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| English: High priest offering a sacrifice of a goat, as on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur; from Henry Davenport Northrop, "Treasures of the Bible," published 1894 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
According to one school of thought, karma involves not just the moral consequences of a person's behavior, but a general balancing of positive and negative experiences. Thus, for every negative experience a person suffers that is not a consequence of bad behavior on their part, they will eventually experience a positive experience that they did nothing to earn in order to "balance" their karma. Conversely, for every positive experience a person enjoys that they did nothing to earn, they will eventually experience something negative that was not due to their behavior to balance that karma. One book I read stated that even small things, like a person saying "thank you" or smiling, or, conversely, frowning or being rude, could be forms of positive or negative karma.
When I first read the book, I didn't think much about it. But soon, my pre-eastern thought processes caught up with me. I had always been a big, if not obsessive, "counter." Would that piece of cake be "worth" its 380 calories? That dress be worth the month's salary it would cost? My fiber cereal clean my intestines well enough to justify eating a breakfast more depressing than the newspaper it tasted like?
Once the wheels began turning, I zealously applied them to this tantalizing new concept of karma. I began trying to calculate exactly how positive and negative karma in my life would balance out. For example, if the coffee guy smiled at me and said "good morning," would that be balanced by my bagel having more calories? If a saleslady suggested the perfect outfit as soon as I walked into a store, would some bozo have to "balance" that by spilling coffee on it on the subway ride home? If my husband told me how great I looked, would I now have to pick up the dry cleaning even though it was his turn? (Ok, that wasn’t a hypothetical.) If the IT guy wasn't incomprehensible or condescending, would it take him two more hours to fix my computer? (If he charges by the hour, that’s not a hypothetical, either. Also, even though I bought into the whole karma thing, the idea of an IT guy I could like and understand was just too "out there" for me.)
In short, in my obsession to get the best karmic "deal" (as I said, I had a good Jewish education), I created my own "Fate Watchers" karma counting point system. I got so paranoid about the opportunity cost of receiving positive karma that wasn’t "worth" it, I freaked out when people afforded me the barest of common courtesies. If someone thanked me for anything more than once, I’d tell them to stop it. If they insisted I deserved the credit and started to thank me again, I’d hiss "Stop it. Please!" (Two can play that game.) When I found myself profusely thanking a guy on the street corner for telling me I was going to burn in eternal hell, I knew something was wrong.
So I decided to get back to my Jewish roots. These are the gems of wisdom I found:
Proverbs 27:1: Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.
Job:11:12: But a stupid man will get understanding when a wild donkey's colt is born a man!
Genesis 3:19: From dust you were made, to dust you shall return.
My mother (she's Jewish, so this counts): For someone so smart, you can be pretty stupid.
What did it all mean? To me, the message from Above was pretty clear: "You're dumber than the mud I made you from, so stop trying to 'game' me and just behave yourself!" Humbling as it was, I knew that this tough love was right, and then and there, I gave up all attempts to keep track of my karmic account balance. Unfortunately, the guy on the corner never got the memo on that.
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