TLW, you said,
both one's actions and one's intentions play some role in garnering some kind of energy around you that can be positive or negative and that has effects in both this life and in the next.
Exactly. You are also correct in saying this effects both this life and the next. Our actions and intentions certainly can be positive or negative. Simply said, when we do something to someone (good or bad), somewhere down the line (in this lifetime or a future lifetime) the same type of thing will happen to us — this is the basis of how karma works.
If we do something good, somewhere down the line something good will happen to us, most likely in some type of ‘unexpected good luck’ and if we did something bad, we will get a piece of ‘unexpected bad luck’ in the future. What is important to note is, this future piece of ‘bad luck’ is something bad that will happen to us, and we won’t be able to do anything about it.
Is it possible to assess what your karma is?
The only way I know is to consult a good psychic.
That is, whether you have good or bad karma,
I think all of us have both good and bad karma.
I think that most of us have more bad karma stored up than good karma.
what you can do to change it, whether things that have happened in your life are about past karma, (this or previous life) etc?
Bad karma can only be worked off. It is only through doing good deeds and not doing bad deeds that we will finally bring our karma into balance.
Does the idea of karma correspond in any way with Western religious doctrinal ideas around obedience, grace, forgiveness of sin etc or is it so different from those ideas that is doesn't align at all?
There is no connection between the ideas of karma and the forgiveness of sin — these ideas are completely opposite. In my opinion, a person cannot believe in karma and the forgiveness of sin at the same time. (The forgiveness of sin removes a person from being held responsible for what they have done, whereas karma guarantees the person will be held responsible for what they have done.)
I think posting a couple of edited images from the Theosophical book
First Principles of Theosophy by C. Jinarajadasa will help to explain things.
In the image below, we see the total of good and bad karma accumulated by one particular person over a number of lifetimes. The empty space inside the circle represents the person’s accumulated good karma, and the hatched area inside the circle represents the person’s accumulated bad karma. We can see that the person has accumulated more bad karma than good karma. (This is true of almost everyone.)
If we were to try to work off all of our bad karma in one lifetime, we would be crushed by the weight of it, so we select only a small portion to be worked off in our upcoming reincarnation (the portion in the image below defined as the slice-of-pie g, h, k).
In the image below, we see the total amount of good and bad karma the person has accumulated at the end of the next reincarnation. Fortunately, the total percentage of good karma is now slightly larger, and the total percentage of bad karma is now slightly smaller. (But not by a whole lot. It will take this person many reincarnations to eventually work off all of their bad karma.)
It is in this way we eventually work off all of our bad karma, which then allows us to move onto enlightenment and then onto nirvana. (I do not think we can move onto enlightenment and then nirvana until we have burned off all of our bad karma, but a lot of people disagree with me on this.)
How does all of this sound so far?
.
