The Law of Karma is a law of action and reaction. For every action (in the form of thought, word or deed) that we commit, an equal action will be committed upon us. Like prisoners awaiting the end of our sentence, we are bound to existence in those lower regions of Creation where the Law of Karma governs until we have borne all the reactions of our good and bad actions since the beginning of Time. All the actions we commit; feeding a hungry person, taking a life, eating an apple, gossiping, praying, having prideful thoughts, are like seeds that we are sowing. Once sown, the seed will bring forth a harvest yielding similar seed. The reactions (the 'harvest') that come must be allowed to have their effect on us in order to clear our karmic debts and free us to progress to higher states of existence.
The Law of Karma is a law of justice – pure, unbiased, absolute, and inescapable. There is also the Law of Grace, which has the power to free us from our karmic bonds. This law can act upon us through the Grace of a living Master who has the authority and competency to burn away some of our karmas for us.