mixed_biscuits
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As far as the literature says, karma is not punishment as much as tuition: you get to experience particular types of adversity in order to understand it and/or not inflict it on others. Adversity helps to develop character; note the equanimity with which the famous holy men - ie. those spiritually highly developed - take all kinds of privations. All this plays out against a background of essentially timeless, completely integrated eternity over vast numbers of reincarnations so don't get too hung up on specificities.