Karma (is actually man in the black hat)

[Kusaragi]

In my personal experience with Karma, the easiest and fastest way of stopping "Bad Karma" is starting a "Good Karma" cycle.

The only hard part about it is that you have to start doing things to help others, without thinking of benefits to yourself. It's helping simply for the sake of helping.
Helping when people ask for it usually doesn't count but sometimes it does. Giving because you want to give, and to not expect anything back for it.

It's a very difficult mindset to reach especially when you have a bit of anger that lingers. It also means you have to force the thought out of your mind that this will help get rid of your "Bad Karma". It's important to put the thoughts of the Bad Karma behind you, to linger on trying to get rid of it just diverts the positive energy you're trying to accumulate.

Let's try to raise another one ^_^

 

[Kalstolyn]

xd I was all set to come in here and state how awesome GRM was for making an xkcd reference, turns out she wasn't talking about THAT man in the hat at all.

I truly believe that this past year has been something of a "year of despair" for a lot of people. I expect it to end in about a week, maybe a few days longer, the anniversary of my friend's death last winter. That's what seemed to set it all off. Since then, it's been a huge unending chain of death, illness, anger, and loss, offset by a couple of births to give us enough joy to keep from going completely mad.

Call it what you will, but the past year has been really awful for a LOT of people.  

[God-Raped-Me]

I'm sure I can get GTR to do one for you. He reads those comics, not I though. Sorry to disappoint you.

It'll end in a week eh? Funny you should say that, because Friday is the day we find out of GTR is innocent or guilty in the eyes of the judge of this case that has lasted 5 ******** years!

To everyone else, Thanks for all your input, we'll probably try everything, including the Ghost Busters! xd The first Ghost Busters was a great movie! All of them were such youngins!

 

[The Dinosaur Next Door]

I don't think we call that "the man in the black hat" here. Where is that name from? We call them spooks. It happens to me all the time that a spook moves past me when I'm coming through a doorway. I'll see it and look to see who's there, and there'll be no one.
My dad's house is full of spooks. They actually did a news segment on it once. O_o  

[God-The-RapistV2.0]

http://www.ghostlytalk.com/node/502

Man in the hat.

Crazy paranormal having middle management.  

[The Dinosaur Next Door]

Oh, that is crazy. Look at all the people who've seen him! THat makes it sound slightly less out-there.
Thanks, though. I thought it might be some kind of dialectical barrier, what with you all being so much farther north than myself.
I've never seen a man in a hat, but I have seen someone I know as a shadow person.

I

I once saw a ghost at my father's house when I was about eleven.

It was winter time so I'd gone downstairs to stoke the fire up again. My dad's roommate, Todd, was also an IT guy and always worked late. I heard and saw from the corner of my vision as a man about Todd's height approached, unlocked, and opened the sliding glass door beside the driveway. He walked in, closed the door, and locked it. I looked over and greeted him in the darkness as Todd, and he looked at me, then walked into the kitchen.

I got up and followed him to see if he was going to eat anything I'd want to share. When I got to the kitchen, he wasn't there. I walked through the dining room to the computer room, where there was no one. I walked through there to the living room again, and I was still alone. He couldn't have gone up the stairs, because I would have heard them creaking. I felt like I was being watched, but I could no longer see anyone. Later, I found out that Todd hadn't come home that night.

Mybe it's a Southern version of the man in the black hat? biggrin  

[MiroIsBored]

God-Raped-Me

On the Karma thing though, would simply disliking people cause bad karma as well, because I'm totally not the happy go lucky person who has no beef with anyone.

It would take a certain frame of mind to be able to be a person like that. I can't say for certain if just disliking people causes bad karma or not, but I do know wishing harm on someone is bad karma. It's one thing to just not like or get along with someone and another to wish they fall off a bridge and die.

I have heard that hating people is bad karma, but this is not to be confused with disliking them. Hate is a very strong emotion... people tend to forget that because the word is used casually most of the time just like love.  

[The Dinosaur Next Door]

Any negative vibes you send out is considered bad for your karma. The point of karma is, I believe, to promote level-headedness and self control. It's like a test to see how even and fair-minded you can be, rather than how positive.
You don't want too much good or bad, with karma. Excess of one means that you're due for a rush of the other, to even you back out.
So, loving or hating someone are good examples because they're so strong. I think that it's like scribble-drawing and optical illusions: it's supposed to be a mind-stretching exercise to train you to think differently.  

[God-Raped-Me]

I think there's only one person who I can surely say I hate. I know I mean hate because should her and I ever be left alone I know I wouldn't be able to restrain from attacking her, and I'm not sure if I would know when to stop.

But of course there are people who I dislike and wish I wouldn't ever have to communicate with again.

Back to the man in the hat, or "hat man". Lydia just came into my room and said someone is mean to the baby, the baby means Guin. So I asked her to show me where this mean person was. Lydia took me out to see guin because she thought I meant "Where is Guin". So I asked where the mean person was again, and both the girls pointed to the same spot in the toy room. I need to do something, ANYTHING before my kids get hurt. Last night I woke up to seeing Dante on the floor. I thought maybe he just fell out of his swing, now I'm thinking otherwise.

 

[The Dinosaur Next Door]

That's terrifying. You should try to leave an offering of food or something out. I know it sounds ridiculous, but in the past, people used to leave bread or milk out to appease the spirits they'd put out by building their homes. It was said to have worked. If that doesn't work, try religious symbols - I know it's lame, but whenever you bring icons into it, bad things usually back off.
Re: karma, I don't know if I've ever hated someone. I mean, tons of people piss me off, and I've wanted to do violence on some. But, uh, I think the most intense feeling I've ever felt has been ennui-plus-sorrow. Or anger. Or disappointment (actually, that just happens a lot.) I've been told by a wise person that the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy.  

[MiroIsBored]

I agree it's not good to have too much of good or bad karma, but not for the same reason. I don't think if you build up a bunch of good karma you'll suddenly get a rush of bad karma just to "even things out", it just often pans out that way because when people have everything going for them, they forget themselves. For example, sometimes when people get rich (which would be the result of good karma) they become greedy and snobbish which cause them bad karma.

I do not think it is wrong to have good karma as long as you can handle it properly, but ideally it would be best to have no karma. However it is difficult to achieve since everyday things you do can affect your karma without you even realizing it.  

[The Dinosaur Next Door]

Well, I don't know if it's "best to have no karma" so much as it's about measuring and juggling the karma you have.
But I agree on the rest - I picture it like a person holding scales, one side for good and one for bad. The scales HAVE to break even in the end, so the person's entire life is about adding sand to either side to make the scales even in the end. It doesn't matter whether the person is the one who changes their karma, or the universe. The point is evening the scales.  

[MiroIsBored]

XxStephasaurusxXxRexxX

That's terrifying. You should try to leave an offering of food or something out. I know it sounds ridiculous, but in the past, people used to leave bread or milk out to appease the spirits they'd put out by building their homes. It was said to have worked. If that doesn't work, try religious symbols - I know it's lame, but whenever you bring icons into it, bad things usually back off.

I actually think that's a bad idea sweatdrop Leaving an offering is kind of like worship... we leave offerings for deities, not ghosts and spirits. Though by leaving the offering your intentions might be to just make them go away, if they know they can get something from you, they might just keep coming back.

Not knowing if you are religious or not, I cannot say what a good course of action would be. I'm sure there are non-religious actions that can be taken, but I only know of religious ones.

XxStephasaurusxXxRexxX

Well, I don't know if it's "best to have no karma" so much as it's about measuring and juggling the karma you have.
But I agree on the rest - I picture it like a person holding scales, one side for good and one for bad. The scales HAVE to break even in the end, so the person's entire life is about adding sand to either side to make the scales even in the end. It doesn't matter whether the person is the one who changes their karma, or the universe. The point is evening the scales.

I don't disagree with you completely as a balance is good to have, but no karma I believe is best. Of course, this is all coming from a Hindu standpoint in which the ultimate goal involves eliminating all karma.  

[The Dinosaur Next Door]

MiroIsBored

XxStephasaurusxXxRexxX

That's terrifying. You should try to leave an offering of food or something out. I know it sounds ridiculous, but in the past, people used to leave bread or milk out to appease the spirits they'd put out by building their homes. It was said to have worked. If that doesn't work, try religious symbols - I know it's lame, but whenever you bring icons into it, bad things usually back off.

I actually think that's a bad idea sweatdrop Leaving an offering is kind of like worship... we leave offerings for deities, not ghosts and spirits. Though by leaving the offering your intentions might be to just make them go away, if they know they can get something from you, they might just keep coming back.

Not knowing if you are religious or not, I cannot say what a good course of action would be. I'm sure there are non-religious actions that can be taken, but I only know of religious ones.

Yeah, I'm not religious, but I'm also not talking about worshipping the guy. I'm talking about maybe calming the vibes it's sending out. If it's "being mean to the baby" and moving the newest baby around, then something's very wrong. I wouldn't trust it with children, and so I was thinking about how to appease the spirit.
Though, the "stray cat" argument makes sense. Maybe skip that and just go right to the religious icons. I'm just trying to think of things that I've been told have worked. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as it relates to the post,) I've only ever dealt with spirits that don't notice me or that are just chilling. Even the worst haunting I've ever seen consisted of moving the remote controls and turning picture around in the shelves.
Edit: Yeah, I get that. I just meant that it's more practical to approach it as a relative concept - it's nigh impossible to end life with zero karma. There's probably always going to be a tendency toward one pole or the other, so I think it's more of a "scale of one to ten" kind of thing. I mean, again, I'm not religious, so I'm filtering my understanding through lack of an actual identifiable god.