Hi Susan, I would like you to explain karma and if it is the same as the phrase "what goes around, comes around." 

This is a good question.  

No, I don’t think they are the same.

"What goes around, comes around"--to my way of understanding it, refers to some supposed "law" of the universe, ensuring that the good (or bad) we do will come back to us.  This is just a modern variation on the long-standing premises of divine reward and punishment:  we will be recompensed for our good deeds and punished for our bad ones.

Although, there is a way in which the good we do blesses us, I think the presumption is a false one that IF we do good, we will then GET good.  Many good people have suffered immeasurably in their lives.  Many bad people--or people who have done terrible things--don't seem to be in pain at all. 

In addition, the notion of "do good / get good" encourages an "investment-return" relationship to Good.  However, Good, by definition is wholly good: it isn’t calculative and self-promoting.   If we “do good to get good,” is the “good” we’re doing really good?  Or is it just a more subtle form of self-interest?

The answer is obvious: doing things for an eventual return of benefits actually works against the nature of Good itself.  When we do good as an investment and with the interest of getting something back—whether it is from another person or from the cosmos itself—is just the same old selfishness thinly disguised in pop-spiritual vernacular.  In such cases, we are fooling no one but ourselves. 

Spirit’s nature is unreasonable Love.  I dedicate an entire chapter to this in my book.  Our work is not even necessarily to go around doing good—as noble as such a career sounds.  There is only one true good and that is Spirit’s will being done.  Everything else –including all our good intentions to do good—fall far short of the mark.  Our work is to come into an increasing clarity as to what Spirit’s good is.  In this clarity there remains no distance between the good and the doer of the good.  And in such instances, it is not so much that good comes back to us, (or comes back around) but rather the good is intrinsic to the actual thought or action itself.  We are blessed in the doing of it, by being who we are when we do it, and not by some ultimate pay-off that will work in our personal favor.

KARMA on the other hand, as it is usually understood nowadays, relates to reincarnation and the belief that the awakening from the so-called dream of existence as mortal, demands time and process and takes place over more than one lifetime of evolution or self-development.

The two premises--you mention of "what goes around, comes around" and karma, rub shoulders in the sense that yes, many teachings say that if you do good this lifetime, your next will be "better."  This does suggest that every thought and deed is being tallied on some sort of a “karmic” register, and eventually what we do will “come back around.”   Likewise, it is sometimes suggested that when something bad has happened, perhaps it was some sort of karmic payoff. 

Although the promise of freedom buoys our hopes, the notion of "eventual" freedom, won through lifetimes of arduous endeavor is a bit discouraging--particularly if we are honest in admitting just how often we fall short of the mark!  If the only “way out” of the human condition is to keep bumping around in the dark until we finally “get it right”, where is the hope?   Such a theory would certainly go against Jesus' teachings, which promise us time and again that the "kingdom of heaven is at hand." 

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