On Karma, by Swami Chidananda (a monk)

[rumpel]

I got this from a newsletter from Andrew Cohen's Enlighten Next, and since it is explained very differently I thought I post it. There is a bit more in the quote at the link.

If properly understood, the Law of Karma is a law which give infinite hope. It says that a man’s destiny is in his own hands. It says that he shall depend upon himself. He is the one to decide on the pattern of the experience to come.

He is the master of his destiny. He is the architect of his fate. He has nothing to fear in this universe, nothing except his own wrong actions and thoughts. He has to say: ‘Who has the power to give me any experience that I do not choose to select for myself? No one on earth has the power to injure me, to bring sorrow upon me, to inflict destruction or evil upon me!

Thus man takes infinite courage. He is determined to guide his own life into a future containing bliss and radiance. The Law gives him an inducement to sow the right type of seeds and to fashion all his activity along ideal lines.

snip

According to this view, the Law of Karma is not a doctrine of fatalism. On the contrary, it is a doctrine of high orderliness, serving as the basis of the moral order in the whole universe, and the attitude instilled into man by this Law is fearlessness.

It fills man with fearlessness and infinite courage and a great urge to be ideal, good and lofty in all his thoughts and activities.

http://blog.enlightennext.org/2010/03/02/the-law-of-karma-think-about-this/#more-3440

like a building block of our souls