Many people seem to see karma as a negative thing that we want to avoid. Karma just means action. It is simply the natural law of action and reaction. It can be positive, negative or neutral, and it is unavoidable. Sometimes the consequences of our actions can take a very long time to come back to us. These reactions can also come back to us in very convoluted ways.   If you are nasty to people you can eventually expect to get something negative back. There's no way to avoid this unless you stop being nasty, or have some positive feature that encourages others to tolerate or forgive your nastiness.   It is the delaying or hiding of the reactions to our actions, that to me seems to be the cause of any problems we have with karma. If we perform some action and get immediate negative feedback then we have the opportunity to learn to avoid that action. If  we get immediate positive feedback then we can desire to do such things more often.   If instead we can't see any link between the reactions and their causative actions, then our rate of learning, change and evolution slows down.   It's like how the world can't (or doesn't want to) see how the terrorist threat is a product of our past and present actions. If you can't (or don't want to) see how you've created your problems, it  becomes much more difficult to learn to stop creating even more problems for oneself.   In my own experience I am learning how to hasten the return of such reactions (karma). The faster and more directly a reaction comes back, the easier it is to "see" it's initial cause.   I've found that the more honest, open, direct, and up front I am, the quicker and more directly the reactions to my actions come back to me.   If instead, I lie, hide my true feelings, pretend to be something I'm not, am two faced, deceptive, manipulative, act out of vested interest without declaring that vested interest, etc, then the reactions tend to be similarly hidden and can be very delayed. So I don't get the opportunity to "see" for myself how I am causing my own problems.   i.e. it is very rare for liars to be called such to their faces, instead it can take a very long time for people to see them as liars and even then only react subtly differently to them. So the liar may see their lying as successfully bringing wealth, power, friends etc and not even wonder why their personal relationships etc are so unfulfilling.    For me my "karma" is a spiritual tool that helps me to understand the workings of the universe. I prod the universe and it reacts. If the reaction is direct and quick enough, I then may see the connection between action and reaction that allows me to experience and gain some understanding of the nature of the universe and life.   Trying to avoid one's karma delays it, and also hides the connection to it's causative actions. Behaving in ways where we seek to avoid the consequences of our actions only makes it more difficult to discover where we want to go with our life.  So I say: Embrace one's karma, good or bad, for it is a vital part of our spiritual growth.   Embracing and exploring our karma allows us to do so much more than just "talking the talk". We can learn to "walk the walk", and actually live a spiritual life rather than just talk about it.