us kids all the time?

I can remember Mom breaking her back to make a nice Sunday dinner (usually once or twice a month), making us kids dress up in our Sunday best & behaving as if the Queen Mum herself was in attendance. Throughout dinner she'd put my mom & us kids down again & again & again. I'd beg Dad to make her quit. Finally, when I was about 16, I told her off. I told her I did not appreciate her belittling my mom in front of us kids. She went directly to Dad & told her what a nasty child I was!

The nasty treatment by her didn't quit til she was started showing signs of Alzheimers. I thought, "What goes around, comes around!" I honestly could not feel sorry for her. Pity her? Perhaps. I felt that the powers that be had stepped in & said, "Play nice! If you don't...ZAP!"

Then again, I look at everything that H & I have been through in the nearly 18 years we have been together & I have to wonder. If Karma does exsist...what did he & I do wrong? If we did something wrong, when? Previsous lives? Cause it seems like just when things seem to be going well...the bottom falls out! Usually after a year or less. I'm stuck. Karma, no Karma? Still on the fence on this one...



Please don't push too hard!