“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
—Lilla Watson
I grew up in India—a complex and richly layered society—where I was persistently reminded that my karma would shape cycles of births and rebirths. Freedom of expression may be a beautiful thing, but it can be mighty unpleasant for the one on the receiving end, especially a young mind. Eventually, I came to dismiss the dogged insistence on dharma and karma—as well as unsolicited advice on how these would ultimately dictate the attainment of my moksha—as largely self-serving on the part of the righteous pundits. It’s all bogus, I concluded.
Strangely, after moving to the US as a young adult, the Westerners’ frequent references to this overrated, overused word piqued my curiosity. From bumper stickers to casual conversations, this obsession with a Hindu concept began to intrigue me; yet it would take several years and a simple happenstance for me to regret dismissing the notion of karma.
I reclaimed the age-old karmic principles of my Hindu faith in an eerily meaningful way when I suddenly lost a stack of cash that I’d been unwilling to share with a houseless man. Soon after dismissing his pleas for “a buck or two” by blatantly lying that I had absolutely no change to spare, I misplaced it—all of it. After a frantic but failed search, I found myself drawing a through-line between my action and how the day unfolded.
Following that experience—which left me feeling guilty and frustrated all at once—something strange began to happen: I started encountering many a misfortune upon deliberately misconstruing facts, no matter how innocuous, and after engaging in actions that intentionally benefited me at the cost of others.
It soon began to sink in that a dollar may be pennies to me, but it is a cup of coffee to the one who has none; a lie may be harmless to me, but it has the tremendous potential to hurt somebody else. Call it making sense out of nonsense—I hopped on the karma car.
I now believe, like a moral rendering of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, Karma is my conscience telling me that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Karma then is but a mirror of our interdependence, reminding me that what I do to another shapes the world I live in too.
Prayer
May my path be guided by dharma—a love ethic of right thought and action. May the seeds I sow grow peace, justice, and liberation for all in this very life and not some utopian future. Only then let my soul be free.