Karma Said Quotes

Mooner was walking around laying his hands on the cars, divining karma. "this is it", he said, standing by a small khaki-colored jeep."this car has protective qualities" You mean like a guardian angel?" I mean, like, it has seatbelts

I'm not a philosopher, Harry," [Michael] said. "But here's something for you to think about, at least. What goes around comes around. And sometimes you get what's coming around." He paused for a moment, frowning faintly, pursing his lips. "And sometimes you are what's coming around.

 It’s like you had a coming-out party,” Andrea said. “You’ve been presented to polite society, except now everybody wants to kill you.” “Spare me.” “Kate Daniels, a debutante.” Andrea grinned. “It’s not funny.” “It’s hilarious.” The smile slid off Andrea’s face and she vomited on the snow. “Karma,” I told her.

You believe in God?" demanded Billy Karma. "I believe in thirty-seven separate and distinct gods," answered Argyle proudly. "That puts me thirty-six ahead of you." "It makes you a pagan." "It makes you a man of limited vision," said Argyle.

Don't come in, Dad!" Hank said. "Believe me, I won't," Karma said with a vocal shiver. "Just…I have, um, condoms and lube." And in a mutter, "Your mother made me.

As someone once said, SINCERITY is the single most important human characteristic. So once you can fake THAT, you're made.

Shane’s dad stopped the van,” Claire said. “He took Monica as a hostage.” For a second, neither one of them moved, and then Eve whooped and held up her hand for a high five. Claire just stared at her, and Eve compensated by clapping both hands over her head. “Yesssss!” she said, and did a totally geeky victory dance. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer psycho!” “Hey!” Claire yelled, and Eve froze in midcelebration. It was stupid, but Claire was angry; she knew Eve was right, knew she had no reason at all to think Monica was ever going to be anything but a gigantic pain in the ass, but… “Shane’s dad’s going to burn her if they go through with the execution. He has a blowtorch.” The glee dropped out of Eve’s expression. “Oh,” she said. “Well…still. Not like she didn’t ask for it. Karma’s a bitch, and so am I.

And then a memory from Avalon surfaced in her mind, something she had not thought of for a decade; one of the Druids, giving instruction in the secret wisdom to the young priestesses, had said, If you would have the message of the Gods to direct your life, look for that which repeats, again and again; for this is the message given you by the Gods, the karmic lesson you must learn for this incarnation. It comes again and again until you have made it part of your soul and your enduring spirit.

A new beginning done right," she said out loud, because everyone knew that saying it out loud made it true. "You hear that, karma?" She glanced upward through her slightly leaky sunroof into a dark sky, where storm clouds tumbled together like a dryer full of gray wool blankets. "This time, I'm gong to be strong." Like Katharine Hepburn. Like Ingrid Bergman ."So go torture someone else and leave me alone." A bolt of lightning blinded her, followed by a boom of thunder that nearly had her jerking out of her skin. "Okay, so I meant pretty please leave me alone." -Maddie

But you are quite of opinion, are you not, that Heaven will avenge me, d'Artagnan?" "And I know some persons on earth who will lend a helping hand," said the captain.

Picture a place called the Karma Kafe and it'll save me the bother of describing it. There was nothing in it you wouldn't expect, from the Buddha flowerpots to the wallpaper decorated with symbols that probably said, "If you bought this just because it looked pretty, may Buddha piss in your coffee, you culturally ignorant moron.

My funeral," the Blue Man said. "Look at the mourners. Some did not even know me well, yet they came. Why? Did you ever wonder? Why people gather when others die? Why people feel they should? "It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed. "You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole. "It is why we are drawn to babies . . ." He turned to the mourners. "And to funerals.

Am I being paid back for something I did? he asked himself. Something I don't know about or remember? But nobody pays back, he reflected. I learned that a long time ago: you're not paid back for the bad you do nor the good you do. It all comes out uneven at the end. Haven't I learned that by now, if I've learned anything?

The fates are cruel,” Bheeshma whispered, “and they’ve been crueler than usual to you. But the sins you committed in ignorance are not your fault.” “I’ll still have to pay for them,” Karna said. “Isn’t that how karma works? Look at what happened to Pandu, who killed a sage by accident, thinking him to be a wild deer. He had to bear the consequences of it for the rest of his life.

So today’s talk was about achieving childhood dreams,” I said. “But did you figure out the head fake?” I paused. The room was quiet. “It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.

This brings me back to my question about my karma,” Wilson said. “You probably set kittens on fire,” Schmidt said. “And the rest of us were probably there with you, with skewers.

After Daskalos returned to his armchair and was getting ready to continue our discussion I asked him whether the affliction of that man was due to karmic debts. “ ‘All illnesses are due to Karma,’ Daskalos replied. ‘It is either the result of your own debts or the debts of others you love.’ “ ‘I can understand paying for one’s own Karma but what does it mean paying the Karma of someone you love?’ I asked. “ ‘What do you think Christ meant,’ Daskalos said, ‘when he urged us to bear one another’s burdens?’ “ ‘Karma,’ Daskalos explained, ‘has to be paid off in one way or another. This is the universal law of balance. So when we love someone, we may assist him in paying part of his debt. But this,’ he said, ‘is possible only after that person has received his ‘lesson’ and therefore it would not be necessary to pay his debt in full. When most of the Karma has been paid off someone else can assume the remaining burden and relieve the subject from the pain. When we are willing to do that,’ Daskalos continued, ‘the Logos will assume nine-tenths of the remaining debt and we would actually assume only one-tenth. Thus the final debt that will have to be paid would be much less and the necessary pain would be considerably reduced. These are not arbitrary percentages,’ Daskalos insisted, ‘but part of the nature of things.

In a Cuban writers union, there was some confusion about what the toast should be? It was the Gita Mehta who solved the riddle and said, "I purpose a toast to the health of the written words

Okay, just so we're clear," Piper said, "I'll show you where Jason and I entered the maze, but I'm not doing the stereotypical Native American tracker thing. I don't know tracking. I'm not your guide." We all readily agreed, as one does when delivered an ultimatum by a friend with strong opinions and poison darts. "Also," she continued, "if any of you find the need for spiritual guidance on this quest, I am not here to provide that service. I'm not going to dispense bits of ancient Cherokee wisdom." "Very well," I aid. "Though as a former prophecy god, I enjoy bits of spiritual wisdom." "Then you'll have to ask the satyr," Piper said. Grover cleared his throat. "Um, recycling is good karma?" "There you go," Piper said.

Musk says. “After I got assassinated by the PayPal coup leaders, like Caesar being stabbed in the Senate, I could have said ‘You guys, you suck.’ But I didn’t. If I’d done that, Founders Fund wouldn’t have come through in 2008 and SpaceX would be dead. I’m not into astrology or shit like that. But karma may be real.

As with Jakobson, I queried Poston as to the source of Manson's philosophy. Scientology, the Bible, and the Beatles. These three were the only ones he knew. A peculiar triumvirate. Yet by now I was beginning to suspect the existence of at least a fourth influence. The old magazines I'd found at Barker, Gregg's mention that Charlie claimed to have read Nietzsche and that he believed in a master race, pus the emergence of a startling number of disturbing parallels between Manson and the leader of the Third Reich, led me to ask Poston: "Did Manson ever say anything about Hitler?" Poston's reply was short and incredibly chilling. A. "He said that Hitler was a tuned-in guy who had leveled the karma of the Jews.

Yes, karma propels us into all kinds of unexpected situations,” His Holiness said. “This is another reason we should behave with love and compassion toward all living beings. We never know in what circumstances we will meet up with them again. Sometimes even in this same lifetime.

Elliot fell back, with his arms open, and landed on the field with a summersault. "What better place to sleep than on a perfect flower field?" Paulo´s nose crinkled. "I wouldn´t agree with you." "Wow, we really do come from different worlds." Elliot said. (From the book "Writer´s Karma")

Who are you, man?" "I? I am nothing," replied the other. "A leaf caught in a whirlpool. A feather in the wind..." "Too bad," said Yama, "for there are leaves and feathers enough in the world for me to have labored so long only to increase their number. I wanted me a man, one who might continue a war interrupted by his absence-a man of power who could oppose with that power the will of gods. I thought you were he." "I am"-he sqinted again-"Sam. I am Sam. Once- long ago... I did fight, didn't I? Many times..." "You were the Great-Souled Sam, the Budda. Do you remember?" "Maybe I was.." a slow fire was kindled in his eyes. "Yes," he said then. "Yes, I was. Humblest of the proud, proudest of the humble. I fought. I taught the Way for a time. I fought again, taught again, tried politics, magic, poison.. I fought one great battle so terrible the sun itself hid its face from the slaughter-with men and gods, with animals and demons, with spirits of the earth and air, of fire and water, with slizzards and horses, swords and chariots-" "And you lost," said Yama. "Yes, I did, didn't I? But it was quite a showing we gave them, wasn't it? You, deathgod, were my charioteer. It all comes back to me now. We were taken prisoner and the Lords of Karma were to be our judges. You escaped them by the will-death and the Way of the Black Wheel. I could not.

It’s said that luck materializes when preparation meets opportunity. It certainly seems that luck can be more than just an accident, more than a roll of the dice. Maybe it’s a reflection of good karma. Maybe it’s the universe’s reward for being well prepared. There was a reason Napoleon didn’t want smart generals: he wanted lucky ones.

The stars lay in multiple sparkling ring constellations. "I can only grant a wish that is fully true and your wish isn´t. It is half true." The Collector said to Paulo and his mouth fell open." "You can´t fake what you feel when you wish for something from your heart. You want to stay in this world." The Collectors said. (From the book "Writer´s Karma

September 3rd, 2017, the Italian Grand Prix on the F1 Ferrari team radio, Alonso asked: "Where's Palmer?" "Retired" the team reply "Karma" said Alonso

We can give her a lift, can't we?' He said. 'Mum always gives people lifts. She says it's good karma'.

Such is the law of karma. Every action, howsoever innocent, has a reaction, that one has to experience if not in this life, then in the next,’ said

imagine there's no heaven..." he said. "Apparently someone is taking that personally.

It has been said that sleeping, dreaming, and meditating, or developing awareness, are the only states in which we do not sow further seeds of karma.

Nate’s head looked like it was about to explode and a quick glance at Carly said she was watching the whole show so intently I bet she hadn’t blinked even once. Karma’s a bitch and all that.

As Steve Jobs said in his now legendary commencement address at Stanford, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” There

it closed down when the Fire Palace was gutted by a fire.' Zoey said, 'that's ironic.' Bud said, 'it's not irony when a poorly designed building covered in hundreds of decorative open flames ends up a towering inferno

She said, ‘Sally, the hardest question we have to ask ourselves in this life is, “Who am I?” Ideally, we answer it for ourselves, but be warned that others will strive to do it for you—so don’t let them.’” There was a lump in Alice’s throat; she was on the brink of tears.

I wonder how many dogs, in the short arc of their lives, have reset the way this one has? How many dogs, with such a tenuous grip on their own life, have touched the people around them as he has? I know I said, over and over, there was no magic in it, and I am not a man who goes through this life looking for evidence of fate, or karma, or listening for the flutter of angels. He is just something that happened to us, in a time of loss and sadness and sickness and uncertainty, when, as the boy little Arliss said in Old Yeller, we needed us a a dog.

He looked into my eyes and asked, “Do you believe in fate?” I believed in making your own opportunities. I believed in taking what you wanted from life, and if you had to hurt someone in the process, it had better be for a good reason, because I also believed in karma. “I do today,” I said.

Indians like to classify, and the eighteen chapters of the Gita are said to break into three six-chapter parts. The first third, according to this, deals with karma yoga, the second with jnana yoga, and the last with bhakti yoga: that is, the Gita begins with the way of selfless action, passes into the way of Self-knowledge, and ends with the way of love. This scheme is not tight, and non-Hindu readers may find it difficult to discover in the text. But the themes are there, and Krishna clearly shifts his emphasis as he goes on using this one word yoga. Here he focuses on transcendental knowledge, there on selfless action, here on meditation, there on

the Bhutanese scholar and cancer survivor. “There is no such thing as personal happiness,” he told me. “Happiness is one hundred percent relational.” At the time, I didn’t take him literally. I thought he was exaggerating to make his point: that our relationships with other people are more important than we think. But now I realize Karma meant exactly what he said. Our happiness is completely and utterly intertwined with other people: family and friends and neighbors and the woman you hardly notice who cleans your office. Happiness is not a noun or verb. It’s a conjunction. Connective tissue. Well, are we there yet? Have I found happiness? I still own an obscene number of bags and am prone to debilitating bouts of hypochondria. But I do experience happy moments. I’m learning, as W. H. Auden counseled, to “dance while you can.” He didn’t say dance well, and for that I am grateful. I’m not 100 percent happy. Closer to feevty-feevty, I’d say. All things considered, that’s not so bad. No, not bad at all. Waterford, Virginia, July 2007

But then the subject turned to the spiritual life and Meg talked about her many visits to ashrams in India and her admiration for Swami Muktananda and Gurumayi. That got in the way, especially because he told her of his skepticism regarding the guru industry, and suggested she might profitably read Gita Mehta’s book Karma Cola. “Why are you so cynical?” she asked him, as if she genuinely wanted to know the answer, and he said that if you grew up in India it was easy to conclude that these people were fakes. “Yes, of course there are lots of charlatans,” she said, reasonably, “but can’t you discriminate?” He shook his head sadly. “No,” he said. “No, I can’t.” That was the end of their chat.

Vivienne, one of these days, you are going to fall in love,” she says softly, and it’s my turn to gasp “That is the most hateful thing you have ever said to me, and now you’ve put that into the universe.” I put my hands up, shaking. “It’s like bad mojo.” “You mean karma,” she corrects me. “Whatever you want to call it,” I snap at her. “Take it back.

The Buddha was not full of shit when he said the cause of suffering could be uprooted and that you can put an end to it once and for all. There is a way out of this mess humanity has found itself in. It’s just that the answer to the cause of suffering — and the way to end it — are nothing at all like what you think they are or imagine they should be.

The stars lay in multiple sparkling ring constellations. "I can only grant a wish that is fully true and your wish isn´t. It is half true." The Collector said to Paulo and his mouth fell open." "You can´t fake what you feel when you wish for something from your heart. You want to stay in this world." The Collectors said. (From the book "Writer´s Karma)

Alice thought the supposedly toxic plant seemed perfectly harmless. The flowers resembled bell-shaped slippers, grouped in satisfying lines that hung from the main stalk as though weighted from their centers. "This one? It's actually quite pretty." "Isn't it?" "The previous owner must have loved it. There's quite a lot." Alice noted aside from the bunch in front of her, it grew in two other spots in the garden. "It seems she did," Sally said. "The plant also has another name; maybe you've heard of it? Digitalis purpurea." "Doesn't sound familiar." "They use foxgloves to make digitalis, the heart medication." Sally put her glove back on. "But touching any part of the plant- leaves, flower, stem- with bare hands can cause a whole host of trouble.

I never got to take you to the prom. You went with Henry Featherstone. And you wore a peach-colored dress.” “How could you possibly know that?” Callie asked. “Because I saw you walk in with him.” “You didn’t know I was alive in high school,” Callie scoffed. “You had algebra first period, across the hall from my trig class. You ate a sack lunch with the same three girls every day, Lou Ann, Becky and Robbie Sue. You spent your free period in the library reading Hemingway and Steinbeck. And you went straight home after school without doing any extracurricular activities, except on Thursdays. For some reason, on Thursdays you showed up at football practice. Why was that, Callie?” Callie was confused. How could Trace possibly know so much about her activities in high school? They hadn’t even met until she showed up at the University of Texas campus. “I don’t understand,” she said. “You haven’t answered my question. Why did you come to football practice on Thursdays?” “Because that was the day I did the grocery shopping, and I didn’t have to be home until later.” “Why were you there, Calllie?” Callie stared into his eyes, afraid to admit the truth. But what difference could it possibly make now? She swallowed hard and said, “I was there to see you.” He gave a sigh of satisfaction. “I hoped that was it. But I never knew for sure.” Callie’s brow furrowed. “You wanted me to notice you?” “I noticed you. Couldn’t you feel my eyes on you? Didn’t you ever sense the force of my boyish lust? I had it bad for you my senior year. I couldn’t walk past you in the hall without needing to hold my books in my lap when I saw down in the next class.” “You’re kidding, right?” Trace chuckled. “I wish I were.” “Then it wasn’t an accident, our meeting like that at UT?” “That’s the miracle of it,” Trace said. “It was entirely by accident. Fate. Kisma. Karma. Whatever you want to call it.

am in no mood for small talk with the staff, so I carry a chair to the balcony outside my room and sit. Just sit. My head is spinning. Karma Ura has thrown me for a loop. Happiness is low expectations? How do I reconcile that with my driving ambition, which has served me so well in life? Or has it? And what he said about compassion being the ultimate ambition. What was that about?

Look," I said, "there are plenty of people in the world who believe our destiny is in the hands of some old white guy sitting above us dealing out rewards and punishment like...some old white guy. What I believe makes more sense than that. Some things are meant to be. Fate, destiny, karma-whatever you want to call it. The universe has plans- we just aren't smart enough to know how it works.

Buddha is the only prophet who said, "I do not care to know your various theories about God. What is the use of discussing all the subtle doctrines about the soul? Do good and be good. And this will take you to freedom and to whatever truth there is." He was, in the conduct of his life, absolutely without personal motives; and what man worked more than he? Show me in history one character who has soared so high above all. The whole human race has produced but one such character, such high philosophy, such wide sympathy. This great philosopher, preaching the highest philosophy, yet had the deepest sympathy for the lowest of animals, and never put forth any claims for himself. He is the ideal Karma-Yogi, acting entirely without motive, and the history of humanity shows him to have been the greatest man ever born; beyond compare the greatest combination of heart and brain that ever existed, the greatest soul-power that has even been manifested. He is the first great reformer the world has seen. He was the first who dared to say, "Believe not because some old manuscripts are produced, believe not because it is your national belief, because you have been made to believe it from your childhood; but reason it all out, and after you have analysed it, then, if you find that it will do good to one and all, believe it, live up to it, and help others to live up to it." He works best who works without any motive, neither for money, nor for fame, nor for anything else; and when a man can do that, he will be a Buddha, and out of him will come the power to work in such a manner as will transform the world. This man represents the very highest ideal of Karma-Yoga.

Kove…Karma, and Love put together. The people who truly love me are the ones that will see my love being returned to them. You get what you give…Kove…Or? When you love someone so much…it’s always a sacrifice…some type of karma coming back to fuck with you…Love is never free to me…” She said as my mind slowly tried to wrap around the statement. Never seeing karma used in a positive yet negative light at the same time.

Richard had questioned their luncheon contribution, suggesting cookies were not hearty (or impressive) enough for the occasion. "You're such a good cook, Nellie," he'd said, but she knew what he really meant. He didn't think cookies made the right kind of statement for the Murdochs. But Richard knew nothing of feeding sadness- that was women's work- or how far a simple chocolate chip cookie could go to lift one's mood.

Karma," he said once, "is not a sentence already printed. It is a series of words the author can arrange as she choses." Love. Murder. A broken heart. The professor in the drawing room with candlestick. The detective in the bar with the gun. The guitar player backstage with the pick. Maybe it was true: Life was a series of words we'd been given to arrange as we pleased, only no one seemed to know how. A word game with no right solution, a crossword puzzle where we couldn't quite remember the name of that song.

ultimately, most of us would choose a rich and meaningful life over an empty, happy one, if such a thing is even possible. “Misery serves a purpose,” says psychologist David Myers. He’s right. Misery alerts us to dangers. It’s what spurs our imagination. As Iceland proves, misery has its own tasty appeal. A headline on the BBC’s website caught my eye the other day. It read: “Dirt Exposure Boosts Happiness.” Researchers at Bristol University in Britain treated lung-cancer patients with “friendly” bacteria found in soil, otherwise known as dirt. The patients reported feeling happier and had an improved quality of life. The research, while far from conclusive, points to an essential truth: We thrive on messiness. “The good life . . . cannot be mere indulgence. It must contain a measure of grit and truth,” observed geographer Yi-Fu Tuan. Tuan is the great unheralded geographer of our time and a man whose writing has accompanied me throughout my journeys. He called one chapter of his autobiography “Salvation by Geography.” The title is tongue-in-cheek, but only slightly, for geography can be our salvation. We are shaped by our environment and, if you take this Taoist belief one step further, you might say we are our environment. Out there. In here. No difference. Viewed that way, life seems a lot less lonely. The word “utopia” has two meanings. It means both “good place” and “nowhere.” That’s the way it should be. The happiest places, I think, are the ones that reside just this side of paradise. The perfect person would be insufferable to live with; likewise, we wouldn’t want to live in the perfect place, either. “A lifetime of happiness! No man could bear it: It would be hell on Earth,” wrote George Bernard Shaw, in his play Man and Superman. Ruut Veenhoven, keeper of the database, got it right when he said: “Happiness requires livable conditions, but not paradise.” We humans are imminently adaptable. We survived an Ice Age. We can survive anything. We find happiness in a variety of places and, as the residents of frumpy Slough demonstrated, places can change. Any atlas of bliss must be etched in pencil. My passport is tucked into my desk drawer again. I am relearning the pleasures of home. The simple joys of waking up in the same bed each morning. The pleasant realization that familiarity breeds contentment and not only contempt. Every now and then, though, my travels resurface and in unexpected ways. My iPod crashed the other day. I lost my entire music collection, nearly two thousand songs. In the past, I would have gone through the roof with rage. This time, though, my anger dissipated like a summer thunderstorm and, to my surprise, I found the Thai words mai pen lai on my lips. Never mind. Let it go. I am more aware of the corrosive nature of envy and try my best to squelch it before it grows. I don’t take my failures quite so hard anymore. I see beauty in a dark winter sky. I can recognize a genuine smile from twenty yards. I have a newfound appreciation for fresh fruits and vegetables. Of all the places I visited, of all the people I met, one keeps coming back to me again and again: Karma Ura,

Never take things for granted. Cynthia Ozick once said that “we often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” This could not be truer! Most humans have amnesia when it comes to appreciating things and people that have rewarded them for a long time. When something works perfectly, don’t forget how hard it was to set it up originally. Similarly, don’t be unruly or unappreciative of someone who has showered you with his or her love and affection for a long time. Sometimes, saying thank you can do wonders in someone’s day, week…or life.

A fate without happiness is sadder than a love without destiny,” said the monk. What had prompted the Buddhist monk to say that? I don’t know. John and he had been chatting for a while before I joined their conversation. Afterwards, John and I talked about karma, and John said, “The reason why a fate without happiness is sadder than a love without destiny, is because, as sad as the outcome of love can be when it comes to an end or if not reciprocated, the tragedy of life is not a love without destiny, it is to live as if dead, and to let the life within you wither.

My mom's Busy Day Cake," Nellie said, lifting the carrier slightly. "With lemon frosting and some violets from the garden I sugared." Her mother had often made the cake for social gatherings, telling Nellie everyone appreciated a simple cake. "It's only when you try to get too fancy do you find trouble," Elsie was fond of saying, letting Nellie lick the buttercream icing from the beaters as she did. Some might consider sugaring flowers "too fancy," but not Elsie Swann- every cake she made carried some sort of beautiful flower or herb from her garden, whether it was candied rose petals or pansies, or fresh mint or lavender sugar. Elsie, a firm believer in the language of flowers, spent much time carefully matching her gifted blooms and plants to their recipients. Gardenia revealed a secret love; white hyacinth, a good choice for those who needed prayers; peony celebrated a happy marriage and home; chamomile provided patience; and a vibrant bunch of fresh basil brought with it good wishes. Violets showcased admiration- something Nellie did not have for the exhausting Kitty Goldman but certainly did for the simple deliciousness of her mother's Busy Day Cake.

We got pregnant with Angel almost by accident. I was thinking it was just about time to go on birth control and wham-it happened. We wanted two children, but were thinking of spacing them out a little more. God and Angel had other plans. I’m so glad. Bubba and Angel are so close in age and such good friends that I can’t imagine it any other way. But at the time, I was more than a little apprehensive about it. Once again, it worked out that Chris was preparing to leave just when I was due. They say God only gives you what you can handle. Chris didn’t cope with crying babies very well. So either he paid the military to deploy him with each baby, or God was looking out for him with well-timed, newborn-avoiding deployments. This time, the Team guy karma worked: the sonogram technician confirmed it was a girl several months into the pregnancy. She was going to be the first female born into the Kyle side of the family in eighty years. Which made her unique, and her grandparents particularly tickled. Chris couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease them with the news. “We’re having a boy,” he said when he called them back in Texas with the news. “Oh, how nice,” they said. “No, we’re having a girl.” “Whoo-hoo!” they shouted. “No, we’re having a boy.” “Chris! Which is it!?” “A girl!” If they could have gotten away to visit us that night, I doubt they would have needed an airplane to fly.

That settled something else, too, the troublesome … souped-up thing the Pranksters were always into, this 400-horsepower takeoff game, this American flag-flying game, this Day-Glo game, this yea-saying game, this dread neon game, this … superhero game, all wired-up and wound up and amplified in the electropastel chrome game gleam. It wasn’t the Buddha, not for a moment. Life is shit, said the Buddha, a duress of bad karmas, and satori is passive, just lying back and grooving and grokking on the Overmind and leave Teddy Roosevelt out of it. Grace is in a far country, India by name … Oh, the art of living in India, brothers … And so what if there is no plumbing and the streets are dirty, they have mastered the art of living …

Hunter was superstitious about his actions. He called himself a Road Man for the Lords of Karma. He used that expression several times, most recently the night before he died. I don’t know exactly what he meant by that, but I know he wasn’t joking. He took seriously the idea that evil actions bear evil fruit, and that this is not a matter of psychology, but is a universal law. How he reconciled this with the harm that he inflicted on people around him, on my mother, on me, on countless women, on cabbies, bartenders, waiters, editors, hotel maids, journalists, audience members, and anyone else who encountered his rage, I don’t know. Maybe it all balanced out, the good he did and the harm he did, because he did a tremendous amount of good. He also spoke and wrote of reincarnation. Maybe he was serious about this. Maybe he feared he would be reincarnated as a three-legged dog with the mange in a garbage slum in Brazil, as he once wrote. Or maybe knew he would return as a crazy bodhisattva, to tell the truth and shake us out of our complacency. It is said that when the Tibetan Dalai Lama dies, he is reincarnated not long afterward somewhere else in Tibet. A group of high lamas goes in search of him, based on visions received during meditation, and when they find a candidate, they present him with things owned by the previous Dalai Lama mixed in with other objects. The true reincarnation identifies unerringly those objects that had once belonged to him. Perhaps someday I will encounter a young boy who will recognize this medallion as his, and then I will tell him all about who he had been and all that he did.

Mandana Misra was a great scholar and authority on the Vedas and Mimasa. He led a householder’s life (grihastha), with his scholar-philosopher wife, Ubhaya Bharati, in the town of Mahishi, in what is present-day northern Bihar. Husband and wife would have great debates on the veracity of the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita and other philosophical works. Scholars from all over Bharatavarsha came to debate and understand the Shastras with them. It is said that even the parrots in Mandana’s home debated the divinity, or its lack, in the Vedas and Upanishads. Mandana was a staunch believer in rituals. One day, while he was performing Pitru Karma (rituals for deceased ancestors), Adi Shankaracharya arrived at his home and demanded a debate on Advaita. Mandana was angry at the rude intrusion and asked the Acharya whether he was not aware, as a Brahmin, that it was inauspicious to come to another Brahmin’s home uninvited when Pitru Karma was being done? In reply, Adi Shankara asked Mandana whether he was sure of the value of such rituals. This enraged Mandana and the other Brahmins present. Thus began one of the most celebrated debates in Hindu thought. It raged for weeks between the two great scholars. As the only other person of equal intellect to Shankara and Mandana was Mandana’s wife, Ubhaya Bharati, she was appointed the adjudicator. Among other things, Shankara convinced Mandana that the rituals for the dead had little value to the dead. Mandana became Adi Shankara’s disciple (and later the first Shankaracharya of the Sringeri Math in Karnataka). When the priest related this story to me, I was shocked. He was not giving me the answer I had expected. Annoyed, I asked him what he meant by the story if Adi Shankara himself said such rituals were of no use to the dead. The priest replied, “Son, the story has not ended.” And he continued... A few years later, Adi Shankara was compiling the rituals for the dead, to standardize them for people across Bharatavarsha. Mandana, upset with his Guru’s action, asked Adi Shankara why he was involved with such a useless thing. After all, the Guru had convinced him of the uselessness of such rituals (Lord Krishna also mentions the inferiority of Vedic sacrifice to other paths, in the Gita. Pitru karma has no vedic base either). Why then was the Jagad Guru taking such a retrograde step? Adi Shankaracharya smiled at his disciple and answered, “The rituals are not for the dead but for the loved ones left behind.

There was one monk who never spoke up. His name was Vappa, and he seemed the most insecure about Gautama coming back to life. When he was taken aside and told that he would be enlightened, Vappa greeted the news with doubt. “If what you tell me is true, I would feel something, and I don’t,” he said. “When you dig a well, there is no sign of water until you reach it, only rocks and dirt to move out of the way. You have removed enough; soon the pure water will flow,” said Buddha. But instead of being reassured, Vappa threw himself on the ground, weeping and grasping Buddha’s feet. “It will never happen,” he moaned. “Don’t fill me with false hope.” “I’m not offering hope,” said Buddha. “Your karma brought you to me, along with the other four. I can see that you will soon be awake.” “Then why do I have so many impure thoughts?” asked Vappa, who was prickly and prone to outbursts of rage, so much so that the other monks were intimidated by him. “Don’t trust your thoughts,” said Buddha. “You can’t think yourself awake.” “I have stolen food when I was famished, and there were times when I stole away from my brothers and went to women,” said Vappa. “Don’t trust your actions. They belong to the body,” said Buddha. “Your body can’t wake you up.” Vappa remained miserable, his expression hardening the more Buddha spoke. “I should go away from here. You say there is no war between good and evil, but I feel it inside. I feel how good you are, and it only makes me feel worse.” Vappa’s anguish was so genuine that Buddha felt a twinge of temptation. He could reach out and take Vappa’s guilt from his shoulders with a touch of the hand. But making Vappa happy wasn’t the same as setting him free, and Buddha knew he couldn’t touch every person on earth. He said, “I can see that you are at war inside, Vappa. You must believe me when I say that you’ll never win.” Vappa hung his head lower. “I know that. So I must go?” “No, you misunderstand me,” Buddha said gently. “No one has ever won the war. Good opposes evil the way the summer sun opposes winter cold, the way light opposes darkness. They are built into the eternal scheme of Nature.” “But you won. You are good; I feel it,” said Vappa. “What you feel is the being I have inside, just as you have it,” said Buddha. “I did not conquer evil or embrace good. I detached myself from both.” “How?” “It wasn’t difficult. Once I admitted to myself that I would never become completely good or free from sin, something changed inside. I was no longer distracted by the war; my attention could go somewhere else. It went beyond my body, and I saw who I really am. I am not a warrior. I am not a prisoner of desire. Those things come and go. I asked myself: Who is watching the war? Who do I return to when pain is over, or when pleasure is over? Who is content simply to be? You too have felt the peace of simply being. Wake up to that, and you will join me in being free.” This lesson had an immense effect on Vappa, who made it his mission for the rest of his life to seek out the most miserable and hopeless people in society. He was convinced that Buddha had revealed a truth that every person could recognize: suffering is a fixed part of life. Fleeing from pain and running toward pleasure would never change that fact. Yet most people spent their whole lives avoiding pain and pursuing pleasure. To them, this was only natural, but in reality they were becoming deeply involved in a war they could never win.

On a certain day, three men were working on a site. A passerby came and asked the first man, “What are you doing?” The man looked up and said, “Hey, are you blind? Can’t you see I’m cutting stone?” The passerby went to the second man and asked the same question. “What do you think I’m doing?” growled the second man. “I’m trying to earn my living. I need to fill my belly.” The passerby went to the third man and asked again, “What are you doing here?” The man stood up in great joy. “I’m building a glorious temple!” All three men were doing the same work. For the first man, his work was simply cutting stone. For the second, his work was simply a means to eke out a livelihood. For the third, his work was an opportunity to create something beautiful that he cared for deeply. The how is the pivotal issue. Every single act in your life can be like this. It is not the content of your life that matters. It is the context of your life that does.

Sam threw up on Mark's new blazer. "Shit," said Mark. "I'm sorry," I said. Sam started to cry. There was a kind of odd murmur in the seats around us, as the smell began to penetrate to the adjoining rows. At any moment the murmur would probably build to a hiss, and then a chorus of boos, and ultimately Sam and I would be stoned to death with Bic pens. "What am I apologizing for?" I said. "It's not my fault." "I know it's not," said Mark. "I'm sorry." "It's not your fault either," I said. "This whole thing is my fault," he said. "If you really believed that, you would have paid my shuttle fare," I said. I picked up Sam and stood up to go to the bathroom with him. Mark began to wipe off his blazer with his handkerchief. "You bought that blazer with Thelma Rice, didn't you?" I said, and started for the back. I didn't even have to hear the answer. Mark's impulse to fall in love is always accompanied by his impulse to purchase clothes with the loved one looking on.

I will never grow tired of the scent of lavender in my kitchen," Elsie had said, pressing her herb-infused fingers to her face. "It smells of contentment, doesn't it?" Contentment was a hard thing to come by for Elsie, so any mention of it had made hope blossom inside Nellie's chest. Elsie began to sing, and Nellie joined in- their voices blending as pleasantly in the small kitchen as the lemon rind and lavender buds within the muffin mixture. Their frequent cooking sessions in those days weren't only an education in home economics; they were also a housewifery training program passed from mother to daughter. Elsie taught Nellie how to make her own bread yeast, and why one should add a dash of oatmeal to soups (to thicken it), and how vinegar keeps boiling cauliflower pristinely white. And underpinning those lessons was Elsie's wish for Nellie to marry a good man, unlike the one she herself committed to. They lived modestly, without luxuries, but Elsie's love for Nellie was as bountiful as her gardens. "You have been my greatest joy," Elsie would murmur to Nellie when she tucked her into bed, kissing her on the forehead, on her cheeks, her eyelids, smelling of roses and dusty baking flour. "My greatest joy.

I wish you to know that you are not ( in fact never will be) going backwards. You cannot undo your good or bad deeds & unlearn all that you took so long to learn. Darling listen – Once you squeeze toothpaste out, you cannot put it back into the tube, whoever you may be. You can’t go back in time to reverse what you have already said or done. Be careful of it! But the good news is that everything, good & bad, even your stupidity, mistakes & failures are a part of your progress (unless it was intentional or planned wrongdoing). If you don’t get the desired success immediately, you will learn & if necessary you will learn the same lesson again. Sweetheart, you are always a product of the lessons that you’ve learned. You are what you are, perhaps more wiser, stronger & full of life today because you went through something terrible & survived a bunch of rainstorms & kept walking with humbleness. I wish & hope that you are going to be more driven than ever & be telling a different story very soon. One of victory over everything, success, healing, health, abundance, love, happiness, peace & great joy. Enjoy your journey & think of the bigger picture. Keep your intentions pure & Keep doing your best every day!

other cultures have provided its members with various answers to the question “What is the purpose of human life?” Some cultures have said it is to live a good life and so eventually escape the cycle of karma and reincarnation and be liberated into eternal bliss. Some have said it is enlightenment—the recognition of the oneness of all things and the attainment of tranquility. Others have said it is to live a life of virtue, of nobility and honor. There are those who teach that the ultimate purpose in life is to go to heaven to be with your loved ones and with God forever. The crucial commonality is this: In every one of these worldviews, suffering can, despite its painfulness, be an important means of actually achieving your purpose in life. It can play a pivotal role in propelling you toward all the most important goals. One could say that in each of these other cultures’ grand narratives—what human life is all about—suffering can be an important chapter or part of that story. But modern Western culture is different. In the secular view, this material world is all there is. And so the meaning of life is to have the freedom to choose the life that makes you most happy. However, in that view of things, suffering can have no meaningful part. It is a complete interruption of your life story—it cannot be a meaningful part of the story.

My former girlfriend said: ‘You don’t deserve the house you have; it’s too good for you.’ I replied: “I found a house that matched all your criteria, to make you happy. If you lost it, and ended up sleeping in a filthy room in a shared apartment, is because you don’t deserve me, I was too good for you, you disappointed me by trying to find a guy that matches you better, and you made me very unhappy. Your priories were wrong.’ Life does not offer gifts or rewards, but opportunities. Nobody is entitled to anything. Only behavior and labor defines us and what we have. Whenever you make a choice, you follow one path and move apart from another. If your job occupies more importance in your mind, time and actions, than your dream, then you will not accomplish your dream but maybe receive a raise in your salary instead and be happy with that loss. If you look at relationships as a toy store, if you look at your companion as easily replaceable, then you will very likely lose the one you have. If you rather enjoy life with your friends than with your companion, you will end up alone. If you insult the wise, you then end up surrounded by fools. If you neglect your wealth, you will likely end up poor. If you destroy love, you will end up feeling unloved. If you destroy the good that comes to you, you will end up experiencing evil. Life will always reflect your actions, words and thoughts. You are what you spend most of your time doing, saying and thinking. Your life is always a reflection of your priorities. If you spend your time partying, insulting and occupying your mind with nonsense from social media, music with degrading lyrics, and movies that promote antisocial values, you get zero from life.

It is attributed to Gautama, the Buddha, that he spoke of “desirelessness.” When he said “desirelessness,” he is not stupid to think that people can exist here without desire; he knows that without desire there is no existence. You being desireless means you have no identification with your desires; your desires are only about what is needed. You have no personal identity with the desires that you play with. Desires are just things that you play with. Without desire, there is no game at all, but now the desires are not about you anymore. It is just the way it’s needed for this moment, for this situation. Once that awareness is there – once you are desireless in that sense, there is no karmic bondage for that person. Whatever he does, even if he fights a war, there is no karma for him because he has no desire to do anything like that. It’s not coming out of his love for something or hate for something. It is just coming because simply, that’s the way. That is the whole Gita. See, Krishna is constantly talking about nishkarma – not performing any karma, but insisting that Arjuna should act. He is talking about the same desirelessness with a different language and a different connotation, but nevertheless it is the same thing. Here we are just talking about simply accepting. Just accepting everything is desirelessness, in a certain way. It does not mean you will become still and you will become incapable of activity or anything like that. It’s just that, once you are truly accepting what is there, you’re not identified with anything. Everything is there the way it is, do whatever you can do about it. That’s all there is. You can be deeply involved with everything, but still not be identified with it any more.

Now, using her limited artistic skills, she drew a picture of the earth and colored the ocean blue and the land green. “Who can tell me where we come from?” The assignment had come to Amisha after she and Ravi had a discussion with the boys about karma and the universe’s determination of their place. Jay had asked, in his innocence, what crime Ravi had committed in his previous life to be born an untouchable in this one. Amisha started to scold, but Ravi had assured her it was fine, and yet neither had the answer as to why one was born into his station in life. “God?” one student answered. “Evolution. We came from apes,” another answered. “And how do we live our life?” Amisha saw their confusion and tried to explain. “Once we are born, are we still controlled by the person or event that made us? Are we puppets?” The students shook their heads no. “Then how do we make our decisions?” “Our hearts.” Neema’s answer was tentative, sounding more like a question. Amisha nodded her approval, offering encouragement. “Our gut,” a boy in the front added. “What feels right.” “Our soul?” Amisha asked the boy. At his nod, she said, “Excellent—all of you.” Amisha made sure the class was focused before continuing. “The heart and soul work on emotions. They don’t always stop to think about what is right or wrong, only what they want and need. So where do they get their direction?” “From the brain.” The answer came from the back of the room. “Correct. Our minds guide us toward what is acceptable for us to create, protect, or destroy. And where does the brain get its intellect?” Amisha searched the room for an answer. At first the class was quiet, the children glancing at one another to see if anyone had the answer. Finally, a student near the front answered, “From what we learn or have been taught. By knowledge?” “Excellent. But even with our brains, heart, and soul guiding us, can we do anything we want? Do we have the freedom to make our own choices?” When the class murmured no, she asked, “Why not?” “Our parents,” a student threw out, making everyone laugh. “The Raj,” a girl in the front whispered. “Rules,” Neema said. Thrilled that the students were interested, Amisha said, “I want all of you to write about creating something you want, destroying something you don’t need, and protecting what is vital. But you must explain how your heart, your soul, and your mind feel about each event.

There is a wonderful story in the yogic lore. One day, one gnana yogi, one bhakthi yogi, one karma yogi, and one kriya yogi were walking together. Usually these four people can never be together, because gnana yogi has total disdain for every other yoga; it is the yoga of intelligence. Normally, an intellectual person, a thinking person has complete disdain for everybody else. A bhakthi yogi, full of emotion and love, thinks all this gnana, karma and kriya yoga is just a waste of time. Just love God and it will happen. The karma yogi thinks that everybody is lazy and that they have all kinds of fancy philosophies; what needs to be done is work. One must work and work and work. The kriya yogi just laughs at everything. The whole existence is energy. If you don’t transform your energy, whether you long for God or you long for anything, nothing is going to happen. So they can’t be together, but today they were walking together. Then it started to rain. They were in the forest and it started raining. They started running, looking for shelter, and there they found an ancient temple which just had a roof, no walls on the sides. In the center, there was a Linga. So these people went inside the temple for shelter. The storm became more and more furious and it started blowing in torrents. The fury of the storm was getting into the temple so they went closer and closer and closer to the Linga. There was no other way to be because it was just blasting them from all sides. Then it became very furious. There was no other place; the only way they could get some protection was for all four to hug the Linga. Suddenly they felt something enormous happening. A huge presence, a fifth presence was there. Then all of them said, “Why now? For so many years we have pursued You and nothing happened; why now?” Then Shiva said, “At last the four of you got together. I have been waiting for this to happen for a long time.

I don't like your little games Don't like your tilted stage The role you made me play Of the fool, no, I don't like you I don't like your perfect crime How you laugh when you lie You said the gun was mine Isn't cool, no, I don't like you (Oh!) But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time I've got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined I check it once, then I check it twice, oh! Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me do I don't like your kingdom keys They once belonged to me You asked me for a place to sleep Locked me out and threw a feast (What?) The world moves on, another day, another drama, drama But not for me, not for me, all I think about is karma And then the world moves on, but one thing's for sure Maybe I got mine, but you'll all get yours But I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time Honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time I've got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined I check it once, then I check it twice, oh! Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me Ooh, look what you made me do Look what you made me do Look what you just made me do Look what you just made me do I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams

.. Long before the lizards, before the dinosaurs, two spores set out on an incredible journey. They came to a valley bathed in the placid glow of sunset. My elder sister, said the little spore to the bigger spore, let us see what lies beyond. This valley is green, replied the bigger spore, I shall journey no farther. I want to journey, said the little spore, I want to discover. She gazed in wonder at the path before her. Will you forget your sister? asked the bigger spore. Never, said the little spore. You will, little one, for this is the loveless tale of karma; in it there is only parting and sorrow. The little spore journeyed on. The bigger spore stayed back in the valley. Her roots pierced the damp earth and sought the nutrients of death and memory. She sprouted over the earth, green and contented ... A girl with silver anklets and eyes prettied with surma came to Chetali’s valley to gather flowers. The Champaka tree stood alone—efflorescent, serene. The flower-gatherer reached out and held down a soft twig to pluck the flowers. As the twig broke the Champaka said, My little sister, you have forgotten me!

Isabel Hickey also influenced me, when in her monumental book Astrology, A Cosmic Science, she said something very interesting about the fifth house: “This is a house of hidden karma; hidden karma specifically involving how we’ve misused our will and the love principle.

Well, it will continue until the destruction of its cause”. “And what is that, Sir?” “The way we identify with our body as the doer of action. And this lifelong habit is only destroyed by knowing oneself to be the bodiless Self. This is why it is said that knowledge is the fire that reduces karma to ashes”.

Karma, like I said, is activity; to do. And activity should be a tool for self-discovery. You have to walk that path alone, though. Understand your own inner drama. Confront it. Then master it. That will bring you closer to dharma.

When asked why the wind circle upholding the Sumeru realm did not disperse, Indian scholars said that it was held together by the force of karma ("action") of living beings. Indians believed that all action leaves behind results; good actions leave good results, and evil actions leave evil results. Therefore, action does not disappear as soon as it is completed. An unseen force remains, the consequence of both individual actions and the actions of all living beings taken together. Buddhism calls the entirety of action, including its results, combined karma or common karma. It is this combined karma that prevents the wind circle from dispersing.

There’s a lot to be said for spiteful pettiness. It’s underrated by those moral do-gooders who jive to the beat of karma.

as a former prophecy god, I enjoy bits of spiritual wisdom.” “Then you’ll have to ask the satyr,” Piper said. Grover cleared his throat. “Um, recycling is good karma?” “There you go,

Karma said BATTER UP

including Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella, who grew up in Hyderabad but has lived for decades in the Seattle area of the USA. Satya Nadella is a brilliant man, but his early cultural training carves deeply his thinking about how women should behave at work. At a conference to celebrate over 8000 female engineers in Arizona, USA, Nadella was asked what advice he would give a woman on how to ask for a salary raise. He said, ‘It’s not really about asking for a raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will give you the right raise . . . that might be one of the “initial superpowers” that, quite frankly, women who don’t ask for a raise have. It’s good karma. It will come back.

Oh, no, they’ve still expelled you. Your headmaster, Mr. Bonsai, said you had—how did he put it?—un-groovy karma that disrupted the school’s educational aura.

Soen-sa said, “In the past, you have sown certain seeds that now result in your encountering Buddhism. Not only that—some people come here only once, while others stay and practice very earnestly. When you practice Zen earnestly, you are burning up the karma that binds you to ignorance. In Japanese the word for ‘earnest’ means ‘to heat up the heart.’ If you heat up your heart, this karma, which is like a block of ice, melts and becomes liquid. And if you keep on heating it, it becomes steam and evaporates into space. Those people who practice come to melt their hindrances and attachments. Why do they practice? Because it is their karma to practice, just as it is other people's karma not to practice. Man's discriminating thoughts build up a great thought-mass in his mind, and this is what he mistakenly regards as his real self. In fact, it is a mental construction based on ignorance. The purpose of Zen meditation is to dissolve this thought-mass. What is finally left is the real self. You enter into the world of the selfless. And if you don't stop there, if you don't think about this realm or cling to it, you will continue in your practice until you become one with the Absolute.” The first student said, “What do you mean by the Absolute?” Soen-sa said, “Where does that question come from?” The student was silent. Soen-sa said, “That is the Absolute.” “I don't understand.” “No matter how much I talk about it, you won't understand. The Absolute is precisely something you can't understand.

All the thoughts you have thought, all the words you have spoken, all the actions you have done with your body—these are your karma that follows and continues you. Everything else you leave behind. Here we are speaking of inheriting not our parents’ savings, but the fruits of our own actions. What we have thought, said, and done is called karma, which in Sanskrit means action. What we do, say, and think continues on after the act is done, and its fruits follow us.

Krishna’s form expanded so that it stretched from above the sky to the bottom of the sea. He was as resplendent as a thousand suns. From his breath emerged countless worlds. Between his teeth were crushed countless worlds. In him Arjuna saw all that was, is and will be—all the oceans, all the mountains, all the continents, the worlds above the sky and the worlds below the earth. Everything came from him, everything returned to him. He was the source of all Manavas, Devas, Asuras, Nagas, Rakshasas, Gandharvas, Apsaras, of all forefathers and all descendants. He was the container of all the possibilities of life. The sight made Arjuna aware of the enormity of the cosmos and his relative insignificance. He felt like a grain of sand on a vast endless beach. If Krishna was an ocean, this moment, this war, was but a wave. So many waves, so many opportunities to discover the sea. This war, this life, his rage and his frustrations, everything in this world was a pointer to the soul. ‘Remember, Arjuna,’ said Krishna, ‘he who says he kills and he who says he is killed are both wrong. I am both the killer and the killed. Yet I cannot die. I am your flesh and your soul, that which changes and that which does not change. I am the world around you, the spirit inside you and the mind in between. I am the measuring scale, the one who measures and that which is measured. I alone can bend the rules of space and time. I alone can shatter the web of karma. Realize me. Become a master of your intellect as a charioteer masters his horses and you will realize it is not about the war, it is not about fighting or not fighting, it is not about winning or losing, but it is about taking decisions and discovering the truth about yourself. When you do this, there will be no fear, there will be no ego; you will be at peace, even in the midst of what the deluded call war.

Oh. Liam." Madison cut her off, smirking when Liam walked out of the restroom behind her, still adjusting his tie. "Nice to see you again." Totally nonplussed, Liam smiled. "Madison." "Men's room closed?" "Not at all." He put an arm around Daisy's shoulder and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Just needed a little alone time with may fiancée." Madison's smile faded. "You're still engaged?" "Yes, we are." He held up Daisy's hand to show off the diamond ring he'd bought her to replace the Sharks ring he'd given her at the bus stop. "When you meet the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with, you don't let her go." Daisy slipped an arm through Liam's. "How's Orson?" "Orson?" Madison frowned as if she had no idea who Daisy was talking about. "Oh. He's gone. Maybe New York?" "I'm sorry to hear that." "I was sorry to hear that Organicare was going under." Madison's smirk returned. "I was wondering if you were interested in coming back to work for me. I need a senior software engineer and---" "Organicare isn't going under," Daisy said. "We've given the company a total overhaul and we've just secured our Series B funding. I've had interest from other investors and I'm here to meet some of them right now. So, if you'll excuse me..." "She's the CEO," Liam said, beaming. "She saved the company and now she's running the whole show." "Congratulations." Madison's voice was flat as she checked her watch. "You're right about the time. I've got a meeting in five minutes. I'd better go." "You didn't have to do that," Daisy said to Liam. "It was a little bit petty." "You enjoyed every second of it." Her lips tipped in a smile. "Okay. I did. She was like every mean girl in high school who mocked me, and now the tables have turned and not only am I running a company, I got the coolest guy in school.

I’ve blown my cover,” I told him. “Now every weirdo with a drop of power will be coming over to investigate.” “It’s like you had a coming-out party,” Andrea said. “You’ve been presented to polite society, except now everybody wants to kill you.” “Spare me.” “Kate Daniels, a debutante.” Andrea grinned. “It’s not funny.” “It’s hilarious.” The smile slid off Andrea’s face and she vomited on the snow. “Karma,” I told her.

I’ll be voting, but I’m not about to vote yes. That Teenup man you’re all trying to save is just another money-sucking teacher as far as I’m concerned.” “And you’re just an old fart who doesn’t know his head from his butt,” I said. “You get off my porch!” he roared. Lexie grabbed my hand and got me away from there as fast as she could, before I said anything more. I didn’t mean any disrespect to Mr. Geezer, but he didn’t have the right to talk about T that way. I lost my head—and my tongue—after he said those awful things. I don’t know anything about it, but somehow Mr. Geezer woke up the next morning with his house and car gift-wrapped in VOTE YES flyers. He even had SAVE MR. TERUPT written in huge black letters across his garage door. From what I understand, it was written in washable marker, but it was still there several days later. That’s what I call karma!

The Buddhist teachings on respect for other people point in two directions. First, the obvious one: respect for those ahead of you on the path. As the Buddha once said, friendship with admirable people is the whole of the holy life, for their words and examples will help get you on the path to release. This doesn’t mean that you need to obey their teachings or accept them unthinkingly. You simply owe it to yourself to give them a respectful hearing and their teachings an honest try. give them a respectful hearing and their teachings an honest try. Even— especially—when their advice is unpleasant, you should treat it with respect. As Dhammapada 76 states, Regard him as one who points out treasure, the wise one who seeing your faults rebukes you. Stay with this sort of sage. For the one who stays with a sage of this sort, things get better, not worse.

I had said those things he’d quoted. Now I was one of those insufferable idiots, pining after the only woman who’d ever broken my heart. Karma was an even bigger bitch than fate.

In his famous commencement speech at Stanford University, Steve Jobs said: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

God, it’s sexy when you’re vindictive.” “Not vindictive,” I informed him haughtily. “It’s karma, just like you said. Only, we’re helping it along.

I don’t kill people in large numbers like you did. People that never raised a hand at you,” I said, full of disgust. “You weren’t forced to kill. You loved to kill. Your sadism was contagious, like an infectious disease. It knows no bounds. You break people, you put them together broken, and they become your shadow long after you’re dead. Your wickedness infects one generation after another. You’re the true face of evil.” I stepped forward. He stepped back. His furry hooves clacked on the floor. He appeared uglier now that I could scan the whole of his body. Top half a soldier with the face blown off; the bottom half a goat. What a sight. This was his form in the afterlife.

For instance, if you believe that actions can have an impact on future rebirths, your calculations will be very dierent from what they would be if you believed that actions gave no results, or gave results that went no further than this lifetime. In giving clear answers to these larger questions, the Dhamma oers much more than a guide to the present. It explains how to recognize past mistakes so that you can learn from them, and how to plan for a satisfactory future. In providing this framework, the Dhamma gives you standards for deciding which kinds of actions will be skillful and which ones won’t. As the Buddha said, the primary duty of any responsible teacher is to provide a student both with the confidence that there are such things as skillful and unskillful actions, and with standards for recognizing, in any given situation, which is which. Any interpretation of the Dhamma that neglects this framework—or treats the issue of what happens at death as a mystery—counts as irresponsible.

We do not do this people—EVER Have not changed one fucking bit, have you? Didn't I fucking tell you I am not your cat toy anymore. You filthy dirty rotten demon snake. I only hope others do you as you did me, for karma be onto you! I curse you, so your dreams will turn to ash, I curse you, so your nightmares come to pass. I curse the path beneath your feet, To lead you where the shadows meet. I curse the words upon your tongue, To sour before they're ever sung. I curse your heart to feel the cold, Where once it burned with love untold. I curse the sun to blind your eyes, The moon to leave you in disguise. I curse your hope, that fragile thread, To snap and leave you lost instead. I curse your rest, no peace you'll find, No comfort for your troubled mind. And when you seek the stars above, I curse them to betray your love. I curse your words to turn on you, For all you said, and all untrue. I curse the ones you hold most dear, To see your faults and disappear. I only hope, as time runs through, That others do as you did do. For every lie, and every scheme, May karma catch you in its gleam. The hurt you caused will find its way, A debt to pay, no more delay. For fate will turn, it always does— And what you gave returns because. I curse you deep, from soul to bone, To walk this world, but not your own. And as you watch your world decay, Remember well who spoke this day.

He backed up to the front door and opened it. He looked Tameka dead in her eyes and calmly said, “You gotta go.” Tameka

self-help author Wayne Dyer said, ‘How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

If it be said that it is the mind that produces Karma (I ask), what is the mind? If you mean the heart, the heart is a material thing, and is located within the body. How can it, by coming quickly into the eyes and ears, distinguish the pleasing from the disgusting in external objects? If there be no distinction between the pleasing and the disgusting, why does it accept the one or reject the other? Besides, the heart is as much material and impenetrable as the eyes, ears, hands, and feet. How, then, can the heart within freely pass to the organs of sense without? How can this one put the others in motion, or communicate with them, in order to co-operate in producing Karma? If it be said that only such passions as joy, anger, love, and hatred act through the body and the mouth and enable them to produce Karma, (I should say) those passions—joy, anger, and the rest—are too transitory, and come and go in a moment. They have no Substance (behind their appearances). What, then, is the chief agent that produces Karma? It might be said that we should not seek after (the author of Karma) by taking mind and body separately (as we have just done), because body and mind, as a whole, conjointly produce Karma. Who, then, after the destruction of body by death, would receive the retribution (in the form) of pain or of pleasure? If it be assumed that another body is to come into existence after death, then the body and mind of the present life, committing sins or cultivating virtues, would cause another body and mind in the future which would suffer from the pains or enjoy the pleasures. Accordingly, those who cultivate virtues would be extremely unlucky, while those who commit sins very lucky. How can the divine law of causality be so unreasonable? Therefore we (must) acknowledge that those who merely follow this doctrine are far from a thorough understanding of the origin of life, though they believe in the theory of Karma. 2.

It is in the legitimation of death that the transcending potency of symbolic universes manifests itself most clearly, and the fundamental terror-assuaging character of the ultimate legitimations of the paramount reality of everyday life is revealed. The primacy of the social objectivations of everyday life can retain its subjective plausibility only if it is constantly protected against terror. On the level of meaning, the institutional order represents a shield against terror. To be anomic, therefore, means to be deprived of this shield and to be exposed, alone, to the onslaught of nightmare. While the horror of aloneness is probably already given in the constitutional sociality of man, it manifests itself on the level of meaning in man’s incapacity to sustain a meaningful existence in isolation from the nomic constructions of society. The symbolic universe shelters the individual from ultimate terror by bestowing ultimate legitimation upon the protective structures of the institutional order.75 Very much the same may be said about the social (as against the just discussed individual) significance of symbolic universes. They are sheltering canopies over the institutional order as well as over individual biography. They also provide the delimitation of social reality; that is, they set the limits of what is relevant in terms of social interaction. One extreme possibility of this, sometimes approximated in primitive societies, is the definition of everything as social reality; even inorganic matter is dealt with in social terms. A narrower, and more common, delimitation includes only the organic or animal worlds. The symbolic universe assigns ranks to various phenomena in a hierarchy of being, defining the range of the social within this hierarchy.76 Needless to say, such ranks are also assigned to different types of men, and it frequently happens that broad categories of such types (sometimes everyone outside the collectivity in question) are defined as other than or less than human. This is commonly expressed linguistically (in the extreme case, with the name of the collectivity being equivalent to the term “human”). This is not too rare, even in civilized societies. For example, the symbolic universe of traditional India assigned a status to the outcastes that was closer to that of animals than to the human status of the upper castes (an operation ultimately legitimated in the theory of karma-samsara, which embraced all beings, human or otherwise), and as recently as the Spanish conquests in America it was possible for the Spaniards to conceive of the Indians as belonging to a different species (this operation being legitimated in a less comprehensive manner by a theory that “proved” that the Indians could not be descended from Adam and Eve). The

The one whose ego of doer-ship in the unfolding karma effect (oodai no garva) is gone; he is said to have attained the Self.

In tribunal, Mother held a funeral. Fake condolers spread, A debate they held For here I was, Behind bars, Her heart I took stealthily, And she… Fell for me, Unwillingly. Silence! the judge said to audience: Mother, defense, Reporters, radio agents, The girl's father; the wronged. Plead your case, judge says, to the father, my prosecutor, to guillotine, pushing me closer. "This boy is but a thief, Stealing a heart from my daughter. His poetry starting a war within her, Between his charm and care For her and another, Between his eloquence and fear, And how much closer she went. On love she came to reflect. And his way a choice she sent: Love not the rhyme, but me… repent. Or let poetry be enough, throw away my love. Of quitting poetry, he reported then betrayed her heart and stole it. Now without him she is With her love he lives And caused his madness her death This, your honor is the case. I now demand Justice, And the guillotine." "Silence! Defense." This boy, your honor, A poet and a sweet-talker, Both things, inevitable and meritless. He, I say, shall be sold To the unemployed, And those who of hope are void, Or to radio agents To break him apart And be, for entertainment, sold in a gallery of yearning and joining, specially or renouncement and criticism, alternately, or love unescapable. Money, it shall yield, a compensation to the girl and her lost heart that is now ancient." "Silence! The Mother." "Your honor, If him you must kill, Include me in the will. Let the pond of his blood Water the crops Let its source be my heart and his unpublished poems and the starved bellies and the nibs of birds the branch inhabitants That should be rather the middle Between his memory and the kill Rather fearless Not a hunger filled injustice" The father, "I object, It is all of him I want A compensation for my daughter and her heart" The defense, "Rather to pieces be fractioned, Between the ill, the unemployed and the runaway; Divided." A humming noise, In his honor's chest, In my rhymes, Rather… in the entire court. "Silence!", he said. He a man who is free His heart telling him to revolt The only power he's got Is but a plea to God To be by the revolution killed not And by karma hit not. What I now see fit, Is for him to be executed, by what to his nature is opposite. Deny him the pen And the flag Tell him every detail of the girl and her lost heart No way to reach her will be allowed he This is my decree Allowed not his poetry Is but death to the free To be by his words suffocated To love stealthily "All Rise!" "Case dismissed." Oh, la la la Oh, la la la

I often had thoughts of vengeance, but I never felt they consumed me. In the days after our conversation, I thought about what Lee had said about Lydia’s killer having a new beginning in a different life. I didn’t want it to get in the way of justice, but didn’t everyone deserve a chance to begin again and become a better person? I think Lee knew he could reach my spirit of fairness, and as a human being –or near enough to one, it seemed unfathomable that someone should be made to pay for their past-life transgressions in a future life. I suppose that’s what karma was, in a way, just very different from an avenging fae. It didn’t mean I wouldn’t punish him, of course, if I had the chance.