How does "Karma" work?

Everything is destined at birth. But, whatever is destined will be our Karma for the life in this present birth.

And, what we are doing and will be doing in this life is writing our future Karma. For this purpose, we are given the power of free-will.

We can thus decide if our future Karma will be good or not so good, based on our decision to be good boys or bad boys; the choice left to us entirely.

We can do whatever we want in this life of ours, kidnap children, steal body parts and auction them to the highest bidder; rob and rape at will in times of civil unrest or a social uprising; run over people driving a car at high speed; drop bombs on innocent people that include women, children and old people; slice people’s jugulars in the name of religion and God; set up  nuclear tests below ground and in deep sea, resulting in the termination of millions of microbes, insects and animals; there is no end to the atrocities of Man!

What will nature do? Will she ignore all this and keep silent? As we learn from experience, the cosmos is one huge system, an intelligent being, keeping a watch on all our activities, giving back her responses in the course of time.

Ignorance is not an excuse

In any court of law, ignorance of the law is not accepted by the judge as an excuse.

The catch is that there is a gap in time (sometimes even across lives) between our actions and the repercussions. So, we as humans have failed to appreciate it and refuse to accept it as the truth.

An example would be similar to this. we take a loan from a friend. The friend forgets all about it. But, we remember it. Years roll by and at his daughter’s marriage, we give him back the loan amount with interest as a wedding present.

That is what Karma does for us. Justice is always done, in time.

Life is complicated till we understand this. But, once we have understood this, it is up to us to keep a check on our passions and lead the straight path.

It is difficult, but since we have the key to the question of life, we can always correct ourselves when we find that we are deviating from the straight path; the right path.