What do you understand by Karma?
I definitely think karma is a reality and I also think that it is a divine reality but I also think it is misunderstood by some of us. Yes, to any action there is a reaction and what comes up must go down but these karmic effects are not that obvious as they might seem in my opinion. Some for example believe that if one is violent at some point in life will generate a violence karma and that he will suffer sometime in the future of violence or even in a future life. I, however, don't think that karma works that way and if "we have served apples to others we are going to receive apples by other in the future".
In my opinion if one has had a violent behavior at some point in time he will have to suffer in the future but not necessarily in a violent way. His crush might leave him and he will suffer for years and get depressed for that, or he will develop some sort of disease and suffer from it or who know what other type of sufferings he will have to get through, so I do believe that karma is more "homogeneous" in its way of affecting people than "heterogeneous". A collection of deeds and habits might generate a set of actions upon someone that is totally different and non related of what that person did to generate that karma.
Now, if we are to take into account reincarnation also and the fact that the soul or the human consciousness might live in multiple bodies through multiple lives until it reaches its final goal then the things get even more ambiguous and hard to grasp and understand. To take again the example of a violent person it might happen that by the end of his life that person would live a normal life and he won't suffer that much as "he should" according to a basic understanding of karma, so what happens? Has that person "solved" everything before dying and paid for anything he did. It might or it might not...
So if reincarnation really exists and I tend to believe it does than such a person might get reincarnated in a future life as a person with a handicap for example or as an abused child or who knows what other type of sufferings he might have to "taste" for his deeds from his past life. Also no one can prove though neither the existence of reincarnation nhore its nonexistence so it is only true in the belief of each of us. I somehow tend to believe it and also tend to believe that this karma that we are talking about "follows" the human soul through multiple lives and even generates to some extent the destiny of the lives.
Now, talking about destiny we can call it a synonym for karma or karma's fruits but is it our whole life predestined and we're only living a script or we have the power of will and choose everything about us? In this regard I believe that we have both of them combined in a divine mix. We have a destiny or a karmic determined scenario for our life but blended with multiple key moments of pure decision over our lives and the ability to change that karma. Now,writing the comment I realized that I only gave example of bad karma by now and it might seem that this is how I see it but it's actually not and here is the trick. In my opinion karma is the sum of everything one lives (deeds, thoughts, feelings, intentions) and by everything I refer to the good, the bad and the insignificant also. Everything.
My personal understanding regarding karma is simple I would say. I see it as a very complex divine mathematical formula that combines almost endless factors generated by a soul/consciousness and uses impossible to grasp by the human mind calculation methods that always lead to the perfect result whether we like it or not or whether we consider it God's will or devil's temptation. That result might be bad or good, beautiful or ugly in our eyes, but ultimately it is perfect. That's how I see it.
Glad to have been able to answer your question and hope you will find my answer insightful. It is definitely a great question for this Saturday evening. Have a nice weekend!
Source of image: pixabay.com