Superstition or karma?

Question

my neice claims she believes in karma, yet she is very superstitious, surely this is a contradiction? if you believe in karma you believe that things are meant to happen, but if you are superstitious then you are trying to change what could happen?

Answer 1

Karma is more than the belief in "whatever will be, will be". It is the belief that "what goes around, comes around". People invoke negative Karma by doing the wrong thing by other people. Likewise, they invoke positive Karma by doing the right thing by others. To me, superstitions are similar because they involve a person trying to ensure positive outcomes with the way they behave. With Karma the outcome may be unknown, you just know that something good, or bad will happen to you because of the way you have behaved. With superstition you are usually trying to prevent or ensure a specific outcome.

Answer 2

It's not a contradiction. Karma is basically "what goes around, comes around" and "you reap what you sow". So you can believe in Karma and be superstitious at the same time.

Answer 3

A lot of people have ideas of Karma far removed from the actual meaning of Karma (like when Wiccans who don't know better use it to mean the Law of Return when it's not the same thing.)

It sounds like her definition of the term does not include the idea that things are meant to happen.

Answer 4

Karma means to reap the harvest of which you sowed. Sow the seeds of Love and Kindness and harvest the fruits of Love and Kindness.

The fruits of Karma is also not immutable, weaker karma can be ended or diminished by acts that are opposite to the karma, hence a good karmic fruit of Love will be dissolved by a negative karmic fruit of hate and vice versa.

Some karmas are so strong there's no way around it, like the karma of being human is to eventually die, no way around that... but its effects can be delayed by plopping loads of good karma over it in order to extend its expiry date haha

Answer 5

Karmic justice works. Superstition is a way of trying to avoid it, or a way of avoiding evil. i.e throwing salt over left shoulder...in the devils eyes..To a Christian Karma is God...He sees all and will punish wrong doing, and reward good. Same thing different wrapper.

Answer 6

if i'm not mistaken, superstition is about luck and karma is basically what you do in everyday life. so I guess if you have superstitious feelings about something, it can kinda be linked with karma since karma is what happens after you do something

Answer 7

They're two completely different concepts.

Fear of karmic retribution is due to someone doing something that could come back on them....usually involving another person.

Superstition is a fear that if you do or don't do something a certain way there will be reprocussions. It doesn't necessarily have to involve another person.

Answer 8

Superstition or Karma, is there a difference? Both are primitive coping mechanisms.

Answer 9

There two diffrent things.
Karma is more a less how you act and what you do come back to you