Yes, but not in the direct way that it's sometimes presented: if you steal that candy bar, then next week your car will be stolen. That's cute enoughto work only on the Twilight Zone show. I think, though, that people create a personal aura or radiation through each relationship and interaction they have with other people. Each connection with another person adds up to the whole "koosh-ball" of the person's being. If they're kind and fun-loving, then the koosh is a nice bright color and pleasant to touch, if the person is hot-tempered and rude, then the koosh is abrasive-feeling and dirty-looking.  On some level, the people around a given koosh-person are aware of the qualities of his kooshness, and when they give of themselves to  that koosh-person, what they give is modified by their perception of his kooshness. A grumpy person may not necessarily get grumpy responses from everyone around him, but the responses may be more subdued or resereved than if they had been directed at a happy person. Karma = "what goes around comes around" = orbital tendency and elliptical travel. I think this is a fundamental shape in our species or being. If you can consider fractal theory, you can make this work: a theory about our existence is that structure are fractal in nature. If you look at the basic overall shape of something, you can see that it is made of of smaller similar shapes. A mountain is made up of smaller shapes that resemble the whole overall shape.  I think we are ellipses, or orbital shapes. Sure, we have arms and  legs and other things dangling off of us, but overall we're round. Our blood orbits our body in a circular fashion. We go through orbital routines in our day: get up, go to work, come home, eat again, go to sleep, repeat upon waking.  We build Beltways around our major cities so we can circulate just like our blood cells.

Jesse, 24
Bowie, MD   USA

no

Gemma Lynn

No. As fashionable as it is to believe in it I think it's as big a sham as Feng Shui.

Shanna, 15
Cardiff  ENGLAND

Most definitely. Especially when dealing with machines. Treat a machine with positive vibes and it will rarely breakdown on you.

Felicia, 34
Lowell, MA   USA

Not religiously, but I think that if you're mean to people then the same will come back to you.

Jeremy, 13
Highlands Ranch, CO  USA

No, because after you die, you either go to Heaven or Hell -- for eternity.

Melodi, 19
Hlliard, OH    USA

Sometimes.

Jane, 60
West Linn, OR   USA

No. I believe in God and the Wrath of God. I interpret Karma as a way of taking God out of the picture and replacing him  with the anonymous cosmic energy of balance and order.

Jami, 27
Lowell, MA   USA

If karma's for real, I've done a lot of bad stuff, 'cuz bad little karma fairies follow me around. Not that I have it SO bad, but I don't particularly like being me at the moment.

Karen, 21
Marshelltown/Ames, IA USA

eh.... I think more importantly: do I care about specific terms? I believe everything happens for a reason. Do a bad deed and it will come back to haunt you. Do a good deed and it will come back to comfort you. If this is karma, so be it.

Amy, 23
New Orleans, LA   USA

No

Janet, 42
E. Brunswick, NJ  USA

Of course, I believe in Karma. My karma ran over my dogma.

Jill, 59
Saylorsburg, PA   USA

absolutely. I think that there is no way to think otherwize, just look around and you can see the evidence in your daily life. Does it alter my behavior - not a chance :) I just have to take the consequences when they come.

Kate, 19
Bellingham, WA  USA

Yes I do.

Savannah

Yes, what goes around comes around!

Emma, 20
Perth   AUSTRALIA

yes

Stephanie, 24
TX   USA

In one way I do but in another I don't. I think you can self help yourself and Kharma has helped my daughter in one way and that is in her self esteem. It seems to have helped her with migraines and back problems. But I believe you have to be careful how deep you get in to this or anything like it as I think it can get kind of brainwashed with it. I hope you understand this. It is like anything else you can abuse or use it. It depends how you look at it.

Marci, 55
Diamond, OH   USA

Yes, definately. You send out bad energy and it is going to come back at you  twice as hard, the reverse of that is true as well. I have seen it happen  time and time again.

Maggie, 20
Sandwich, IL   USA

Nah...

Dianne E., 16
Oshawa, Ontario  CANADA

I believe in a SORT of karma -- that things that happen within THIS  life will eventually be repaid and counterbalanced.

Kim, 30
New York, NY   USA

totally, i have this friend who stole a whole buncha stuff, and two days later he got robbed. He stole more stuff and a few days after that he got stung by 150 bees. it was messed up. everything happens for a reason

Chris2, 15
Providence, RI  USA

I don't know what Karma is. What is it?

Reba, 50
Rockville, MD    USA

I really don't know what it means. But it reminds me of a story. When  I was 16 years old, my older sister walked in on me and my boyfriend while we were kissing. Of course, she couldn't resist teasing us. My boyfriend looked at my sister and said, "Do you mind? You've interrupted our Karma."  My sister then yells down to my mother, "Ma! Laura's upstairs with Peter and they're karmanizing."

OK. Stupid story. But Karmanizing was a frequently used word in our house for several years afterwards.

Laura, 35
Lowell, MA    USA

I'm not sure I understand what it is, some sort of spiritual world controlled by positive and negative emotions? I don't know.

Alias Irrelevante

Definately! Sometimes I feel like I'm a nice person just because I'm scared of creating bad karma and, in turn, having something bad happening to me. Maybe I'm not genuinely a "nice person" after all - I'm just scared of bad karma!

Susan, 31
Chicago, IL   USA

Sure, i'm not Buddhist but I suppose everyone has some kind of aura around them, whether it's good or bad.

Karen2, 14
Boston, MA   USA

As a facet of irony, yes.  God is an iron.

Anthony, 25
Baton Rouge, LA  USA

In a general way yes, definitely. .

mothmc, 36
Los Angeles, CA   USA

Yes.

Kevin, 33
Sugar Hill, GA   USA

Yesterday / Tomorrow