How much karma can be made through online posts? I would imagine it would be similar to karma spoken aloud to someone, but at the same time posts can be seen by numerous people long after they are typed. So is your karma more if more people happen to see and respond to it? Is it less if nobody sees it, or does it still count because you 'put it out there' as energy in the webspace? How does anonymity (and the typical abuse of power that happens with it) or visibility play a factor? Thanks.
—Rush, USA
Dear Rush,
As you know, karma is the law of boomerang, of action put out resulting in a reaction received. If the action of the online post has a devastating effect on a huge number of people, the karma will certainly be heavy. If we create much suffering or confusion it will be a bigger karmic burden than if no harm was done.
Yogananda explains (in The Essence of Self-Realization): “This is the law of karma: As you sow, so shall you reap. If you sow evil, you will reap evil in the form of suffering. And if you sow goodness, you will reap goodness in the form of inner joy.”
However a main factor in this karmic law of ’cause and effect’ is the intention behind the act (of that post in our case), if it is evil or benign, and how strong that intention is, meaning how much will-power was put into that action.
Yogananda: “To understand karma, you must realize that thoughts are things….The stronger the will, the greater the force of energy — and the greater, consequently, the energy’s impact on material events.”
If the intention was bad, but hardly anyone was reached by the post, it will not create a huge karmic effect. Still it was bad energy put out and the reaction has to come back according to the force behind the act. If it was good energy put out with good intention, it has to come back in some positive way, even if hardly any person was reached through the post.
Anonymous or not, the karmic effect works just the same. The karmic wave always starts from the ego and splashes back to the shore of the ego, even if a person has not put his name under his post.
All the best, jayadev
