...the counsels of the Divine Mind had some glimpse of truth when they said that men are born in order to suffer the penalty for sins committed in a former life.
I have this tattooed on my left side! I love the saying and it's a perfect description of Karma, don't judge/discriminate and don't do to someone what you wouldn't want done to you.
Dangerous consequences will follow when politicians and rulers forget moral principles. Whether we believe in God or karma, ethics is the foundation of every religion.
From a Buddhist point of view, the actual experience of death is very important. Although how or where we will be reborn is generally dependent on karmic forces, our state of mind at the time of death can influence the quality of our next rebirth. So at the moment of death, in spite of the great variety of karmas we have accumulated, if we make a special effort to generate a virtuous state of mind, we may strengthen and activate a virtuous karma, and so bring about a happy rebirth.
Every act of charity, every thought of sympathy, every action of help, every good deed, is taking so much of self-importance away from our little selves and making us think of ourselves as the lowest and the least, and, therefore, it is all good. Here we find that Jnâna, Bhakti, and Karma - all come to one point.
The immediate source of a mind... must be a mind which existed before the conception took place; the mind must have a continuity from a previous mind. This we hold to prove the existence of a past life.
From the scientific view, the theory of karma may be a metaphysical assumption -- but it is no more so than the assumption that all of life is material and originated out of pure chance