Karma vs. Free Will

Benjamin Taylor6 said:Kamala Harris knows exactly what she's talking about. Honestly, let's just grab some tools, head out to the countryside, and get back to basics. Forget the high-tech manufacturing, the massive industrial furnaces, and those endless assembly lines. A simple life in nature—that's where the real comfort is, my 😍
It seems like our Vice President picked up a few ideas from the lady in this video.

She should have picked up way more from that lady in the video... and honestly, who says you can't make progress while still living in harmony with nature? But then again, like everything else in life, it’s all about balance. As humans, we just overdo it because of pure greed... we take way more than we actually need. In the end... yeah... she's right. We need to remember who we really are. If it weren't for human greed and constant brainwashing, we wouldn't even need the technology we rely on today. There are plenty of other technologies out there that aren't harmful like the ones we know, but nobody talks about them. People lose their minds over them because there's too much capital at stake... the wealth of a tiny handful of people would vanish if those alternatives were revealed. So, it's easier to stay ignorant... to just follow the ignorance we've been fed since birth and, of course, "not live in harmony with nature." Because if we did, we'd just be sheep, and nobody wants that, right? Better to just be part of the flock!!

ironharbor8 said:Keep dreaming sweet dreams, right up until you decide it’s time to wake up. 🙂

Well, go ahead and wake me up then...😲

Olivia Smith9 said:She should have picked up way more from that lady in the video... and honestly, who says you can't make progress while still living in harmony with nature? But then again, like everything else in life, it’s all about balance. As humans, we just overdo it because of pure greed... we take way more than we actually need. In the end... yeah... she's right. We need to remember who we really are. If it weren't for human greed and constant brainwashing, we wouldn't even need the technology we rely on today. There are plenty of other technologies out there that aren't harmful like the ones we know, but nobody talks about them. People lose their minds over them because there's too much capital at stake... the wealth of a tiny handful of people would vanish if those alternatives were revealed. So, it's easier to stay ignorant... to just follow the ignorance we've been fed since birth and, of course, "not live in harmony with nature." Because if we did, we'd just be sheep, and nobody wants that, right? Better to just be part of the flock!!

In response, I have one example regarding agricultural technology:
There is a true story that perfectly illustrates how any kind of dietary extremism is nothing short of pure madness. A certain individual had a son studying agronomy at a university in Washington, D.C. For this student, his hero was an unknown man—a former boxer turned massive producer of organic health foods. One spring, the son was helping his father out with the farm work. They were planting potatoes. The father hauled out several bags of synthetic fertilizer. When the son saw this, he immediately started lecturing his old man: “How can you fertilize the soil with those chemicals? That stuff is straight-up poison.” To which the father replied: “My dear son, thirty years ago, I used to grow potatoes using nothing but manure. Those potatoes were incredibly healthy. But unfortunately, I was always hungry. Nowadays, I eat unhealthy potatoes, but I have enough of them that I am never hungry again”!

Benjamin Taylor6 said:In response, I have one example regarding agricultural technology:
There is a true story that perfectly illustrates how any kind of dietary extremism is nothing short of pure madness. A certain individual had a son studying agronomy at a university in Washington, D.C. For this student, his hero was an unknown man—a former boxer turned massive producer of organic health foods. One spring, the son was helping his father out with the farm work. They were planting potatoes. The father hauled out several bags of synthetic fertilizer. When the son saw this, he immediately started lecturing his old man: “How can you fertilize the soil with those chemicals? That stuff is straight-up poison.” To which the father replied: “My dear son, thirty years ago, I used to grow potatoes using nothing but manure. Those potatoes were incredibly healthy. But unfortunately, I was always hungry. Nowadays, I eat unhealthy potatoes, but I have enough of them that I am never hungry again”!

Exactly... so now there's plenty of "unhealthy" potatoes being eaten in massive quantities... the real question is whether his son will be able to tell his own kids about how things used to be before they started planting this stuff... and to wrap up the whole sentiment, I'd add this:
"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Albert Einstein

casualmaker13 said:Well, go ahead and wake me up then...😲

I can't even tell myself 🤣 but I know I'm still dreaming😢

Olivia Smith9 said:Exactly... so now there's plenty of "unhealthy" potatoes being eaten in massive quantities... the real question is whether his son will be able to tell his own kids about how things used to be before they started planting this stuff... and to wrap up the whole sentiment, I'd add this:
"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Albert Einstein

They need to go on a hunger strike. Or just set themselves on fire, like Jan Palach did. 😲 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Palach
Or maybe just rig some dynamite under their eggs, if you ask one of my old buddies. 😂

Benjamin Taylor6 said:They need to go on a hunger strike. Or just set themselves on fire, like Jan Palach did. 😲 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Palach
Or maybe just rig some dynamite under their eggs, if you ask one of my old buddies. 😂

Nooo....hunger strikes aren't the answer..if there isn't enough good potatoes left, they should just eat cookies 😉 ...and we're right back where we started. Quantity vs. quality.. it all comes down to free will and choice... everything we do is a deal we make with ourselves, and ultimately, we're only doing it to ourselves.
That bit about the colleague is hilarious 🙏 ..really gave me a laugh.. it's such a perfect example of people who refuse to think for themselves and instead just follow whatever some institution tells them to do—in this case, the Church... which is basically the textbook definition of an authority figure spreading misinformation and ignorance instead of actual knowledge and facts.👍

Gregory Jackson said:I think those of you who have spent a bit more time exploring spiritual paths might recognize where I'm going with this right away. I figured I’d start things off by sharing a personal story of mine to set the stage. But first, I should probably ramble a little bit about how karma and free will actually play together in all of this.

When we talk about "Karma," I don't really see it as some cosmic scoreboard where you get rewarded or punished for stuff you did in a "past life." I guess it’s more like a tool for the soul—a way for our consciousness to evolve through experience. It’s basically designed to teach us lessons in the most direct way possible, which usually means learning things the hard way, you know? People tend to view it in black and white, thinking everything that happens now is either a blessing or a curse from the past. In my view, we live out certain old karmic patterns through things we didn't choose—like where we were born, our genetics, or even our parents—which sets the scene for what we have to work through. That’s kind of like "mature karma" playing out. At the same time, we’re constantly building new karma based on the choices we make in situations where we *do* have a say. Some extreme perspectives tend to blame everything on old karma, totally ignoring the fact that our current choices matter. They claim free will is just an illusion and we're all just "puppets on a string."

Then there’s "Free Will." In any given moment, I feel like a person has endless paths they could take—countless ways to grow or change direction. Ideally, these choices are truly ours, free from hidden influences. Now, philosophers sometimes argue that free will isn't quite so simple because we're often boxed in by social norms, the economy, or just our own mental baggage. I suppose they aren't wrong; they're talking about the *application* of free will—how much someone actually dares or is able to exercise it. Still, if I decided right now that I wanted to fly off to India, nobody could stop me except myself. There are some pretty radical views out there that suggest we are the absolute masters of our fate, that past-life karma doesn't exist at all, and that everything is just happening in the present based on circumstances we didn't pick.

Anyway, here’s the example to get us started.

It was summertime, and I was out for a stroll through town. I was walking with my wife and our little girl when we ran into an old acquaintance. She has a daughter about the same age as ours, and she dabbles in astrology as a hobby. Since we bumped into each other, we grabbed a drink and ended up chatting about the kids (because, let's face it, that's what parents do). I jokingly complained that our place is so packed with toys that I can barely find a spot to sit down. Our apartment is fine for now, but I mentioned that one day we'll eventually need to look for something bigger. Well, she offered to "take a look" using her astrological methods to see what the future holds regarding our housing situation. We both laughed it off—I mean, hey, if she wants to try, she can't hurt anything, right? This was at the beginning of August. About ten days later, she calls me with the news. She tells me she sees a larger place in my future and that I'll have everything sorted out by October—just two months away! She goes into all these technical details, and I just nod along because, honestly, I barely understand any of that stuff. She says I'll be really happy with the outcome. I told her, "Look, we were just joking; we don't have the cash, it's not urgent, and with the economic downturn hitting, we couldn't even sell our current place if we wanted to." For a few weeks, I just treated it like a funny little anecdote. Money was tight, the market had totally frozen up, and I was feeling pretty depressed about it, so I didn't take a single step toward finding a new home.

Fast forward to the start of September. I'm sitting on a park bench on a quiet Sunday morning, watching my daughter play on the slide. Out of nowhere, that conversation about the apartment pops back into my head. I noticed a local shop nearby was still open, so I hopped over to grab a newspaper and headed back to the bench. I had completely ruled out selling our place and buying a new one because the market panic was so intense that nobody was buying anything. But then I look at the paper, and it's full of listings. There were two houses in my city available for a swap. Only one of them even remotely fit my needs, but even then, the owner wanted something bigger than what I had. Whatever, I figured I'd give it a shot. The guy wasn't thrilled, but I thought, why not meet and see? So, I reached out.

To make a long story short, after weeks of back-and-forth, we finally signed the contract in the last ten days of October. Everything just clicked—the money for the difference appeared out of nowhere, and a bunch of other things fell into place perfectly. Our new place, once we finished the renovations, was a massive leap up from the old one. If we had been choosing locations, we couldn't have picked a better spot; the building had actually been voted the best in the city the year before. I honestly couldn't believe that something like this could happen out of thin air in just two months.

I mean, I honestly couldn't wrap my head around the fact that anyone actually knew about this before it all just... unfolded right in front of me. It kind of felt like I was just some puppet on a string, you know? To be honest, even now, I'm sitting here wondering if it was all just karma playing out—like something you'd see mapped out in an astrology chart—or if it was just me exercising my own free will when I decided to pick up that classifieds magazine, though, God help me, it was mostly just because I was bored out of my mind.

It really makes you wonder, though, how much of our life's situation is just karma (or "destiny," if that’s more your vibe) versus how much is just us making choices? Like, how much is stuff we've been dragging along from our past, and how much is just what we're doing right this second? Where do you even draw that line? How can you tell one apart from the other? If I decided to hop on a plane and fly off to India, would that be karma pulling the strings, or would it just be me using my free will?

Karma and free will aren't opposing forces; they work side-by-side. Regardless of whatever karmic consequences are handed down to us at any given moment, we still retain our free will. No karmic consequence can ever nullify that freedom.

Furthermore, our free will isn't infinite; it exists within a specific framework. This isn't necessarily tied to karma (though karma can temporarily narrow that scope), but rather to our own infinitesimal nature. Because we are so insignificantly small, our free will is also limited—it is constrained by our very smallness. God's free will is infinite because He is infinite, whereas ours is limited because we are finite. This is an inherent quality stemming from our fundamental nature, not some unnatural or imposed restriction.

When you’ve got a goal in life, you tend to go all in to make it happen—but let’s be real, sometimes things just don't pan out. Other times? They just fall into your lap. One minute you’re thinking about it, and the next, boom, there it is, before you even realize what hit you. Now, people talk a lot about "manifesting" or attracting what you want, and they love to credit free will for that. Wrong!!! Totally wrong! Everything is already set in stone—it’s already happened. We like to flatter ourselves by thinking we have free will, but even those actions we claim are our "choices" are really just karmic reactions playing out. Even Jesus talked about how everything is predestined—to the point where He said even the hairs on your head are numbered. At the end of the day, true free will basically doesn't exist. It’s just a concept for people who get caught up in the whole duality trap—you know, the endless back-and-forth of good vs. evil, black vs. white, love vs. malice...

brightnomad5 said:Karma and free will aren't opposing forces; they work side-by-side. Regardless of whatever karmic consequences are handed down to us at any given moment, we still retain our free will. No karmic consequence can ever nullify that freedom.

Furthermore, our free will isn't infinite; it exists within a specific framework. This isn't necessarily tied to karma (though karma can temporarily narrow that scope), but rather to our own infinitesimal nature. Because we are so insignificantly small, our free will is also limited—it is constrained by our very smallness. God's free will is infinite because He is infinite, whereas ours is limited because we are finite. This is an inherent quality stemming from our fundamental nature, not some unnatural or imposed restriction.

I mean, I guess there's a connection there, yeah. But to me, when a karmic consequence actually hits, it feels more like a temporary pause on our freedom—kind of like when you're finally paying the bill for a choice you made earlier using your own free will. So, anyway, I totally get that they exist in this super delicate balance.

We probably need to take a second to figure out what free will even means, right? It isn't just about doing whatever we want or wandering wherever we feel like. We humans tend to act like we're the only things floating around in the cosmos, so I guess we don't even realize what it would be like *not* to have free will. There are actually beings that lack free will entirely, which the Creator brings into existence through various spiritual energies to handle specific jobs—mostly stuff involving how the universe runs, celestial bodies, or certain eco-systems. For instance, I could mention the types of beings that a famous spiritual teacher and Christian mystic from Cyprus met back in the seventies, or even how someone might experience communicating with them during meditation in the late nineties. Unlike some teachers who were a bit wary of them, others found they could communicate quite naturally. These are basically energy-based beings without physical bodies, living up in Earth's atmosphere, and they rarely ever descend below 124 miles because their forms are just too sensitive to technical radiation and stuff like that. They exist in a fixed number—about 600,000 of them—and their whole purpose is to fix specific imbalances in the atmosphere, if you catch my drift.

Since they don't have free will, they basically come into existence with a pre-set mission, which is a massive difference compared to beings with free will. And here is the big thing: they physically cannot have negative or harmful thoughts. Because of that, they can't take any actions that would hurt anyone. They can only think positively and stay perfectly in sync with the Creator's will. That’s where that "lack of freedom" comes in, and it's such a huge distinction. Humans, on the other hand, have this double-edged sword where we can choose anything, and honestly, civilizations often push that extreme so far that it makes us question our own survival and the planet's future. If you look at history, negative thoughts and actions driven by free will seem to be the rule rather than the exception for us.

Richard Lewis4 said:You could have chosen not to pursue a better apartment, even if you felt the need for one. That is what true freedom looks like. But you wanted it, there were no karmic roadblocks in your path, and the universe simply aligned to make it happen for you.

Everything we experience in the present moment is, in some capacity, tethered to our past. Freedom is quite clearly just the harvest of good karma.

True, but when you have karma left to work through... you aren't really free yet. You still have to face it.

Most people look at karma as this cosmic system of rewards and punishments—like some kind of spiritual scoreboard where you get penalized for being a jerk. But maybe we’re looking at it all wrong. What if karma isn't some external judge? What if it's just the soul's own internal compass—that deep-seated drive to stay on the right track, learn from those massive screw-ups we make, and actually try to fix the mess we left behind? If you look at it that way, karma isn't some destiny forced upon you; it’s really just another one of our own free choices.