Zero Karma

The psychiatrist told me that I was 90% sane also said something else that sticks in my mind and gives me pause to think at times when my mind turns hostile on me.  He said “Look, it isn’t like you killed anybody.”  I think about that often.  No, I didn’t kill anyone.  I’ve hurt people badly, but they still live.  Because the degree of anguish I feel related to my guilt is so great at times, I often wonder how people who accidentally or unintentionally committed manslaughter find a way to survive.  If they are feeling a degree of remorse that is consistent with their crime, I feel compassion for them, which in no way is meant to minimize the pain and grief of loss felt by the families of the victims.   About a year or so ago I read “The Hour I First Believed” by Wally Lamb.  It tells the story of a woman who commits vehicular manslaughter while under the influence of prescription narcotics, which she became addicted to after her experience in the Columbine shooting.  She became stuck in her mental anguish, the guilt and terror crippled her.  Instead of redeeming herself, she slowly drowned in her own despair, never compensating for the wrong she committed.

I think of that novel and the fact that scenarios like that play out all the time.  What good does feeling guilty and remorseful do if I simply wallow in fear and self pity?  If I fail to act, if I fail to become a better, stronger, more thoughtful, compassionate person, then I’m not redeeming myself, I’m not doing the world a service.  Perhaps I speak of Karma. Maybe it really does exist.  When I went to that psychic, and I hesitate to even reference it, but she said my Karmic level was zero, my lesson in this life is free will.   For a while I tried to figure out what a level of zero meant.  With no success I finally gave up and decided that the whole concept was in contrast to the Catholic faith and decided just to put it all out of my mind.  But, the other day at work I was speaking with the Indian friend I know.  He practices Buddhism and is a Hare Krishna and he mentioned Karma to me.  So I asked him what it meant.  He looked at me and said “You have no Karma left.  You’ve used up all your good Karma.”   My stomach dropped the way it would on the down hill slope of a roller coaster.  I felt sick to my stomach.  I had thought before that at least it meant I didn’t have any bad Karma, but the way he worded it made me feel sick.   Who ever I’ve been, what ever I’ve done, in this life or in the past, must have been pretty lousy and bad.

If I believe that we sign up for the burdens in our life and if I believe that my life lesson is free will, then it makes sense that I’d have a Karmic level of zero.  “Here you go” says life, “You get a clean slate to choose who you want to be, but your life will be challenging, you will suffer pain with no good Karma to buffer it, but no bad Karma to make it worse.  Live your life and decide who you want to be…then be it.”  But isn’t that what we are all supposed to do any way?

Again the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi floods into my mind.  “Lord, make me a channel of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love…”  The self control and commitment to be that person, the person who responds to anger with kindness and love, who puts their hurts and sadness aside to comfort the pain of others is the antithesis of who I’ve been through out my life.  I feel the weight of the shame and the sorrow that accompanies this realization, but it doesn’t change what I must do or who I want to be.  As I start my day I think…Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, let me sow love Lord, please grant me the courage and strength to accomplish that task.