Karma literally means action or the act of doing. So yes, as long as we have a body there is karma even if it’s just breathing or the beating of the heart. If the body is alive then there is karma.
However, the kind of karma I'm considering is related to actions that have an effect on others and their consequences.
First off the consequences of any action we perform is not good or bad and it is never a punishment. Karma is designed to be an experience and since earth offers itself as a plain of existence that deals with duality there are two sides to the whole experience of each particular action/karma. There is the one doing the action and the one receiving the action. To complete the whole experience thoroughly we should play both parts.
Simply put we should perform the action in one life and receive the action in another life. There is nothing good or bad about either. It’s simply a way to fully experience an action.
Next we’d like to ask why would we ever want to come to earth. Evidently, earth is a place where enlightened souls come so we may occupy a higher status in our off-earth lives. Earth is super challenging. Once we have achieved enlightenment on earth our status has significantly increased. And if we do it right we have helped many other souls to also advance in their respective evolution.
Robert Schwartz has written a series of books, I found book one, Your Soul's Plan and two, Your Soul's Gift to be the best, and if you only have time for one book make it book two. Through the use of about 5-6 highly skilled psychics Swartz taps into the pre-life plan of various people in their planning stage before they incarnate.
Evidently, we carefully structure all our life interactions with each key player and all the minor players as well. The inner circle may only be a handful of souls but all the players, may be in the hundreds. Every one of them are active participants in your pre-life script. And important life interactions are rehearsed. Such as the first moment you meet someone that will be important to the trajectory of your life, a dear friend, lover, teacher, etc. There are no coincidences.
Wait a minute, what happened to free-will?
It’s there every step of the way. If we are off script it’s usually a minor alteration. So in deep sleep we meet with our guides and masters to re-route our trajectory, creating a revised script and perhaps even recasting roles our current characters are playing.
All of this is done with deep love for the individual souls and their evolution. It’s all heart driven action for the betterment of all.
Earth is a challenge to begin with but many souls add more challenges to get the most out of their time on earth. Such as, coming on to earth with a sickness or disability. Or one come here as unique, like being gay in a non-friendly environment, even being ridiculed by family so you can’t get away from that harsh criticism. Why so nasty? Because progress comes from either discomfort or comfort. Many souls realize they won’t make much progress in their evolution, time on earth without pushing themselves. Putting yourself down in a harsh environment causes us to go deeper into self. Thereby exposing ourselves to our own refined nature. That revelation represents a big step in our evolution. The interesting point in this method is, a soul choosing the tough road will ask a soul family member or a deep soul friend to be the one that deals the heaviest ridicule or criticism, and its carried out with great love. (This is really touching my heart). This is why we always need to reserve judgment on anything we see. It’s seldom obvious.