The Lexicon
Meaning, will, destiny
Karma
Karma is the law of moral causation: every action, word, and intention sets in motion consequences that return, in this life or beyond, to the one who acted. It is the Eastern face of cause and effect raised to the ethical plane, the teaching that we ourselves author the joy and sorrow we meet. Far from blind fate, karma is the perfect justice woven into the order of things, by which the soul reaps the harvest of its own sowing.
Carried by 50 teachers · across 4 traditions · 8 quotes
The Vedic and Buddhist traditions trace this law through lifetimes, and offer release from its binding through right action, purified intention, and the loving heart. Krishna's teaching of karma yoga - action offered without attachment to its fruit - and the Buddhist cultivation of compassion through metta and tonglen are the great paths of working with the law. To understand karma is to take full ownership of one's life and, in time, to act from such freedom that no new bondage is formed.
In their words
Applied to individuals, it is Karma, that is, action. It means that our own actions or deeds bring upon us whatever of joy or misery we experience.Henry Steel Olcott
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage.Gautama Buddha
Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.Galatians 6:7 (KJV, 1611)