This definition was my starting point.

Karma

(Karman, Sanskrit) This is a noun-form coming from the root kri meaning "to do," "to make." Literally

karma means "doing," "making," action. But when used in a philosophical sense, it has a technical

meaning, and this technical meaning can best be translated into English by the word consequence. The

idea is this: When an entity acts, he acts from within; he acts through an expenditure in greater or less

degree of his own native energy. This expenditure of energy, this outflowing of energy, as it impacts

upon the surrounding milieu, the nature around us, brings forth from the latter perhaps an instantaneous

or perhaps a delayed reaction or rebound. Nature, in other words, reacts against the impact; and the

combination of these two -- of energy acting upon nature and nature reacting against the impact of that

energy -- is what is called karma, being a combination of the two factors. Karma is, in other words,

essentially a chain of causation, stretching back into the infinity of the past and therefore necessarily

destined to stretch into the infinity of the future. It is unescapable, because it is in universal nature, which

is infinite and therefore everywhere and timeless; and sooner or later the reaction will inevitably be felt

by the entity which aroused it.

It is a very old doctrine, known to all religions and philosophies, and since the renascence of scientific

study in the Occident has become one of the fundamental postulates of modern coordinated knowledge.

If you toss a pebble into a pool, it causes ripples in the water, and these ripples spread and finally impact

upon the bank surrounding the pool; and, so modern science tells us, the ripples are translated into

vibrations, which are carried outward into infinity. But at every step of this natural process there is a

corresponding reaction from every one and from all of the myriads of atomic particles affected by the

spreading energy.

Karma is in no sense of the word fatalism on the one hand, nor what is popularly known as chance, on

the other hand. It is essentially a doctrine of free will, for naturally the entity which initiates a movement

or action -- spiritual, mental, psychological, physical, or other -- is responsible thereafter in the shape of

consequences and effects that flow therefrom, and sooner or later recoil upon the actor or prime mover.

Since everything is interlocked and interlinked and interblended with everything else, and no thing and

no being can live unto itself alone, other entities are of necessity, in smaller or larger degree, affected by

the causes or motions initiated by any individual entity; but such effects or consequences on entities,

other than the prime mover, are only indirectly a morally compelling power, in the true sense of the word moral.

An example of this is seen in what the theosophist means when he speaks of family karma as contrasted

with one's own individual karma; or national karma, the series of consequences pertaining to the nation

of which he is an individual; or again, the racial karma pertaining to the race of which the individual is an

integral member. Karma cannot be said either to punish or to reward in the ordinary meaning of these

terms. Its action is unerringly just, for being a part of nature's own operations, all karmic action

ultimately can be traced back to the kosmic heart of harmony which is the same thing as saying pure

consciousness-spirit. The doctrine is extremely comforting to human minds, inasmuch as man may carve

his own destiny and indeed must do so. He can form it or deform it, shape it or misshape it, as he wills;

and by acting with nature's own great and underlying energies, he puts himself in unison or harmony

therewith and therefore becomes a co-worker with nature as the gods are

The Occult Glossary by G. de Purucker - J K L

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/ocglos/og-jkl.htm