Your karma won’t “come”. It’s already here and you’re already harvesting it.
Let’s decolonise the idea of karma, so we can all spot the fake gurus selling overpriced snake oil. Are you with me?
As a person, I’m very innocent — in the sense of childlike. There are many kinds of evil in the world I can’t even picture in my mind, let alone identify without lived experience, since I’m not the kind of person who would go for these paths of deception and egotism myself. Therefore, I don’t usually imagine these scenarios playing out, or the possibility of them. It’s like the saying we all have probably heard: “one can only ask the questions he has imagination for”. Well, yes, exactly, I wouldn’t have imagination for certain levels of cruelty that human beings are capable of. That’s probably why I had to see them with my own eyes.
Don’t get me wrong, I have an ego too. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be a human being. But there are levels to things. Never forget that.
I was born on a date that, in Numerology, sums up to 8. The number of karma (or its cultural equivalents, depending on which traditions you’re talking about). Perfect symmetry and infinity, resembling Ouroboros. Only the number zero can fit that symbolism more perfectly, but since no date ever adds up to zero, we use eight. (That in itself has meaning: some humans are capable of achieving the level of selflessness required for bringing karma to light for the misguided people around them, and making sure divine justice runs its course; But nobody can do that perfectly, because nobody is a zero principle; Or in other words, a god).
“You reap what you sow” is probably the slogan that summarises my life.
…But is that only from the perspective of what I, Lucy, sow? I used to think so, but I’ve come to realise I was wrong. The more I introspect, the more I notice that I seem to have an innate understanding of karma. I knew how to navigate it, even before anyone taught me about it and before I knew there was a name for it. I have always been aware of which decisions in life were in alignment with my purpose, and which ones weren’t. That’s not to say I’ve never made a mistake in that regard. On the contrary, I ignored this gut feeling far too many times because of fear, especially when I was a lot younger and feared being abandoned by my mother (someone who definitely DOES NOT understand karma, or pretends not to)— but the awareness was there.
In summary: I’m here, in this life, (among other jobs) to help others gain awareness of their own karma. And contrary to common (mis)understanding, that’s not optional. When I cross your path, you will learn it for good or you will learn it through less friendly means. And if you still disrespect that… Well… Let’s see how you’ll do in the afterlife, buddy. It is what it is. I don’t make the rules.
In the past, I would have refrained from saying the above outright. I would have thought it was unwise, because it can sound like boasting. But in what context, exactly, does that sound like boasting? I’ll tell you where: in the presence of the greedy. Greed isn’t just for money, you know. It’s also for other things you perceive as “shiny objects”, such as a path or ability conferred to others and not to you. Ultimately, that’s your problem. Don’t project it onto me, it’s yours. I wash my hands. If you covet what I have, why should I care? I have my life to live, I can’t live yours for you too. Let’s stop being babies and take on some much overdue self-responsibility, kiddos.
Truth is, we all have a noble path in life (a dharma, unique to each individual), and it’s possible to follow it as long as we stop comparing ourselves to others. In other words, as long as we stop being jealous bitches, take our goddamn egos out of the driver’s seat, and grow up for god’s sake.
I hope that’s crystal clear. I’m sick of entitled people’s bullshit.
On to the theoretical part of the article:
It’s harvest season. What are your crops like?
I won’t beat around the bush: Western society was developed according to the fundamentals of Christianity. Love it or hate it, culturally you’re all Christian. You can’t join a new path or adopt a new philosophy by cutting corners. There’s no need to reject and abhor Christianity in order to open up to the new, but for god’s sake, DO open up to the new. Don’t assume you’re a blank slate. You aren’t. There’s already the Christian upbringing. You can’t simply read a few pages of Buddhist text, attend one Hinduist ceremony, or whatever it is you got “a tiny little taste of” and start calling yourself a member of that tradition. Will you allow the opposite? Will you let a villager from a remote area of Afghanistan go watch ONE lecture of philosophy in Harvard and then turn around and tell everybody he has a PhD? Will you? No. I know you won’t. And that’s right, you shouldn’t. I’m showing you a double standard people have regarding learning — if it’s by the Western system, we’re happy to go through all the important milestones and exams; But if it’s by an “exotic” system, ah, sure, one brief encounter suffices.
Do you see the hypocrisy? The arrogance? The faux superiority?
Either you walk the path, or you leave the path alone. Living in delusion only fulfils the ego (yes, there IS such a thing as a “spiritual ego” — feeding your egotism through the means of watered-down spirituality. It’s not just for materialism. Wake up).
Another thing that Western society is, but pretends not to be, is Colonialist. This is more or less pronounced depending where you live, but it’s prevalent to this day: you’re born in an urban centre founded by Colonisers, grow up learning that anything you want, you can quickly grab off a shelf in a supermarket or bookshop or “metaphysical” merchant. And by owning that small snippet of something a lot bigger, now you’re automatically the owner of all knowledge (or “wisdom”, in some cynical fake gurus’ words) on the entire context that organically developed this thing over many centuries. And that’s how you start selling misinformation, naively or maliciously.
Because you made minimum effort to acquire a small part of it, now you tell yourself you have it in its entirety.
Yeah, right.
That’s the mindset behind cultural appropriation, too. It has nothing to do with blood or skin colour. It’s about arrogance.
Anyway, the above problem is why a lot of Westerners misunderstand karma and mistake it for “retribution” or “punishment from God”. It’s not that they’re incapable of grasping the real meaning of karma, but they’re unwilling. They unconsciously still believe THEIR culture is THE superior culture, so everything else must be learned through its parameters and set-in-stone principles.
In other words: Westerners think that in order to learn anything “exotic”, you need a pre-existing foundation in Western thought, and then you just go like, “oh, this word is EXACTLY the same as that word I use in my language; Oh, this belief is EXACTLY like that other belief I grew up with”; When it’s not and you’re just deluding yourself. You’re looking for similarities and comfort more than you’re getting curious and humble. God forbid you ever admit you can’t “instantly” learn and elaborate in your mind and automatically go on to teach anything indigenous or Eastern!
That’s called white supremacism. Accidental, if you insist, but still nasty.
Pay attention once and for all: EVERY culture and tradition started from scratch. None is more important or more accurate or more “this and that” than others. Every single one deserves the same amount of respect. Zero exceptions.
In a way, this is a collective karma of Western civilisation: in an attempt to “conquer everything and dominate everything”, this civilisation spread itself thin; It became a jack of all trades and master of none. Was there a long wait between the action and the consequence? No. They were simultaneous. If you think karma is something that “comes back” to you in retaliation for your accumulated wrongdoings over time, you’re not talking about karma. You’re talking about the final judgement in the Bible. Hence what I said above. If you believe that, no hate, but don’t dress it up as something fancy and Eastern when it’s not.
“But Lucy, I wasn’t intending to fool myself and others”, maybe you’ll say. Ok, I believe that. But intended or not, it happened. And why is that? Let’s recap: Western people are indoctrinated by the current system to think that we are “the normal people”, and everyone outside of our reality has something interesting to teach that goes “on top of” what we already know. Nope. Forget that. All wrong!
Let’s stop telling ourselves and others feel-good lies.
This is not about “replacing” Western with Eastern thought, either — that’s Colonialist all the same, it just inverts victim and culprit. What I’m proposing isn’t that. I’m proposing opening up to the new by observing how small kids express curiosity and doing the same. There’s no need to forget what you know. Western thought is valid and good. What ISN’T valid is applying apples to oranges, then pretending you now have an apple when in fact it’s still an orange, just very poorly dressed-up as an apple. I hope that’s clear.
Same with A LOT of so-called polytheists who keep playing “which god is best”. They didn’t understand the assignment. They’re applying monotheistic logic to polytheism. Of course they’ll have a bias towards one of the gods. When you’re used to just one, and suddenly you convert to a religion where there are many, you’ll go like, “oh, I can choose. If you choose this goddess you’re this kind of person, and if you choose that other god you’re that kind of person”. Nope. All wrong. Go back to the classroom now, your ignorance is showing.
Karma is samsaric; Only dharma brings you closer to moksha.
I grew up near a Tibetan Buddhist temple (Nyingma lineage) and learned a bit with their publications. Later in life, I learned some more by means of martial arts with a completely different school of Buddhism, Zen (Shaolin). Upon moving country, now I live, coincidentally perhaps, reasonably near another temple of the Nyingma Tibetan tradition. Some things in life are just meant to be. It wasn’t until 2020 that I “converted” and started getting serious about Buddhism, but I have this long history as you can see.
(I do not discuss the one workshop I attended on Vajrayana Buddhism back in 2019, because it was, well, just one workshop. A glimpse if you will. I know better than certain Westerners who learn one tiny little lesson within a thousand-year-old tradition and go around saying they already “understand” it. Take note, appropriators).
During my contact with Buddhist teachings that came from authentic sources, I have seen many mentions to these two terms — Dharma and Karma — and they tend to appear in traditional text and lessons that seem to assume the learner is already familiar with what they mean both individually and in connection to each other. Hence, it took me a long while to figure out what was being meant by, for example, “dharma teachings” (referring to the noble truths), “dharma robes” (describing a specific guru), “dissolve all karma” (a petition in prayer), etc.
At first glance, it looks like Karma is like “sin” (by which “dissolve all karma” could be interpreted as a Buddhist version of “deliver us from sins”, which you might have heard at Church); Whereas dharma is simply a technical word referring to the particulars of a monastic Buddhist path. That interpretation, however, would be very surface-level, not to mention appropriative (because it’s comparing these ideas to Western ideas without good reason other than “oh, this is similar to something I already know, so I’ll be lazy here and assume they’re the same”).
We can do better than that.
If you don’t stop at just one empowerment ceremony, or a handful of sacred scriptures, and if you actually commit to practising the faith (what a novel idea, in this world of instant gratification, ISN’T IT?!) you’ll eventually realise that Dharma is more than just one path, and Karma is more than just wrongdoings that bring about bad consequences. But this wisdom is contextual and can only be grasped by walking the path with an open mind, without automatically “translating” everything you hear into Western thought. Let there be a bit of confusion for a while. Why this need to instantly know all there is to know? You’re not better than your masters. You’re not superior. Stay humble.
This article on Medium, from a Hinduist perspective, summarises eloquently where people are misunderstanding Karma and why you should care. I recommend it, especially the following:
In the Battle of Kurukshetra, Arjuna, one of the Pandava princes, faces a crisis of conscience.
As a kshatriya (warrior), Arjuna’s dharma is to fight in battles to uphold justice and protect the social order. But when Arjuna sees that his enemies are his own relatives, teachers, and friends, he is overwhelmed by sorrow and moral confusion.
He contemplates abandoning the battle altogether, believing that the violence and destruction of war cannot possibly be righteous.
At this moment, Krishna, who is both his charioteer and a divine incarnation, delivers a timeless teaching on dharma and karma.
Krishna reminds Arjuna that as a warrior, his dharma is to fight, not because he desires victory or glory, but because it is his duty.
If you interpret the above on a literal and surface level only, you’ll probably come up with fallacies such as “Hinduism enables warfare and violence”. But as we already saw, with every religious text ever, one shouldn’t interpret it literally. I didn’t, and by extension I avoided the common pitfall of assuming Buddhism is somehow superior because it emphasises non-violence (or insert here your feel-good, sheltered suburban white person interpretation of Buddhism on a shallow level).
Love it or hate it, one cannot gain religious wisdom by ignoring the paradoxes and only thinking of “love and light and family-friendly delight”. Look at the newage community. Do you want THAT? Yeah, me neither.
Here’s one possible meaning for the above Hinduist allegory (not dissimilar from allegories you find in Buddhist text too, especially pertaining wrathful deities) — “yes, family is sacred, but this, like anything else in the Universe, isn’t an absolute. There’s nuance and complexity. If your family was already given multiple chances to let go of karma and pursue their dharma, but refused because of their ego, it IS your dharmic duty to break your connection with them (or in allegoric terms, to “be a warrior against them”)”.
See how different that is compared to certain Churches out there that keep preaching you should honour your family no matter what, even in case of severe misconduct and disharmony. That’s not the Bible’s fault, that’s human beings being childish and taking it literally.
There are more interpretations, I’m sure. That’s just mine. Try putting your own mind to work and coming up with yours, instead of taking the text literally.
My interpretation came from my own story: I grew up with a mother who refused to let go of me when I was of age and instead resorted to multiple strategies to keep me engulfed in an artificial relationship of symbiosis with her. Was she following her motherly dharma? She claimed that yes, she was; But the truth is no, she wasn’t. The dharma (or path that is in harmony with the natural order of things) that mothers have isn’t forever and actually has an expiry date. After that date, it evolves and becomes something very different from what it used to be (ie, no longer a relationship where the baby is totally dependent on the mother and 100% obedient to her, but instead a relationship where the now fully grown adult is independent and connects to the mother on a more horizontal kind of hierarchy). This can and will bring about a lot of emotions, but it must happen. If any of the two people involved try to stop it from happening, that person is now generating karma and no longer following dharma. And the more you enable the person who generates karma, the more you’re being an accomplice to that, and the more you too will suffer. It’s better to go the “politically incorrect” way and do what needs to be done.
Speaking of political incorrectness… It doesn’t matter that in some cases people dress up their karma generation as “empathy” because “look at how wholesome I am, isn’t it nice and snuggly and cozy to keep a child always nearby? Isn’t it cute? Isn’t it lovely?” — Yeah, no, ma’am. That’s an appeal to emotion fallacy. A thing a lot of fake gurus are doing, too, except with different topics. (For example, veganism. “Oh but look at the fluffy animals suffering, why be so cruel?” — Tell that to nature where they kill and use each other for survival all the time. Let’s maybe not have a thriving industry for producing meat that later goes to the bin because the poorer can’t buy it — that’s going against the natural order too, that’s karmic too — but don’t be so quick to go to the other extreme of the spectrum and deprive millions of nutrients essential for their health in the name of “looking wholesome and cute and easy to like”).
Can you see how Western society is obsessed with oversimplifying complex relationships of dharma and karma because it’s more comfortable and (I guess?) lazier to resort to appeal to emotion? As long as we keep doing that, we’ll keep sinking deeper and deeper into the wheel of Samsara (or, for the non-Buddhist out there, “our collective world of artificiality brought about by self-inflicted suffering, where nature is disregarded and egos reign supreme”).
Karma is, essentially, egotistic action that we delude ourselves into thinking is “necessary” or “best” just because it produces a shiny or attractive facade (take that metaphorically too — a “moralistic” facade, for the religious egos out there). Karma generates unhealthy consequences instantly and constantly. So, to say that someone has karma is the same as to talk about someone’s unacknowledged and unaddressed shadow self that is in control of their lives, causing suffering to themselves and others. It’s not something that “eventually” happens to punish you. It’s already happening. And you can dissolve it any time you want with mentorship from the Buddhas and Boddhisattvas (or your chosen higher power) AND your own power of decision-making. So, in a way, there’s a reason why Buddhism isn’t always talking about hell. It’s because hell is here. Among us. And it’s simple to break free from, any time, anywhere. Simple but not easy. It takes balls, you know. You can’t do it from a place of people-pleasing or worrying too much about “what others will think”.
Likewise, dharma isn’t just = the religious path; But it appears in scriptures referring to it because the religious path is one kind of dharma, so it’s not wrong.
Like Mahek Nagar wisely said in the linked article,
Dharma is unique to each individual, shaped by their age, caste (varna), stage of life (ashrama), profession, and inherent nature (svabhava). This flexibility is central to dharma’s role in Indian ethics: what is dharma for one person may not be dharma for another.
Ignoring “caste” because I don’t subscribe to that specific concept, we’re basically talking about a universal principle I think every religion can agree on: do what is right, not only what feels good and/or will bring you good PR. Let the natural order, and not your ego, guide you; Because it’s only in nature (your nature. I’m not talking about taking a walk in the woods, LOL) that you can reconnect with your soul.
This also implies, as I said in the intro, resisting the urge to compare yourself to others. And above all else, resist the urge to generalise it all and say “we’re all one anyway” so what works for me MUST work for others regardless of their uniqueness. No. Stop it. All wrong.
There’s a reason why we need to introspect. If everything had one-size-fits-all solutions, well, that’s it, isn’t it? We’d all have a simple manual to life.
But we don’t.
Life will surprise you whether you like it or not.
