For the longest time—despite my spiralling consumption by the occult world, and subsequent engulfing of Eastern philosophies—I always had a problem with the concept of karma in relation to our cultural bias and hustling worldview.

Maybe it's my indifference to the prospects of reincarnation, but karma, to me, seemed to only represent a quaint idea formulated by do-good holy men and perfected by "new age" alcolytes in an attempt to force the world into a better place through the modern non-denominational version of "sinners in the hands of an angry God."

The witches' creed often incites the poetry of whatever you cast out, comes back to you three-fold—a nice way to keep would-be young wiccans in line, but how much could that phrase really be true? This version of karma—should it ever come to pass—is more the "self-imposed" psychological prison than the universal law. It seems to be nothing more than a trick to play on oneself—a personal inhibition. If karma truly is a universal law, then it must be recognized in all walks of life, not just the esoteric. On that basis, I don't see how the traditional idea of a personal backlash through a universal examination of an individual's actions could possibly hold up against scrutiny.

It seems to be that this world is turning more into a criminal's haven than most anything else. As such, executives in company's like Enron are robbing the public blind. Did Enron get caught? Yes, but that's one of thousands, if not tens of thousands of companies that perform similarly shaddy business practices throughout the US and, indeed, the world. What of those that never get caught?

Despite my best intentions, I never could see how karma could hold up to all of this. However, I was soon to find out.

It was in college that I was opened up to an alternate idea of karma. In fact, one of my essay questions in my Comparative Religion class dealt with contrasting Hindu karma with that of Buddhist karma. It was in the Buddhist version that I may have found my savior in this conflicting matter.

Much like Hindu karma, one theory of Buddhist karma (there are obviously many different Buddhist schools today) holds to the truth that every individual collects karma through their actions. However, unlike Hindu karma, Buddhist karma does not believe that this karma follows you into the next life (especially since some Buddhist schools don't even believe in a "next life").

This intriguing version of the karmic principle is best told with an allegory that one of my classmates presented: Imagine a small, compressed ball of dye being held just above a clean bowl of water. When the dye is dropped, it hits the clean water, dispersing and spreading throughout the bowl. You are that dye. The bowl of water is the universe. When you die, the ball drops and your karma spreads throughout the universe just like the dye spreading throughout the bowl. The only question is: what kind of karma have you accumulated?

Upon my realization of this concept, karma finally made sense to me. Our actions aren't solely confined to our own spiritual development. They affect the entire universe around us as well. And when we die, we must be careful, because we don't just leave a legacy of fame or infamy… we leave the sum of all our actions behind as well.