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You will find several ways to look at karma, and quite a few different ways of describing it. Regardless of the way you view it though, karma is and important universal spiritual law.

The term 'karma' has historically been most frequently considered in terms of ‘good’ or ‘bad'. To complicate matters even more, karma is usually 'weighted'.

A lot of Pagans talk about the 3-Fold or 9-Fold Law (whatever you send out comes back three or 9x, respectively). These are examples of weighted karma, and neither was strictly correct. To clarify, let's take the example of a young soul. The soul gets in a fight with someone, giving them a black eye. That soul has just earned some bad karma. The scales tip. Later, some thing equivalent will occur to them, making the scales come. The karma has been resolved. That is a 1x return. So neither the Three-Fold Law, nor the Nine-Fold Law would apply. Now, let us look at the same situation, but with a really old soul. The scales tip negatively much more heavily this time, because that old soul should've known better. To to balance the scales again, the old soul may well end up getting mugged or beaten severly, landing in the hospital because of it. The end result is far more than nine times the original offense.

Karma does not are simply because of acts of physical violence. Sometimes the acts are so minor as to be unnoticeable, or they may be unbelievably major. It depends upon the actions, the outcomes of those actions, the age or evolutionary level of your soul AS WELL AS your INTENT. As an example:

Let us say that Susan has a thing for Joe and would really like for him to be her boyfriend. But Joe and Betty appear to be a thing, and have been thinking of marriage. Susan is sure that if she were able to break them up, she could get together with Joe. So Susan spreads ugly stories about both of them to everyone they know. Her lies manage to make it back to the couple and the once happy couple go their separate ways. So even though there had been no violence in the picture, Susan’s lies have really harmed two individuals. She has created some huge karma.

Bad karma may be incurred not only through our actions that directly affect another person, but additionally by our behavior towards animals, and the environment. Somebody who leads a life of crime may perhaps very well incur so much bad karma that it will take them several lifetimes to resolve it.

Up til now, we have talked only of negative karma, but karma can also of a positive variety. If we do something great via compassion or love, that will also tip the scales in a positive direction. And that good can either rebound to us by having something good come our way, or will help to pay off the negative karma that we may likely have accumulated. However, doing good simply to earn positive karma isn't sufficient. Good karma is accrued only when the good is done via a sincere desire to do good deeds, or by means of an act of compassion or love. The reason behind the act is an essential consideration. The same is true for negative karma.

One time I read of a woman driving home once with her kids. She drove by a family who was hitchhiking: a man, woman as well as two young kids. She continued home and ate dinner with her family. Her meal was simple, but plentiful. After she had eaten, she got to thinking of that hitchhiking family. She went in search of them, intending to feed them. Unfortunately, she was unable to find them. However, her intentions alone generated positive karma for her.

As previously mentioned, motivation will also have a direct bearing on karma. Sometimes, you may do something that, under normal circumstances would earn bad karma, but because of the motivation, will incur good karma as a result. Let’s take a look at a dramatic example: There is a sharp-shooter with a rooftop firing at and killing people. Obviously, he is earning negative karma. You end up in a position to stop his killing, but the only means for you to do it, is by shooting the sniper. In this situation, you would gain negative karma if you chose to stand by and did nothing, but by shooting him and ending his slaughter, you'll gain good karma because the intent had been for the higher good.

The town where you live has karma. Whether good or bad, this karma is generated by the actions of the city in general as well as actions of the people that reside there. Let’s examine an example community: The politicians in this city are dishonest, and the citizens in the city know it, but continue to elect them. That city will develop bad karma.

Just as communities may generate karma, so may nations. Saddam Hussein created karma when he invaded Kuwait, but so did his entire country. The planet Earth also creates karma.

There's one more aspect of karma to discuss, known as ‘karmic obligations’. This is something that usually happens over lifetimes. In other words, you perform some action in one lifetime incurring karma that has to be paid during another. Suppose that you do anything that has a really deleterious effect on someone else, which you cannot re-balance during that lifetime. The obligation to that person continues after you die. In a subsequent lifetime, or the lifetime after that, you are going to find yourself in the position of paying off that karmic debt. And likely not understanding the reason.