Karma is Karma

As most of you know, I am not a religious person. I struggle to believe in a God and that someone was the son of God. Keeping to the beliefs side of things (and not the other things I don't appreciate about religion), I have never quite accepted the heaven or hell concept.

On the other hand, for whatever reason, reincarnation has always stuck with me. I have always had an affinity for oriental culture, and even took a Religions of Eastern Asia class for my culture studies credit in college. Not that I remember the details or specific beliefs, but as I especially do not believe in organized religion and this is just my beliefs, here's my thoughts on what happens after death.

When I was younger, probably around 11ish, I remember thinking that I must have a purpose of this lifetime. I felt that there were certain things my "soul" had already been through and already experienced. I didn't, and obviously still don't, know what the I am supposed to learn or attain during this lifetime. I determined that I believe there are certain characteristics or experiences a soul needs to experience before a soul is complete.

So this mostly falls into the idea of reincarnation. My interpretation of reincarnation is that your soul is reincarnated based on the results of your previous life. If you were "good" in your previous life, you would be born in an easier/better life, if you were "bad" in your previous life, you would be born into a life of suffering and difficulties. You are not always born as a person, for example, in the book Saving Fish From Drowning there is a cow/bull that is pulling a wagon and gets stuck in the mud. A local villager explains that the cow must have been bad in a past life in order to be in a position to have to pull a wagon and then to die stuck in the mud.

Reincarnation closely follows the idea of karma. What goes around comes around. If you are good, good things happen. I just finished reading this book, Shogun, and karma is also the fact that what happens, happens. Kind of a fate aspect, but to me also that things happen and people are going to do what they are going to do. It's not worth getting upset about what happens, when it already happened. Karma is karma.

Thanks for hearing out my random musings!