Does Karma Exist?

If you haven't read the SooPoo's story about Pai Gow, I direct you here PAI GOW STORY

Nearly everybody on this forum seems to believe that luck doesn't exist in any way, shape or form... that everything that happens has a mathematical probability and all we view is the variance and blah blah blah...

However, after reading this story, it seems to me that Karma may have been in play. Perhaps it is, and perhaps it isn't. However, my argument is you can't believe in karma if you don't believe in luck. Again, there MUST be a mathematical probability.

Logically, I know that luck is a way for us to identify positive trends (or negative) in our lives..

So what do you think? Does karma exist?

Tilt... I will say that Karma doesn't really exist. If you take, for example, my story of the jerk at the table.... Well what happened to the good guy... he ended up losing, too... so the 'good' Karma didnt go his way... As with many other examples, you'll never take notice when Karma doesnt seem involved.... but will attribute it when it suits you..

I agree with soopoo. Good happens to bad people bad happens to good people. Its really all about perception. We see something bad happen to someone we know is bad or doing bad and we say see karma. However something bad happemed not because karma, but because the person was putting them self in a situation for bad to happen and it did.

Tilt, Yes Karma exists ... next time you walk up to a craps table and the stickman tells you the table is frigid, tell him it only takes one roll to change things. If he accepts your rejoinder with a smile and a nod, stay put. If he does not, leave. You will find Karma... ;-)

I think Karma exists. But I am more in the camp of Energy. For example, you control what type of energy you put out in the world and that energy vibrates and reciprocates itself back to you. Dr. Robert Anthony explains it much better than I do in his books and audio series. It seems to work for me and I live my life based on his preachings/teachings.

Why soitenly
I'm a victim of cicumstance.
nyuk nyuk nyuk.

But seriously, yes. Karma does exist. Its that checks and balances system at work.

On this topic, I am a man without conviction -- just how would you sell a contradiction? -- but Karma seems to come and go. Now if its colors were like my dreams ....

Karma? Sure. Luck too.

It's just impossible to assign a timetable or EV to either one.

Karma is just variance asserting itself on life. Over time most people will see ups and downs in their success at what ever endeavor you want to track. If you feel the success' have some how been gained unfairly when the failures, that will surely come for almost everyone, can be seen as karma.

For some people and some of their endeavors a single lifetime is not a large enough sample size for the true odds to kick in.

With billions of people in the world having trillions of unique experiences every day, probability would indicate some really strange things can happen.

There's a lot of people that think yellow lighters are bad luck, so whenever I buy one I make sure to get yellow or orange. No bad luck yet.

Quote: ewjones080

There's a lot of people that think yellow lighters are bad luck, so whenever I buy one I make sure to get yellow or orange. No bad luck yet.

I've encountered this bizarreness myself. Do you know the reason behind it? At least once or twice I've been in possession of a yellow (or maybe it was white) lighter, had someone ask me for a light, I offer it to them, and they refuse to use it once they see the color and ask someone else instead.

funny, I have heard that smoking cigarettes causes bad luck,
in the form of coronary pulmonary obstructive disease, emphysema, and lung cancer...

white lighter myth

It's all about perspective. If you look at all of the events in one's life you can come up with countless examples of "karma" but most of the time they are just cause and effect relationships over time.

Look at the extremes, like Stalin and Hitler. Between
them they killed 10's of millions of innocent people.
Where's their karma? You can't call Hitler having to
kill himself in a bunker karma, that hardly accounts
for what he did. Karma is just another invented
concept to make a clearly unfair universe seem fair.

BOB I am shocked you do not believe in Karma. I have been having such a miserable week, I may have to BLOG about it.
Just to get rid of it. Wife says keep the faith and after church today ,I come home to find this in my email.

Dear Friend,

I am sorry to encroach into your privacy in this manner. I find it pleasurable to offer you my partnership in business as I only pray at this time that your email address is still valid. I am contacting you because my status would not permit me to do this alone as it is concerning our customer and an investment placed under our banks management 5 years ago. I would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this mail. I contacted you independently of our investigation and no one is informed about this communication. I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you. In 2006, the subject matter; ref: bb/boc/bank/0012 came to our bank to engage in business discussions with our Private Banking Services Department. He (Adelard Raymond) informed us that he had a financial portfolio of 10.2 million United States Dollars, which he wished to have us turn over (invest) on his behalf.

I was the officer assigned to his case; I made numerous suggestions in line with my duties as the de-facto chief operations officer of the Private Banking Services Department, especially given the volume of funds he wished to put into our bank. We met on numerous occasions prior to any investments being placed. I encouraged him to consider various growth funds with prime ratings.

The favored route in my advice to customers is to start by assessing data on 6000 traditional stocks and bond managers and 2000 managers of alternative investments. Based on my advice, we spun the money around various opportunities and made attractive margins for our first month of operation, the accrued profit and interest stood at this point at over 11 million United States Dollars, this margin was not the full potential of the fund but he desired low risk guaranteed returns on investments.

In mid 2007, he asked that the money be liquidated because he needed to make an urgent investment requiring cash payments in Europe. He directed that I liquidate the funds and had it deposited with a firm under United Overseas Bank Limited, Hong Kong. I informed him that the bank would have to make special arrangements to have this done and in order not to circumvent due process, the bank would have to make a 7.25 % deduction from the funds to cater for banking and statutory charges. He complained about the charges but later came around when I explained to him the complexities of the task he was asking of us. Cash movement across borders has become especially strict since the incidents of 9/11. I contacted my affiliate in and had the funds available.

I undertook all the processes and made sure I followed his precise instructions to the letter and had the funds deposited in the security consultancy firm, the firm is a specialist private firm that accepts deposits from high net worth individuals and blue chip corporations that handle valuable products or undertake transactions that need immediate access to cash. This small and highly private organization is familiar especially to the highly placed and well-connected organizations. In line with instructions, the money was deposited. He told me he wanted the money there in anticipation of his arrival from Norway later that week. This was the last communication we had, this transpired around 9th October, 2007.

In January last year, we got a call from the security firm informing us of the inactivity of that particular portfolio. This was an astounding position as far as I was concerned, given the fact that I managed the private banking sector I was the only one who knew about the deposit, and I could not understand why he had not come forward to claim his deposit. I made futile efforts to locate him as I immediately passed the task of locating him to the internal investigations department of the Bank of China. Four days later information started to trickle in, apparently he was dead. A person who suited his description was declared dead of a heart attack in Canne, South of France. We were soon enough able to identify the body and cause of death was confirmed. The bank immediately launched an investigation into possible surviving next of kin to alert about the situation and also to come forward to claim his estate. If you are familiar with private banking affairs, those who patronize our services usually prefer anonymity, but also some levels of detachment from conventional processes. In his bio-data form, he listed no next of kin.

In the field of private banking, opening an account with us means no one will know of its existence, accounts are rarely held under a name; depositors use numbers and codes to make the accounts anonymous. This bank also gives the choice to depositors of having their mail sent to them or held at the bank itself, ensuring that there are no traces of the account and as I said, rarely do they nominate next of kin. Private banking clients apart from not nominating next of kin also usually in most cases leave wills in our care, in this case; he died intestate. The investigation did not ever yield any result. My official capacity dictates that I am the only party to supervise the investigation and the only party to receive the results of the investigation. This leaves me as the only person with the full picture of what the prevailing situation is in relation to the deposit and the late beneficiary of the deposit. According to practice, the firm will by the end of this financial year broadcast a request for statements of claim to Bank of China, failing to receive viable claims they will most probably revert the deposit back to BOC. This will result in the money entering the BOC accounting system and the portfolio will be out of my hands and out of the Private Banking Services Department. This will not happen if I have my way.

What I wish to relate to you will smack of unethical practice but I want you to understand something. It is only an outsider to the banking world who finds the internal politics of the banking world aberrational. The world of private banking especially is fraught with huge rewards for those who occupy certain offices and oversee certain portfolios. You should have begun by now to put together the general direction of what I propose.
There is US$ 10,200,000.00 deposited with the security firm as I said earlier, I alone have the deposit details and they will release the deposit to no one unless I instruct them to do so. I alone know of the existence of this deposit for as far as Bank of China (BOC) is concerned, the transaction with our deceased customer concluded when I sent the funds to the firm, all outstanding interactions in relation to the file are just customer services and due process. They are simply awaiting instructions to release the deposit to any party that comes forward.
This is the situation. This bank has spent great amounts of money trying to track this man's family; they have investigated for months and have found no family. The investigation has come to an end.

My proposal; I am prepared to place you in a position to give instruction for the release of the deposit to you as the closest surviving relation. Upon receipt of the deposit, I am prepared to share the money with you. 60% for me and 40% for you. That is: I will simply nominate you as the next of kin and have them release the deposit to you. We share the proceeds 60/40.


I would have gone ahead to ask the funds been released to me, but that would draw a straight line to me and my involvement in claiming the deposit. I assure you that I could have the deposit released to you within a week. I will simply inform the bank of the final closing of the file relating to the customer. I will then officially communicate with the security firm and instruct them to release the deposit to you. With these two things: all is done. The alternative would be for us to have the firm direct the funds to another bank (preferably the United Overseas Bank, Hong Kong as I have my contact there) to receiving the money from the firm and this firm also happens to be a subsidiary of United Overseas Bank, Hong Kong. We can fine-tune this based on our interactions.

I am aware of the consequences of this proposal. I ask that if you find no interest in this project that you should discard this mail. I ask that you should not be vindictive and be destructive. If my offer is of no appeal to you, delete this message and forget I ever contacted you. Do not destroy my career if you do not approve of my proposal. You may not know this but people like me who have made tidy sums out of comparable situations run the whole private banking sector.


I am not a criminal and what I do, I do not find against good conscience, this may be hard for you to understand, but the dynamics of my industry dictates that I make this move. Such opportunities only come ones way once in a lifetime. I cannot let this chance pass me by because for once I find myself in total control of my destiny so this chance won't pass me by. I ask that you do not destroy my chance, if you will not work with me let me know and let me move on with my life but do not destroy me. I am a family man with kids and this is an opportunity to provide them with new opportunities. There is a reward for this project and it is a task well worth undertaking. I have evaluated the risks and the only risk I have here is from you refusing to work with me and alerting my bank. I am the only one who knows of this situation, good fortune has blessed you with a name that has planted you into the center of relevance in my life. So let's share the blessings.

If you find yourself able to work with me, contact me through my email. If you give me positive signals, I will initiate this process towards a conclusion. I wish to inform you that should you contact me via official channels; I will deny knowing you and about this project.
I repeat, I do not want you contacting me through my official phone lines nor do I want you contacting me through my official email account. I do not want any direct link between you and me. My official lines are not secured lines as they are periodically monitored to assess our level of customer care in line with our Total Quality Management Policy but I will provide you with my secured mobile number which you can reach me with once I am sure that you are fully with me on this.

You can reach me via my private email addres gan.mengyao1@rogers.com thus I await your response.

Best Regards,
Mr. Gan Mengyao
Head Of Operations.
Bank of China (BOC)

WOW Buzz it looks like you're finally coming due.

I wonder, though, why Mr. Mengyao has a Canadian e-mail address?

And Buzz doesn't even speak Chinese..

I don't speak Dumb Ass either, but my son-in-law seems to understand what i am saying

Karma exists, but only in your mind. It's part of a way of making sense of the world.

In my recent blog post, one thing I didn't mention was that the dealer initially paid me $400 on the bonus bet on my KKK. It made sense to me to correct the payout.

Quote: Mosca

Karma exists, but only in your mind. It's part of a way of making sense of the world.

And I said "Karma is just another invented
concept to make a clearly unfair universe seem fair."

Karma is like original sin, made up malarky to
control the masses.

Quote: EvenBob

And I said "Karma is just another invented
concept to make a clearly unfair universe seem fair."

Karma is like original sin, made up malarky to
control the masses.

I think you are misunderstanding me. That particular way of understanding things gives events linearity. We have very little choice when assigning causality for many things. "Karma" takes the way we are hard-wired and moves it into social situations.

Is it real in THAT sense? No. Otherwise all the backstabbing bastards would eventually get their comeuppance, and we all know that ain't gonna happen. But it's real in the sense that we're discussing it here, that a lot of people DO believe it.

Quote: Mosca

But it's real in the sense that we're discussing it here, that a lot of people DO believe it.

But if you believe something is real when it isn't,
all you're doing is constantly pounding square
pegs into round holes because nothing ever quite
fits. Like 'What goes around comes around'. No,
it doesn't. Not even close..

Quote: EvenBob

But if you believe something is real when it isn't,
all you're doing is constantly pounding square
pegs into round holes because nothing ever quite
fits. Like 'What goes around comes around'. No,
it doesn't. Not even close..

Well, yeah.

I believe in Karma. Not the "if I do this good thing, then I am owed a good thing" type mystical view. I don't view Karma as some sort of luck modifier.

But I do believe that if you do good things, the world is more pleasant. If the world is more pleasant even by 1 iota, there's more chance that people will be pleasant back to you. If you are a surly, nasty piece of work, there's more chance your environment will be unpleasant.

Now this doesn't work exactly. Bad things happen to good people. Bad people get good results. (Bad and good being very subjective). But in general, being a pleasant, happy person who looks out for their fellow man will generally make the world a better place.

" But it's real in the sense that we're discussing it here, that a lot of people DO believe it. "

That makes Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster real too !

Quote: thecesspit

But I do believe that if you do good things, the world is more pleasant.

Thats pretty much the definition of karma.

'If one sows goodness, one will reap goodness;
if one sows evil, one will reap evil.'

Not really what I was trying to explain, the standard Karma ideas I've read are a very personal link between your actions and what YOU receive (from either Karmic distributor like a God, or a more basic concept of a natural source). I'm talking about Karma being a more global idea... "If you sows goodness, the world will reap goodness, if one sows evil, the world will harvest evil".

I don't believe that because I did something good today, I am -owed- anything in Karma back to me. I might get hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow, but I've made the world (hopefully) at least one quantum better by my actions.

Quote: thecesspit

but I've made the world (hopefully) at least one quantum better by my actions.

All you can is what you think is right, the world
takes care of itself. This whole 'world' concept
is very new. It used to be people took care
of themselves and their family. Now we have
to feel guilty if we're not watching out for
the whole dang planet.

Define "exsist"

Quote: EvenBob

This whole 'world' concept
is very new. It used to be people took care
of themselves and their family. Now we have
to feel guilty if we're not watching out for
the whole dang planet.

It isn't really "very new." Thousands of years ago, it became a cardinal tenet of Judaism and Christianity, not to mention its adoption by other faiths like Hinduism and Buddhism.

My Karma ran over your Dogma.

I do not believe in Karma, but I do believe it is a nicer world if you act as if it does exist.

Quote: buzzpaff

" But it's real in the sense that we're discussing it here, that a lot of people DO believe it. "

That makes Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster real too !

More like, it makes astrology real.

Quote: progrocker

I do not believe in Karma, but I do believe it is a nicer world if you act as if it does exist.

Like it...

Hockey karma

Quote: thecesspit

I believe in Karma. Not the "if I do this good thing, then I am owed a good thing" type mystical view. I don't view Karma as some sort of luck modifier.

But I do believe that if you do good things, the world is more pleasant. If the world is more pleasant even by 1 iota, there's more chance that people will be pleasant back to you. If you are a surly, nasty piece of work, there's more chance your environment will be unpleasant.

Now this doesn't work exactly. Bad things happen to good people. Bad people get good results. (Bad and good being very subjective). But in general, being a pleasant, happy person who looks out for their fellow man will generally make the world a better place.

Even though cess said this a couple of years, ago, I thought I would bring it forward; he defines it really well for me. Karma's about what you bring to the world, and the growth of small goodnesses into a better life.

Quote: s2dbaker

My Karma ran over your Dogma.

I once owned a Karma Ghia.

Karma sure exists. The maths be dammed.
No offence to the mathematicians. The maths is always right. But there are such things like Karma or Streak.
The maths can explain it away beautifully but to the layman there are times when things just don't seem to go your way no matter what you do. At other times you could do no wrong and the dealer just keep on paying you.
Why just 2 cruises back at the only $50 BJ table the dealer seem to eat my every bet on the table. I had to stop betting for some long time. Then there was a change in dealer and I started betting again. I was doing O.K. then. 1/2 hour later the old Dealer came back and started eating all the bets again. I had to stop playing an call it a very early night.

Quote: Deck007

Karma sure exists. The maths be dammed.
No offence to the mathematicians. The maths is always right. But there are such things like Karma or Streak.
The maths can explain it away beautifully but to the layman there are times when things just don't seem to go your way no matter what you do. At other times you could do no wrong and the dealer just keep on paying you.
Why just 2 cruises back at the only $50 BJ table the dealer seem to eat my every bet on the table. I had to stop betting for some long time. Then there was a change in dealer and I started betting again. I was doing O.K. then. 1/2 hour later the old Dealer came back and started eating all the bets again. I had to stop playing an call it a very early night.

To me, that's not Karma. It's dealers. I absolutely have dealers who are coolers and others who are good for me. I've learned the hard way to get away from coolers, come back on a different shift or move to a different table (if the rotation has dealers on assigned tables). Something about the way they shuffle or cut or whatever; don't know what it is, but it happens.

Quote: beachbumbabs

To me, that's not Karma. It's dealers. I absolutely have dealers who are coolers and others who are good for me. I've learned the hard way to get away from coolers, come back on a different shift or move to a different table (if the rotation has dealers on assigned tables). Something about the way they shuffle or cut or whatever; don't know what it is, but it happens.

A $5 toke is a reliable way to turn around a bad run.............sometimes.

Of course it does, what goes around comes around.

I believe you get out of this world what you put into it, but as a direct influence of past actions over future, no I don't put any merit in karma in that aspect.