Karma
An essay on Elemental Imbalance
To clarify the concept of "karma", which everyone may not be
familiar with, I have given the Webster's collegiate dictionary
definitions. I have also included the concept of "dharma", which is
integral in discussing magickal ethics and the notion of karma.
"Main Entry: kar·ma
Pronunciation: 'kär-m& also 'k&r-
Function: noun
Etymology: Sanskrit karma fate, work
Date: 1827
1 often capitalized : the force generated by a person's actions held
in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its
ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next
existence"
"Main Entry: dhar·ma
Pronunciation: 'd&r-m&, 'där-
Function: noun
Etymology: Sanskrit; akin to Latin firmus firm
Date: 1796
1 Hinduism : an individual's duty fulfilled by observance of custom
or law
2 Hinduism & Buddhism a : the basic principles of cosmic or
individual existence : divine law b : conformity to one's duty and
nature"
So, in layman's terms, karma is a reflection of good and bad things
that have carried over from another life-time (or perhaps even this
one), and dharma is the way we pay back our debts to transgression of
ethical divine law.
Now, as you all have seen already, I have a different view of the
universe and how it operates, so I'd like to share my ideas of where
and how karma and dharma fit into the whole scheme of things.
I personally see what most people call karma as merely elemental
imbalance correction. If you do something (truthfully if you do
anything) you are changing the elemental balance of the Universe.
Since the One attempts to maintain the elemental balance of the
Universe, it would make sense that when one attempts to alter that
balance, a brief imbalance would occur. Most individuals are unaware
of the imbalances that they create when they attempt to do magickal
workings. So, when the universe attempts to realign itself
elementally, this readjustment would be personal to the individual
doing the work, hence Karmic, as the imbalance would most likely be
near to them, where they took the elemental energies to begin with.
The greater the magickal goal, the greater the imbalance and thus,
the greater the karmic readjustment that the One would need to
produce to restore it's balance. For those of you familiar with
Wicca, this would also explain the three-fold law. It is merely the
readjustment period for good or ill that is dependant on what you
originally set out to accomplish.
One can ward off the affects of imbalance in two ways. The first is
through what is referred to as dharma, or correcting the imbalances
yourself before the One does it for you. If you know that you
imbalanced one thing, then you can attempt to rebalance it. For
example, let say a person does a spell on another individual to make
them lose all their friends. They think about it after they have
already cast the spell, and decide that the imbalances effect would
be too drastic on themselves or is ethically wrong, so they counter balance the spell with
another to remove the original, or cast one for the person to gain
friends lost.
Another way that one can negate the effects of imbalance are to know
where you are taking the source of energy from. If you wish to have
a great effect on something, you take in small amounts from many
different things that are distant from you, thus making the
readjustment minimal and likely to not affect you personally. It's
like the physics principle that to every action there is an equal
and opposite reaction, so to limit and control the reaction, you make it affect
more than one object, diffusing the energy in creating the action..
