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Many think of karma as having some sort of blanket coverage meaning –  you get what you deserve yet whether it be reward or deficit. It is all about growth after all. Karma however, can and does have its own variant of specifics.

Retributive Karma

The boomerang effect of Retributive Karma is how most people define Karma as a whole. What you did in the past comes back to you in the life you are currently living. This type of karma has a base in entrenchment and old patterns that have not been broken. It is rarely the old ‘eye for an eye’ option. It can be as simple as spending wasting someone else’s resources in a past life only to have the same thing done to you in the current lifetime. The good news is that sometimes this type of karma can resolve in a single lifetime depending upon if  it is viewed and resolved.

Redemptive Karma

This karma is concerned with one’s willingness to make reparation for a previous act. On a more complex level, it has to do with the decision to deliberately take on some collective karma and clearing it by allowing oneself to be, for example, a scapegoat or sacrificial lamb for the greater good of the collective. An example of this is someone who has an incurable illness and is allowing their condition to be studied or physical condition to undergo experimental treatment with the hopes of helping others.

Recompense Karma

Some come into this life being “owed” a debt either from another person or from a set of events that constituted a difficult experience not of one’s own making. For example, chronic illness in a past life may exhibit as good health in the current lifetime. Another type of example is an individual who feels guilty for ‘surviving’ a horrible situation where others died and they lived on so they committed suicide out of that guilt. They might feel lucky in this lifetime for a smooth flowing life they are experiencing by contrast.

Merit Karma or Productive Karma

As the name implies, Merit Karma is simply the cumulative effect of all the knowledge and resources that have been built up in past lives and are being put to good use in the current lifetime.

Organic Karma

Plain and simple, this one is body karma and involves a physical ‘weak’ spot. Previous abuses to the body of any type and nature, or,  horrific old injuries can contribute to a life-repeating pattern of disease. Loss of blood from bloodletting or blood shedding incidents for example, might mean anemia in the current life. Hanging or choking or strangling in past lives could mean throat problems in the current life.

Attitudinal Karma

Like Organic Karma, this karma can bring about physical maladies that are a result of ingrained attitudes or emotions. Inflexibility or cold heartedness that is embedded in the emotions for example, may manifest as joint pain and rigidity or muscle breakdown and strain as the body tries to compensate for long held emotions.

Symbolic Karma

Also known as Mock Karma concerns a present situation that is symbolic of the original act. An individual who has scorned, mocked and judged in a past life the sorrows of others will be condemned through folly in the current life. A good example is an individual who witnessed Christians thrown to the lions in Ancient Rome and enjoyed the ‘sport’ and cheered and jeered might turn up totally physically disabled in the current lifetime.

Vocational Karma

A continuance of a job or duty begun in a past life is put back into collective service in the current life. Doctors, nurses, musicians, artists and great leaders from the past continue their skills in the present for example. Work Karma can be included here and concerns misdemeanors or skills from past work experiences. Negatively this involves lack of integrity that needs to be addressed and positively abilities brought forth and expounded. Also included is Technological Karma which concerns ethical decsions that were made concerning the misuse of technological advances which affect generations and the collective in a destructive manner.

Looping Karma

This is a specific repeating of the same karmic pattern from past life build –up. What an individual fails to recognize, learn and address often show up as phobias and unexplained fears in the present time.  Sometimes, since no one is capable of dealing with too much all at once, Suspension Karma occurs whereas the individual gets to skip a lifetime of dealing with past failures, however, it must be remembered that karma is always in the making going forward despite a karmic break.

Communication Karma

Were you a devious, misunderstood communicator or unable to communicate or a clear communicator in then past? Do you suffer from slander or unkind backbiting? How you have communicated in the past comes back to bite in the form of back biting (pun intended). In some cases however, you might also be the teacher or 'example' to the one doing the backbiting. Personal integrity in dealing with this karma will go a long way in completing this karma.

Ideological Karma

Are you attached to certain beliefs or ideas and feel the need to impose them on others or is this being imposed upon you? This karma is connected to past lives of coercing and enforcing ideologies on others.

 It must be remembered that regardless of the type or types of karma one is experiencing we all have the Karma of Grace to aid in moving beyond Karma once the work has been done.

Resource: Patterns of the Past, Judy Hall