Time, Karma and Delusion

The only time we have is now

We think in linear terms, creating straight lines between cause and effect. Buddhists call it Karma. The universe, however, has no straight lines; everything in spacetime travels a curved path. Moreover, the curved paths intersect and influence each other, producing complex levels of uncertainty that we experience as ignorance. Notably, in quantum mechanics there are no certainties, only probabilities.

The idea of Karma does away with the false distinctions of time as past, present, and future. Karmically, each moment includes them all, holistically generated while generally imperceptible at our human scale. Although we are very good at detecting patterns and adjusting our behavior based upon “reasonable” expectations, shit happens, what we call surprises and accidents. Shit is simply our ignorance revealed.

The complexities of Karma are so vast that they are inconceivable. Karma is not simply about what we human beings do or don’t do, but what’s happening in the entire universe. Perturbations in the Oort Cloud, for example, may have sent the asteroid to earth 65 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs. Our Milky Way galaxy is racing towards a collision with the Andromeda galaxy in 4-5 billion years. Now that’s some Karma for you.

Because we are ignorant and our existence is full of surprises, we delude ourselves. Great storytellers that we are, we make stuff up to help us feel less anxious and more in control. While we can control many things that our pattern-recognition skills have identified, the forces that surround us are too great and too powerful. We sometimes call such forces “tidal” in that they suddenly sweep upon us like a great sleeper wave, even assuming the scale of a social Tsunami. In human terms, such events are dubbed “Black Swans,” cataclysmic and unforeseen, and they don’t require an asteroid dislodged from the Oort Belt to happen, just the collective Karma of civilization.

So, in a universe as vast and unpredictable as ours what’s a person to do, and does it make any difference? As to the latter question, I’ll borrow a line from the movie “Casablanca,” and say that “the problems of two little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy mixed-up world.” And yet, Rick adds tenderly, “But we’ll always have Paris.” Occasionally our movie entertainment touches real wisdom: “But we’ll always have Paris” means love.

Herein we find the answer to the first question; a person loves, and love is perhaps the strongest Karmic force of all. Is the powerful attraction of one sub-atomic particle for another love? How about the clumping of matter into planets and galaxies? A great force of love is exerting itself though us, a timeless Karmic force that acts upon all and everything simultaneously and without discrimination.

We are hopelessly and irrevocably ignorant; it’s our human condition and we can fight it or accept it. Accepting it does not mean blindly going through our daily motions like nothing matters. And Karma, as imposing and all-inclusive as it is, does not mean we don’t have choices we can make. For us little people, choosing to be kind, choosing to care, choosing to love is what makes being human precious. We are not automatons nor are we just pawns in a bigger game.

The only time we have is now and for us now’s the time to open your mind and heart to love.