**TL;DR I believe that karma exists and that practising this belief has psychological benefits**. Karma is the belief that our actions / behaviours in the present moment will determine our fate in future circumstances. If we have been involved in cruel behaviour (such as stealing), then karma will make us pay for these actions in the future. I believe that karma does exist. Whilst it lacks scientific evidence there have been many incidences to prove that it is true, even if it is a very minor event. Many people have shared their experiences of karma. One story includes a driver blocking an ambulance that had a patient inside, the driver was too distracted to notice the ambulance as they were on a call. A few seconds later, the driver slammed into another car that belonged to the police. Another story discusses how a homeless man found a very expensive diamond ring, he tracked the owner down and returned the ring to them. His actions were then publicised across the media and people from around the world began donating to this man, the total donation fund was $100,000. This shows how karma can award as well as it can punish. There has been some psychological understanding to show how karma can exist and also improve our lives. John Edwards who is the director of CLA’s school of psychology explains that ‘in the Buddhist point of view karma is a psychological phenomenon. It happens because of the way the mind works, it’s not some general force in the universe.’ He also states that ‘the basic idea is that your own behaviours and actions lead you to experience the world in a certain way.’ Karma could benefit us by making us more aware of our actions and how we look upon the world. It may encourage us to be kinder to others. Organizational psychologist and professor Adam Grant explains how practising karma is a secret to success and also helps others to succeed. He champions the idea that being kind and supportive to others maximise chances of reaping long-term career awards. This acts as further evidence of karma; it encourages people to be caring and then they are rewarded for their actions in the future. The countless stories of people experiencing karma first-hand and how it has benefitted people acts as great examples of why karma exists. WORKS CITED: Thagard Paul, ‘Karma - What goes around comes around?’ (11 July 2013), https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/hot-thought/201307/karma-what-goes-around-comes-around Pareek Shabdita, ‘These real life examples of karma prove that what goes around really does come around’ (12 November 2016), https://www.scoopwhoop.com/Real-Life-Examples-Of-Karma/ ‘The Science of Karma’ (23 August 2017), https://edge.oregonstate.edu/2017/08/23/the-science-of-karma/ Miller Anna, ‘The science of Karma’ (October 2013), https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/10/karma

As you say, there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of karma. But I don't think that any of the "many incidences" necessarily prove it true either. For example, the example you give of the old man returning the ring is not indicative of some karmic force, but rather a direct result of his previous action. Karma more-so implies that good (or bad) things will come eventually as a result of an energy that you put into the universe. For this reason, receiving a compliment after giving a compliment is not considered karma, it's just the natural order of things. As far as the cases where the "cause" and "result" are farther apart, I'd chalk this up to coincidence. The strongest evidence for this are the countless examples of good things happening to "bad" people, and bad things happening to "good" people. Unless karma is selective, I don't see how these events could be justified under a belief in karma.

I believe Karma exists both as a consequence of being social animals and as something that effects our life experience on a deep level, due to us having, or being, souls that survive the body's death. We are social animals who are taught or trained to believe in right and wrong. We each have an unconscious, which reacts in ways we are not conscious of. Our socialization programmes our unconscious laying the foundation for values and beliefs. Our values and beliefs also come from our reasoning. Within most of us is a sense of justice and fair play that has come from cultural programming, socialising and from our reasoning. My point is that most of us walk around with a score chart in our heads based on our values as to whether we owe or are owed, deserving or underserving. So doing, we interact with a desire to balance our experience of the outside world with what we feel is right inside. If we do an injustice I believe most of us feel, on a deep unconscious level that we are living out of balance. A part of us wishes to balance it and so allows us, through self-sabotage to make ourselves vunerable to that same injustice. If we do a kindness, we are more receptive to kindness because we feel more deserving and so contrive to put ourselves in situations to experience and accept kindness into our lives. The reason this balancing, seems sometimes quite magical is because, the unconscious is such a powerful thing that it has abilities we are presently unaware of to bring about balancing events. These events that balance our sense of what is right, we call Karma. Karma also comes from the same mechanism when we bring our sense of justice (our right and wrong score card) from previous lives. The soul brings from a previous life, into this life, a sense of injustice or justice, owed or owing, or deserving or undeserving. Depending on what happened in these other lives. I have no evidence that I can relate to prove this, it is just a belief based on my experiences of past life regression and interactions with people in this life, who I "owed" from a previous life. But it is a quite a strong belief of mine. "Objective" proofs of Karma and previous life regression, I have always found unimpressive.

There have been lots of people who did a lot of evil things and they did not get revenge from "Karma". Take Stalin for example or Mao, those people kill a lot of people (Aprox. 90 million combined if I am correct) and "Karma" as you saw did not come to hunt them overnight or something like that. Another thing I am gonna mention is the fact that if karma is real, how does it express itself, how did it create itself etc. this is just saying "Humans are superior in the universe" which is totally false, we are only some tiny dots on a tiny planet that just so happen to be smarter than everyone else due to different needs.

The most important thing ever. In a world with a lot of human being, there is a need to have a karma to keep a view on who is good for us and who is not. Also, to keep them doing the right thing and not falling in the drug.