Karma is a garden

filled with rocks and roses

There is nothing much in my lived experience that makes me think humans get what we deserve. The people I know who have suffered the most or died far too young are among the best people I know, while some of the worst people I know seem invincible. There is also nothing much in my lived experience that makes me think I am a good judge of what other people deserve. How do I know what’s going on with people or why they do what they do or what’s led them to the place they now stand?

The theology of judgment can be a comfort - the idea that those who are doing evil, who are causing suffering will pay a price, if not now, then in the afterlife - that there will ultimately be a righting of the scales, justice. But I don’t believe in cosmic retribution. And, while I’m at it I should just go ahead and say, I don’t believe in hell. I don’t believe in a god who judges and sorts us after death according to our deeds or misdeeds.

I remember once, many years ago, watching Oprah. I can’t remember who the guest was, but the conversation was spiritual in nature and the guest said that after we die, we go through a review process during which we relive a sped up version of our lives and feel everything that we caused others to feel. (I’ve since heard this concept repeated by many spiritual leaders and psychics.)

Oprah raised her hands in praise and said, “Don’t we have a fair god!” or something to that effect, and I thought, “No, that doesn’t seem fair to me at all!”

I am acutely aware of the harm I’ve caused, the feelings I’ve hurt, the times when I drank too much and said something heartless and stupid, the times when I did that sober, the times when my wounds got stomped on and I reacted rather than responding, the times when I was just simply wrong. Or mean.

I remember the pain in other people’s eyes, I remember the consequences of acting selfishly or foolishly. I don’t need to be reminded. I have a running narrative in my head reminding me of all of my failures, all of the places I don’t measure up, the opportunities I’ve squandered. It never shuts up.

So, maybe the idea of a life review where we re-feel everything is fair but it sure doesn’t seem loving and if god is love, then god is love. If god is love, and believe me, I know, that’s a big if, then god can’t be conditional love or tough love. Because those things aren’t love.

The hells we create for ourselves

My childhood priest once said that hell was not a literal place but a state of mind that we create for ourselves. I think there are several ways one could interpret that statement, but the way I looked at it then and now is that I’m in control of my own energy. If I choose to act in a way that is harmful to myself and others, then I am going to live in that energy. If I’m running a narrative in my head, then I’m going to see confirmation for that narrative everywhere I look. There is no punishment coming for me except for the that which I inflict upon myself.

But what about people who don’t seem to care that they are causing harm to others, or even seem to enjoy the harm they do? It’s a little tricky to talk about because I think we are all too quick to diagnose one another these days - but what about narcissists? What about sadists? What about Nazis?

From a theological standpoint, I will tell you what I believe. I believe that when we die, we all go back to love. All of us. All of us. Yes, even the person who just popped into your head. It’s all or nothing for me. God is love or god isn’t. We are one or we’re not.

But what do I believe from an energetic perspective?

What about karma?

The western mind plucked the concept of karma from eastern religion and westernized it. We placed on top of it our notions of heaven and hell, our thirst for transactional relationships. We talk about karma like it’s a moral justice system or some sort of mystical retribution.

A man robs a bank (a deed we have culturally decided is bad,) walks out into the street and gets hit by a car (another bad thing.) Ah, we say, instant karma. A bad thing done, a bad thing received; and eye for an eye.

But nothing in my lived experience makes me think that’s how life works.

I have not studied Hinduism, but I have listened to many, many hours of Ram Dass. These are lyrics from a song he recorded with East Forest and Trevor Hall:

Our karma is our mind.

And the mind stands in the way

Of a clear view of god.

Our minds give us clouded perceptions.

This incarnation has in it… individuality.

Individualism leads to war

And anger

And insecurity

And fear.

Karma is an action

Do we create the energy of karma with our thoughts and emotions? Or is it through the action of karma that we create our own reality?

Let’s go back to my childhood priest and the hells we create for ourselves, and throw in a bit of confirmation bias for good measure. Here’s what I think it means that we create our own reality: We all have stories running in our heads about ourselves, other people, and life itself. If I’m running the story that I have bad luck, that bad things always happen to me, that there’s a dark cloud over my head, as I go about my day I’m going to observe all sorts of things and experience all sorts of things, but I’m going to latch on to the things that back up the narrative that bad things happen to me and all of the other moments, during which that belief is not reinforced, will just drift by me unnoticed.

I can choose to tell a different story. I can choose to focus on the moments of delight, the good things that happen. I can rewrite the story I’m telling myself about myself. When I do that, I’m not going to cause or prevent things, but I am going to alter my experience of the things that happen.

As we sow, we reap

It makes sense that if we live by laws of physics, we also live with energetic laws. Is it true that whatever I do comes back to me? I don’t think it’s true in a literal, physical way. If I walk outside right now and throw a rock through my neighbor’s window, no one is going to throw a rock through mine, but I will instantly be living in the energy of having done the harm.

We are all here in these bodies on this planet as weavers of energy. The small things I do everyday add up, not because there is an external scale weighing my thoughts and actions, but because I am an energetic being who is weaving energy. I live in the story that I create.

If a person goes through life intentionally harming others, that energy of harm will also be moving through their own life in some way. Maybe that’s karma. We live in that which we create, but we are the ones who can shift that energy and creation at any moment.

As a society, we seem to seek vengeance. We want those who cause suffering to suffer. But I don’t think that’s how it is in the energetic and spiritual realms, because I don’t think that’s how it is with love. In love, there is always the opportunity for redemption and change of direction.

Listen, I don’t know anything. I don’t understand what life is or why we are here or what god is, if god in fact, exists. I do know that I am the gardener of my interior world. I don’t control the things that happen in my life but I do control my response to those things.

Is there no justice?

What happens to people who do evil things? If someone walks into a school and kills children at their desks, is there no consequence? And what about a country that is built on genocide and the labor of enslaved people? Do we get to simply walk away from that reality, without atonement? Without paying the debt we owe?

I don’t know. I truly don’t. But I don’t believe in lost causes, and I do believe in love. I know that I’ve been given a billion chances for do-overs in my life and it seems to me that’s the way of things. Love gives us the chance for the do-over, as many times as it takes even after death, on and on.

Karma is a garden

So maybe karma is a garden that I tend in my heart. And maybe there are stones there and rushing waters and dry deserts and also roses. Maybe I live that which I cultivate, that which I feed.

I would like to think sometimes that humans get what we deserve. Other times, I’m grateful that we don’t.

I only know how I wish to feel and how I wish you to feel when you encounter me. I only know that I can work there, on that tiny plot of land.