Surprises and Karma

I had an interesting talk with a friend this week.

In it, I found out she got married in a civil wedding early this October.  I was mystified by the announcement... wait, let me rephrase that... I was shocked at her announcement.  One moment, you think you know the person, and then suddenly you're facing someone with a stranger's surname.

In any case, our conversation digressed at the ills we've done others.  I guess the moment crystallized my thoughts, and I said though I was atheist, it seems I have always unconsciously deferred to the will of the Universe and accepted Karma as its means to exact justice for all the times we've caused bad things to happen to others.  The line of thinking would be, "I'm suffering now because I deserve it", or "I should cease to feel guilty because I've been punished for it already".  It's truly satisfying to live in delusion sometimes - to think forces greater than ourselves are at play to harmonize and right the wrongs we have done, or to put back in balance what we have tipped over.

A realization did come by my way.  The Universe is amoral.  Isn't justice just a construct of our minds as it struggles with logic and the tempering effects of empathy?  No one is out there keeping tabs of our good deeds, or bad deeds at that.

Karma seems meaningful only in retrospect; a convenient means to ease our guilt.

Come to think of it, the guilt I carry was never lightened by the harm and ill done to me  by others.  The hurt I've felt never did ease the guilt of the hurt I dispensed on others.  My betrayal never did cancel out the betrayal done to me.  It all turns out to be one complex and confounding network of hurt and pain we've all weaved to entangle each and everyone of us in.

As we age, they say we grow in wisdom.  I say, we entangle ourselves so much from all the things we've done in our early years that we can barely move anymore.  That is ageing.  One day, you'd rather stay in your chair all day than to spin more of your caustic web into the world and its inhabitants.

There really is wisdom in the adage of forgiving and forgetting.  Life can be a real bummer if you are lugging around a bag of guilt everywhere you go - like some forlorn Santa Claus.

To my friend down there in the south, I wish you blissful happiness.