(Good morning -- This may be a bit long for a comment so if you want to use it as an article, feel free! Use it any way you'd like.... RR)

I guess I'm one who doesn't believe that these two theories conflict with each other -- rather I feel they're intertwined to some degree.

I do admit to not having a great deal of understanding about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but as a Buddhist, I do have some understanding of what Buddha had to say about Karma (although I freely admit to having a lot more to learn about this topic).

I recently wrote two articles about Karma in my blog at: http://www.buddhistbelief.com. In the following comments I've quoted extensively from those two articles.

Here are a couple of quotes -- one from 2500 years ago and one from current day ...

"No matter what one does, whether one's deeds serve virtue or vice, nothing lacks importance. All actions bear a kind of fruit."

~~~ Buddha

"How people treat you is their Karma; how you react is yours."

~~~ Wayne Dyer

According to the Buddha's wisdom relating to the law of karma, which in turn, relates to how things are, everything happens for a reason. Sometimes if you look at something it appears to be random, but if you increase your frame of vision, you can often see that it's connected in some way to something else. According to the law of karma, everything is said to have a cause. The often misunderstood belief about this is that there is always a "good" or "bad" reason for anything happening. I don't believe such a belief is true. It isn't about "good" or "bad" -- it's merely cause and effect. The physicists say there is no action without a reaction.

Everything has a cause. It doesn't mean that you alone created the cause. There could be billions of interacting causes. But, according to the understanding of what Buddha taught about how things are, everything happens for some karmic reason.

How can one work with the concept of karma? Is there an operating manual somewhere? How can one learn to navigate a little better in this life? Is there a better way to sail these waters of life? Perhaps we're not at the mercy of the wind and the waves. After all, the waves are on the surface and we might be able to surf on them or dive under them, right?

Think for a moment about how you perceive things. It's not rocket science to understand how our life experience is defined by how we perceive things. How we relate to things generates our experience.

For example, if an Eskimo were to be sitting here with me in my office in Ohio, USA, he or she would probably think I should open a window or turn on the air conditioning. That poor Eskimo would be roasting even without all the fur clothing. However, another person from Ecuador sitting here with me in my office would be freezing to death.

You see, our perception defines our reality.

I guess you could say we are perceiving our lives exactly as we have decided it should be. We have, somehow, made it our habit to see things a certain way. We are creating our own reality. If you think about the fact that if you can create a perception or reality, then we should be able to deconstruct it as well.

However we decide to live our lives depends on how we construct it. It is our own outlook on things and events that will determine how we create our reality. Wherever we go, we seem to recreate that reality, don't we? Even though we may change where we live or who we form relationships with, we manage to somehow turn it all into the same thing we had previously. We keep bringing our reality with us, even though it's no longer the same.

In terms of Karma, these habitual realities we've created are embedded in our subtle consciousness and we continuously transfer these concepts onto a variety of different things.

Yet, concepts are not reality. We need to understand this fact so we can learn to see the difference. Even though we choose to think of things a certain way, it's not true reality.

There's a lot of suffering in the world. There are terrible things happening every day. There are many innocent people who suffer at the hands of others. There are earthquakes, hurricanes, fires and floods. These are terrible things and they're difficult to grapple with. We do what we can to help -- we don't just shrug it off as inevitable.

The Buddhist teaching of Karma — not unlike the biblical teaching of sin and virtue — says that we can only experience what we have sown. Cause and effect. Do we bear some of the responsibility for awful things happening to people? Since we are all connected, I think we are a part of these things. Perhaps it's a part of our minds. Who is without some blame?

Who’s going to control things if we, ourselves, are not in control of our own reality? I think we have to start with what we have. We can master and purify ourselves, act ethically and impeccably, we can choose to follow the Eightfold Path of Buddhist Belief, and we can strive to shed some of that light in the world. We can bring it out to the educational system, to the business world, to our families, wherever we live.

I don't know if these thoughts add to the question you asked, or whether they clarify a bit, but I do hope it helps with the thought process.

Be in peace ....