I seem to struggle a lot more than I like just to maintain the status quo. I am passed over for jobs, promotions, dates, and opportunities of all kinds because I'm not a boot-licking toady. Considering the hand I've been dealt, I think I'm doing a pretty good job, but I still wonder and hope and look forward to the culmination of efforts in the harvest due me. Although I'm acutely aware of my shortcomings, I know that I deserve better than I'm getting, particularly when I see what other people enjoy in life. I don't know them, but I know me, and I know that, however weak I may be, I really am a pretty good guy. Unfortunately for me, good guys aren't very popular in the world, and so I have to wait longer than I like for what I know I deserve.
Karma takes into account a larger span of space and time than you might think. Often the response is not linked to the immediate action. Consider the drug dealer who is wealthy. People naturally albeit erroneously assume he is blessed because of his activities when often it's in spite of them. Even the best of men is not always on his best behavior, and even the vilest of men show love and favor and mercy to some. The rewards consider the entire picture and take the measure of a man. If you have a bad day or you make a mistake, you don't have to hang forever for a momentary lapse; if you do your alms to be seen of men, your rewards wane quickly; if you only do things for the rewards, well, the universe isn't fooled by that. Karma isn't just about what you do. Why and how we do a thing matter at least as much as what we do. Scripture teaches us that if a man gives a gift grudgingly he is accounted as if he retained that gift. Prophets teach us that there is a difference between mistakes and rebellion and that mistakes are always attended with mercy. Perhaps you are still waiting for Karma to bless you or hurt others because the full measure of the person who is to reap the rewards of what he sowed is not yet ripe. We know from history, from scripture, and sometimes from experience that God allows the wicked to punish the righteous so that there will be no question that His judgement is just. By the same token, God delayed blessing Job in privation so that, after the trial when Job enjoyed more than he had in the beginning, everyone would know why.
When considering the consequences, Karma sometimes occurs incidental to other activities. We like to think that things that occur together are linked, but if we were immediately paid based on our deeds and reaped immediately when we sowed, most people would do the right thing in order to immediately reap the reward. Sir Thomas More wrote in a letter to his daughter, "“If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly. And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that /needs/ no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all... why then perhaps we /must/ stand fast a little --even at the risk of being heroes.” The fact of the matter is that people do what they think will help them and then wait. Coincidence is not causality. The drug dealer is not blessed because he is a drug dealer. He is blessed with riches because he is also a son, a brother, a father, a neighbor, and more importantly one of God's children. When he receives blessings, they are linked to who he is mostly, not what he's doing at the time. For this reason, you constantly see evil men appear to reap the blessings of righteousness and righteous men reap the consequences of wickedness, because the wicked men are sometimes good men too. In the end, karma is not fooled. Constantine converted to Christianity on his death bed hoping to hedge his bets. Well, a lifetime of decadence and villainy is no more ablated by a single magnanimous act than a lifetime of virtue is by some horrific mistake.
Path length matters a great deal in watching for the results of karma. All too often, as aforementioned, the blessings occur at a time far removed from when the actions occurred. Thus, it can easily be inaccurately construed that an evil men receiving blessings received them while doing evil FOR that evil when in reality the universe is simply catching up. People lived a long time before we met them and live in most cases long after they vanish from our lives. In the end, however, you reap what you sow. When confused about waiting for blessings or why evil men seem to escape the consequences, consider that the person in front of you is also the person furthest behind you if the universe and the course of time is a sphere. This means that it sometimes takes a long time for karma to complete its trip when you send it out to the person in front of you and come all the way back around and meet up with you again. You may have to wait a lot longer than you like for Karma to come back around again on its next pass and deliver the consequences. By then, perhaps you've forgotten your own wickedness when you get punished or that other people did kind things when they get blessings you don't think they deserve. On the other side of that coin, wait patiently for what people, including yourself, truly deserve. Scripture teaches us that if we know how to give good gifts to those we love that God certainly does, and the universe conforms to the notion that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". You get what you put into everything that you do.
I wait for a lot of things, and often I'm not very patient. I keep thinking I'm about to come into my own only to watch other people reap what I sow or receive the rewards due me. However, F. Enzio Busche taught that everything you earned that you have not received will come and that everything you received for which you did not pay you will have to pay in the end. The books must balance. The universe will have balance. God will have balance. Sometimes it doesn't come as quickly as we like because the path is longer than we think. Sometimes we forget the entire picture and unjustly link things that coincide without keeping in mind the big picture. Almost every religious and philosophical movement believes in the concept of comparable return- that you reap what you sow, and whether it comes in the form you like or the time frame you prefer, it comes eventually and is fitting even if it appears to be skew to others. We do not know everything about everyone, including ourselves, and we do not spend enough time with other people in order to accurately know what they "deserve". Can we ever really be sure of anyone? People seem to change so quickly, but the universe and its Author see everything and are not fooled. Do not be deceived. Only virtuous means lead to truly and lastingly virtuous ends.
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