Please stop saying “karma is real”. It isn’t. When you say it, it implies that those people who have suffered terribly with pain and loss, somehow deserved it, by just not being good enough. If they had lived a good enough life, karma would not have zapped them and made them suffer.
My mother worked all of her life. She worked from the time she was sixteen until she had a stroke (between shifts), as a bartender at age 67. She gave her love and her heart endlessly to everyone. The funeral director who oversaw her service, told me that he had never had anyone pass away, that brought so many visitors to his establishment. The funeral home was crowded for hours and hours, with people who wanted to see her one more time. She was so loved, and incredibly popular because of her loving nature.
Make no mistake, my mother never caught a break. She worked and worked and then she worked some more. She was always tired and often discouraged. When her long time employer sold out; he broke every promise that he had ever made to her. It was easy for him to do, because as the owner, he had absolute right to disappoint her. Instead of a retirement fund, he gave her a small bonus and sold her to the next bar owner. Yes, much like slavery, my mother never had a say in her own life. Karma never kicked in for her. She never received economic gain from her solid and thoughtful hard.work.of.fifty.years.
She raised seven kids in a harsh rural environment. And yet, she was the mother who took everyone trick-or-treating. She was the mother who welcomed all of the disenfranchised into her home. She was the mother who gave to all and anyone. She was lovely, she was joyful, and she was tired.
Where was her karma? Why didn’t she ever receive the good that she gave? It wasn’t for lack of love; she gave that unconditionally and generously to anyone who crossed her path.
I say that about the sick, the hurt and those who have suffered great injustices.
Where is their karma, why haven’t they received good for their good? It is not the fault or even the karma — of anyone who gets sick. Sickness travels the bodies of anyone and everyone, without regard to human judgment or rules. Sickness is a physical phenomena that will attack: rich, poor, ugly, beautiful, good, bad, child or adult. Sickness does not care who it attacks. Sickness lays waste to good lives, particularly here in America, where illness is expensive, very, very expensive.
Hear this: there is no tit-for-tat of the universe.
Justice is a human construct.
Karma is not a reality that westerners can adopt to make sense of their own world.
Why do so many people believe in Karma? It’s our culture currently: the wealthy use it to justify their riches and the bad use it to justify their crimes. Everyone in between is just trying to get by.
What is real and what works? Love works, plain and simple, love works. Loving and giving are always rewarded. Yet, it is a reward of not rewarding. The rewards are deep and profoundly felt by those who love and are loved.
Love works, and is a gift unto itself, has no reason.
You may want to receive because of your love, but that is not real love. Love gives, and yet is not a reward. Real love simply is. Full Stop.