It is easy to understand what karma means, you do not need any special prior study, only common sense. Having some knowledge about Eastern religions is definitely not a disadvantage, nor is having heard about New-age philosophies, but none of them are necessary in order to understand karma. In short, it is a continuous and infinite series of cause-and-effect connections, where we are the subject and the sufferer as well. According to the Hindus karma is the vibration pattern of the “ancient-power” and “ancient-material”.
Contrary to the usual conception it was not the Buddhists, but the Hindus who said that karma indicates a certain ‘life challenge’ that we bring with us during birth or re-birth. In every case karma is like a mission, in other words a task or assignment that we have to master in our current life. In order to get to a higher level in our next life we will have to complete our “task” given to us in this life. Nevertheless the existence of karma does not necessarily assume reincarnation, but in Buddhist teachings there is a strong connection between karma and reincarnation.
Buddhism takes the intention into account – the birth of the idea - instead of the real act, and whether the act is the result of a good or a bad decision. It means that the purpose of reincarnation is to implement the law of karma. According to Buddhism the only stable point of the universe is karma - all others are just fleeting ‘whims of the gods’.
If our perception and senses were working properly then at a young age we would have a very good chance to learn our life mission or tasks. With this knowledge in mind we could adjust our lives accordingly. If we are ‘deaf’ to this inner knowledge we can easily make our life difficult so at the end we will have to live our life (come back and re-start the same life mission/tasks) all over again, we may even have to start from a lower level. We will have to repeat this cycle till we accomplish