Karma Karma = When you create shit in the universe you will step in it later on. There is a cloying chunk of indigestible dullwittedness in the form of the words to a popular song. It is much favored by garden-variety Christians. It goes something like this: "I believe that for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows. . . I believe that someone in the Great Somewhere hears every word. . . I believe, oh I believe. . ." Gag me with a cosmic spoon! The universe is alive and permeated with God. This is true. But this does not imply anything like the adolescent gibberish of "I believe." On the concept of sin and punishment, an approximately acceptable story to tell a three-year old when they begin to first wonder about such things, is the model of a personal God, logging in his Big Book all our sins, and, after death, calling us to account for the tally. Amazingly, seeming adults still believe this. The power of early childhood training I guess. On the eastern front, there is a similar bit of childish nonsense around the concept of "karma." When thinking of the evil that men do we like to say that they will get their comeuppance in the cosmic end. That "their karma" will go with them after death and that they will "have to pay" later for being an asshole today. People believe it works something like this: you do x, y and z to Susy in this lifetime and so in some future lifetime Susy, or perhaps someone else, will do x, y and z to you. This is nothing but Old Testament "eye for an eye" morality dressed up in eastern drag. It was a primitive understanding of the universe when the Old Testament was written, and it is a primitive understanding today. We like to comfort ourselves, in the face of the profoundly dark and mysterious reality of our existence, by telling ourselves little fairy tales. The idea that the stirring of every leaf goes remarked by a personal and benevolent God, is one such toasty delusion. The idea that our karmic debts get paid in some direct accounting, is another. Whether you have in mind Jehovah with his Big Book, or whether you have in mind "the universal principle of karma," what you have in mind is a childish fantasy. The simple Christian concept of sin and redemption is both too strict and too forgiving. It is too strict in the notion that you get one chance to get it right, and if you fail, to Hell with you! It is way too forgiving as well. Consider Uncle Fred. Uncle Fred is an asshole. He spends his entire life bringing nothing but pain and misery to everyone whose life he touches. On his deathbed Uncle Fred repents his sins, accepts Jesus, and is forgiven. Bullshit! The actions that Uncle Fred did throughout his life--good and bad--have continuing consequences in the universe. If Uncle Fred created shit in the universe during his life, then he will certainly step in it later on, whether he is Born Again, or just born again. Karma is real (and Jehovah and his Big Book are not). The universe is a vast cosmic ocean. It has neither the time nor the inclination to worry about you in a personal way. In fact, if I were asked to sum-up the most fundamental spiritual truth knowable by man it would be this: Don't Take It Personally. Don't try to take God personally. God is not a person. Not even A REALLY BIG PERSON. God is more like the subtle atmosphere of the universe. God is a sweet, blissful, loving, all-pervading, mist of knowing. All manifestation arises out of and subsides back into this mist. It is a natural process. It is the natural process of being. Every individuated anything is inter-connected with every other individuated anything--more or less closely--in this vast cosmic mist of being that is God. There are beings and phenomena and events that are remote to me and some that are close. Those aspects of the body of God that are closest, I tend to identify as ME. This identification is the root of all our trouble--but that's another story. Every action in the universe sets in motion waves of influence, radiating to infinity. The waves of influence that are closer to home are more vivid and immediate than those that are on the far side of the ocean of being. Karma is just the effects we set in motion in the being of God by our actions. These effects are real, objective, and consequential. Not in any moralistic way. But more like the ripples we create in a pond when we toss in a stone. The ripples are real, and they will have consequences, and if our tiny sailboat is in the way the ripples may capsize it. None of which has anything to do with sin and punishment, or karma and retribution. It is just the processes of the natural universe expressing the qualities and the consequences of your actions. And so if you set in motion "bad karma" by your stupid actions, you will certainly have to suffer the consequences, because you will have created a bunch of crap in universe and you will step into that crap in some way later on. And you will never "pay off your karma" until you begin creating qualities of sweetness and love and light and wisdom and compassion in your actions. Because you will step into these qualities too. And when you create nothing but such qualities, then you will be finished--with your karma and your journey. And finally, a word about redemption. You don't necessarily have to step in all the shit you create. Karma can be dissolved. The solvent is authentic spiritual love. Not belief or repentence or accepting Jesus or any other silliness like that. When your heart is open deeply with impersonal love of the divine, you radiate a sweet rasa, a sweet quality, and this quality is an actual energy that you emit into the universe--in a way that is as literal and concrete as the crap you create when you behave stupidly. And this sweet energy can dissolve karma. That's the only way to avoid the shit you have left behind.