Does Karma Really Exist In Relationships?

Karma exists.

However..people use this word "KARMA" to blackmail us.. that is where the problem starts.

So we start to fear and try to oblige too much in the process of losing us.

For eg: My mil will always use this word and blackmail me despite doing so much for her.I was treated like crap but i kept quiet coz she made me feel guilty,emotional blackmail using the word KARMA and start to cry.

I used to feel terrible as a person.

Now I feel..as long as I am true to my conscience, we need not fear.

Next time mil overacts I will be like "KARMA "..does not matter.

i will respectfully stand up for my rights or will ignore her.

I have decided only to be true to my conscience.

It is not like we won't make mistakes but as long as we learn we are fine and leave the rest to God.

Leaving Karma aside..the only thing that separates bad and good people is CONSCIENCE.

"Good people have a conscience and they suffer and bad people don't".

You are a good person and that is why u are tolerating your inlaws and they know this.Throw away your conscience and give your husband a deadline..everything will fall in place.But will u do that?NO.coz you are a person with conscience.

Does it mean we should throw away our conscience?NOPE.The world will be pure evil!

However..there has to be a balance and one should not try to succumb to emotional blackmail.Just have clarity in life and that's all.

 

I went and found the following paragraph in quora-dot-com: difference between karma and kismet. When it is kismet (MiL, husband, hairfall, que-sera in general) we can do nothing. When it is karma, it is transactional: there is an exchange, you do tit, and you get back tat. However kismet would influence the exchange rate, namely how much Tat you can get back for each Tit.

C H Teoh
, Devout lay Theravada Buddhist follower for many years.

“Kismet” means fate, destiny, pre determination by God or some inexplicable forces. Which means there is nothing you can do to change as everything is pre decided for you.

“Karma” in Sanskrit or “Kamma” in Pali means volitional or intentional action in Buddhism. “Vipaka” is the result of the volitional action or Kamma. Hence Kamma Vipaka means volitional action and its result or effect popularly translated as cause and effect. Good begets good and evil begets evil as it is known. Our past Kamma can give effect to us in our present life, in our immediate subsequent life or future lifes. So in a way and certain extent, our present life is predetermined by our past Kamma. Our present Kamma will determine our future lifes either in this lifetime or future lifetimes. So in this respect, we can say that Kamma determines our fate or destiny or Kismet in certain circumstances. The difference being Kismet is predetermined by an external God or inexplicable forces but Kamma is created by our own self using our thinking mind. Of course, the workings of Kamma is not as straightforward as 1 plus 1 equals to 2. According to the Buddha, the workings of Kamma Vipaka is very complex and cannot be understood by ordinary worldlings. Not all that happens to us is due to our Kamma but I would say Kamma plays a big part. We can alter or influence our destiny or fate by our intention of creating good kamma through our body, speech and mind but its not possible in the case of Kismet.​

There are some funny memes for both karma and kismet. Here is one on Karma:
"When you go on doing it to others.... it would eventually happen to you" is the message.

 

I don't think karma exists,atleast in my experience.

 

Its a big coincidence that I had a discussion with mom on the same topic over the weekend.
I am coexisting with ILs for almost a decade and still I face the sniffing, silent and emotional torture from MIL.
I have been there with this family when FIL was hospitalised. Stood up there and took up all the work for BIL marriage and still attending ILs indirectly though. But I have got nothing in return. Ofcourse I have a good job, blessed with cute child. But everyone has this in the family. Infact they earn better than me.
My BIL who troubled me so much before his marriage is having a blissful life now with his wife and kid staying somewhere abroad. His wife who doesnt want ILs to step into their house(even though she is in very good terms with them) is very happy as her husband is on her side and being the dearest BIL.
Its me who is at loss in every aspect of my life.
I believe in Karma but unfortunately its not working in my case

 

I completely hear you, I was in your boat until Pre-Covid. But then, I realized that while Karma does exist, it clearly has a sense of humor. Also, I think Karma would be very bad at social media - because it doesn't "post publicly" for us to realize that someone has been served with their karma
My situation with the MIL was pretty much standard. Not openly hostile, but I despise her and she me. We never had an open argument, but she has done enough to scar me emotionally , meddled with my head so much and then gone on to live happily. I used to wonder the same as you. Here I was, separated from my mom and dad (far away), mom passed away without me by her side, MIL making snide remarks everytime there was visits to my parents etc etc. Plus, all along - she had this MAJOR MAJOR superiority complex that she had two sons. That she was superior to my parents who had two daughters. She poohed poohed and "fake sympathised" aunts and uncles who didnt have a son and kept saying "Poor so and so, she has three girls , who will take care of them when they are old".
Fast forward to covid - and all the skeletons from her cupboard are tumbling out. About her actual insecurities all these years, all her fear and jealosy. So much so that one day she admitted to me that while she was smiling and appeared to be living happily, mentally she was undergoing all the tortures of becoming a second class citizen in her own family (a.k.a DILs becoming the "stars of the show"). How she cried a whole night when her son called his wife and kids as "my family" and then saying "my family + parents" to someone while talking about some wedding event.

It doesnt make me any happier that she was sad. But what I realized was that Karma is served, in some form or the other. What goes on inside , someone can never know. Also, sometimes karma takes its own sweet time. There is no 1 year rapid action guarantee. Sometimes, it is served 10 years later - much more sourer and harder. So you focus on accumulating good karma, and leave the rest to Karma.

 

Karma has become so overused and so simplified in the english media, that no one currently understands the depth of karma!

It is a checks and balances - a cumulative record of ALL the actions you have knowingly or unknowingly committed - not just in this birth, but in all your preceding births (if you believe in it)

And yes every single soul pays for the wrongs and gets rewarded for the good actions, and the results create further karma... It goes on and on till it reaches a zero sum.

One story to illustrate this -

At the end of the Mahabharata war, where he lost ALL his 100 sons, the blind king Dhritarashtra was feeling sad and defeated. He asked "I agree, my sons were wrong, but Why? Why did I have to suffer this? Why me? I could have at least one son remaining?"

Narad rishi answers "About 50 births of yours have passed. lt was long long ago. In that birth, you were a hunter walking in a jungle. Your net caught fire, so you got worried what would you do for the next few days without a net, so you used the burning net and wrapped it around a huge tree FULL of birds and their nests. 100s of baby birds perished in the fire! You are suffering the punishment for killing so many baby birds"

Dhritarashtra understands karma but has a question - "Why did 50 births have to pass? Why such a long timeline?"

Narad rishi answers "You took 50 births to be given opportunities to do good deeds. So, you could accumulate enough merit to have a 100 sons"

So @Needtobestrong karma is not a simple linear equation, it is a very complex equation that only realized souls can understand!

Keep smiling
HR

 

Might be that karma is waiting for ur old age so that u too would be cared for when your children are married and you are directly or indirectly dependent on them.