Karma

One term often referred to is that of 'karma'. There is quite a bit of difficulty in getting a firm, clear definition of the term. Some believe that karma is a sort of cosmic, metaphysical accounting system, keeping tally of all the good and bad things you do during your life. If your negative tally is bothersome, your next life will be arranged in a manner to help you try and earn positive points to neutralize the negative points you earned previously. Thus, if you are cruel to a particular race in one life, you will be born a member of that race in the next, and people will be cruel to you.

Eventually you get enough positive points so that you no longer have to return to earthly lives to earn them, and you move on to another level (and perhaps more positive and negative points).

Others hold it to be a more general concept, falling under the Golden Rule category of behaviors, with no astral accountant sitting somewhere keeping careful tally of all you do. The basic concept is the same however: that is, you need to do good in order to avoid coming back and suffering as a pay-back for what you did previously.

Still others hold that karma exists within an individual lifetime: what you do in this life, you pay for in this life. In some cases this seems likely, but it also seems that many crooks and dishonest politicians get away with murder (figuratively and at times, literally), and are neither caught nor punished in this lifetime.

It seems to me that the exact definition of karma is not really very relevant. The basic metaphysical principle of life should be simply to live in harmony with earth, to help others when possible, not to hurt others, and to do this without thought of a tally somewhere being kept of your actions. In other words, to give from the heart without concern for what you will someday receive in return.