Bill Clinton and the Laws of Karma
by Sharon Janis (1999)
The events of life look very different when viewed from above the world of cultural interpretation and information. With a look beyond the “thumbs up-thumbs down” mentality in life as well as the Clinton scandal, it becomes clear that there are opportunities for personal growth in every thing, every time, and every place, including even MSNBC.
One important understanding we can gain from the ancient eastern philosophies, is the understanding of “karma.” No English translation does justice to this word, though the statements, “as you sow, so shall you reap,” and “what goes around comes around” can at least give some sense of karmic law.
The best way to grasp karmic law is to watch the world as it manifests inside and around us. This life is a living textbook on the laws of karma. We can observe how our thoughts so often create exactly what they most desire or fear; watch as the most vehement persecutors seem to inevitably become the persecuted, and notice how our own good actions can lighten our hearts and create an opening for more goodness to enter our lives. Even the scripts of our movies and novels reflect our intuitive understanding of these laws, as good wins over evil nearly every time, even if only moments before the final credit roll.
So how does all this relate to President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? Well, dear friends, if they are a part of your world (and unless you’ve taken up residence in Ted Kaczynski’s old cabin, you probably know way more personal information about them than you really should) well then, they must be YOUR KARMA!!!
I know, this must be an upsetting idea to ponder. It wasn’t an easy one for me to accept either. The clear, blue sky, yes. The gorgeous sunset which so clearly represents the golden beauty of my own soul, of course. But Henry Hyde? Ken Starr? Clinton, Lewinsky, and all those pundits who seem to have nothing better to do than argue the same point for hours and hours, day after day? I don’t want these weirdoes to be a reflection of me!
When news coverage of the affair first began, I started flipping television stations to find nothing but “Monicagate” on every station. At first, I was embarrassed for us. “Why are we wasting our precious time on this? Have we gone nuts?” But then I looked for the higher ground, and shifted into another perspective. I realized that these are public lessons available for us all to learn from. Human frailty is something we all have to deal with, along with making mistakes, judging other people’s failings, being persecuted and humiliated, and finding the courage and self-confidence to continue to perform your duty even in the face of extreme challenges.
It seems that we don’t actually have to personally experience each stressful situation to learn from it. It is possible to learn karmic lessons vicariously due to a human quality called empathy. We identify with whatever characters of this play relate to our own lessons, and process the feelings and thoughts as though we ourselves were going through those challenges; lessons by proxy.
What seems to be most important in learning karmic lessons, is our ability to feel the emotions and confront the issues at hand on a subjective, experiential level. From a karmic perspective, this whole Clinton scandal, from beginning to end (assuming it ends in our lifetime!), is rich with potential lessons and contemplations, from the spiritual to the mundane. For example, what do we really think about adultery? Clearly, different people have different views, and many who profess righteous views haven’t truly followed their own moral proclamations. This lesson has been coming in especially clear thanks to that bundle of karmic repercussions known as Larry Flynt.
Also, how do we really feel about lying? Are there times when lying is justified, such as to avoid harming someone? The ancient scriptures of India teach the importance of honesty, which is referred to as “austerity of speech.” According to their definition, one important component of speaking the truth is to only speak that which will not cause harm. With this definition, President Clinton’s attempts to protect his family, friends and the youth of this country from the negative fall-out from his very human, fairly common, yet also profoundly risky blunder, may in fact be considered as technically “honest.” Interpretations change from culture to culture, from generation to generation, and from person to person. Therefore, it really is necessary to consider exactly what the meaning of “is” is.
There is a story which illustrates another karmic law at play here, the notion that “we become what we meditate on.” This story involves a priest who lived across the street from a prostitute. The priest would peek out of his window every day, watching as each sleazy man entered the woman’s sinful abode. He would shake his head and pray for her evil soul. He could only imagine all of the disgusting actions that must go on in there. Now, in the meantime, the prostitute would also look out her window. Sometimes she would see the priest returning home from church. She imagined that he would go inside and pray to God. She admired him so for his pious life.
One day, they both died. As they knocked on the pearly gates, the doors opened for the prostitute, but remained closed for the priest. Feeling the heat of flames licking at his heels, the priest cried out, “Why? Why did this sinful woman make it into Heaven and I, who have given my entire life to God, am being sent to Hell!?! How can this be?”
A voice spoke through he ether. “Oh, priest. You spent your time focusing on sin and evil. Your mind was filled with all kinds of degraded acts. This woman was in an unfortunate situation, yet day and night she contemplated your goodness. In imagining your love for God, she thought of God more than you did. While you obsessed over her sins, she was imagining how pure your thoughts must be. Therefore, it is just and fair that each of you reaps the fruits of your own thoughts.” As the sages have aptly expressed, “Strange indeed are the ways of karma.”
So here we have our country’s leaders, who we depend upon to make good, clean-hearted decisions about the future of our wonderful though still very young country. And what are they meditating on day-in and day-out for week after month and now year after year? On these “disgusting behaviors” that have “disgraced” our country and are “destroying” our youth. On the leader we have elected, and his “selfish” and “arrogant” ways as he tries to “deceive” and “thwart” the investigation into his “appalling misdeeds.” Talk about word pollution! Anyone with the slightest understanding or intuition about the importance of the words we choose and use must feel concerned while watching these trusted men release such negative words into the atmosphere of our country on a daily basis.
Perhaps these attackers represent the self-destructive tendencies that seem to be hidden in the genetic programming of all human beings, ready to sprout when fed with the fertilizer of anger, greed, jealousy and insecurity. Such tendencies have certainly destroyed many societies and cultures throughout human history. Certainly, we can also see this self-destructive quality in the president’s own actions, risking everything he has worked so hard to achieve, knowing he was quite possibly setting himself up for a fall. And yet, with every fall comes grace and a potential for personal growth. As Jay Leno once commented, President Clinton sure has been getting a lot done since he stopped dating!
Then comes the lesson of hypocrisy. These attackers often blame Clinton for making sex and corruption the new dinnertime conversation at tables around the country. Yet, it was their own hashing, rehashing, and parading of each embarrassing fact in the media and in that hard-core Harlequin novel, “The Starr Report,” which has created the current “moral crisis” they now complain about. The whole proceeding stinks of hypocrisy from top to bottom. This may be why the laws of karma, moving through each of us and our poll numbers, have protected their victim and the rest of us victims from this blatant attempt to overturn our votes. In my book, that should be an impeachable offense. But, ahem. . . enough about that. Let’s get back to that non-judgmental, higher ground.
Another lesson we are learning as a culture is to keep our wits about us even in the face of constant repetition of these dramatic charges of “perjury” and “obstruction of justice.” Perhaps we have finally evolved beyond mob mentality and learned the lessons of countless events — from the crucifixion of Jesus, to Hitler’s regime, to McCarthyism. Without intending to take the metaphor too far, Clinton is our generation’s martyr, our sacrificial lamb, our own little Mary Magdalene to love and forgive; being tormented for the same “sins” that many of us have committed in one way or another. And don’t tell me you’ve never told a lie. I consider myself to be a very honest person, yet I’ve still had moments I wouldn’t want to be explored and dissected by a large staff of enemies with unlimited financial resources, time, and media attention at their disposal. It seems that by forgiving the president, we are symbolically forgiving ourselves. And so, our compassionate responses to all these waves of negativity can actually bring us, as individuals and a society, more goodness and compassion from the universe. Welcome to the game of karma.
In this sense, even a seemingly destructive and frustrating situation such as this scandal can be used to fuel greater evolution and personal growth, both individually and as a group, as a country, and as a world. It is through such challenges that we learn about karmic laws, and reveal our own deeper resources of understanding, compassion and forgiveness.
You know, sometimes we have to make a mistake before we can truly grow from it and become free from whatever incorrect ideas had been motivating our mistaken thoughts and actions. Such challenges give us an opportunity to take a more objective look and to reassess ideas we had held, correctly or incorrectly, as truths.
For example, we can also use this event to take a look at where our society stands in terms of marriage vows and monogamy. Certainly, any business with a failure rate as high as our country’s divorce rate would have to seriously reexamine their internal structures.
Maybe it would be beneficial to remove the stigma from people who may choose to live together without necessarily taking life-long vows, so that a lifetime commitment of marriage is not seen as the only option available for two people who have fallen in love. Who is to say that two people’s destinies are meant to unfold in a mutually compatible and supportive way for their whole lives? Certainly, it doesn’t make sense to continue calling it a wedding “vow,” while making prenuptial provisions for the inevitable break-up. This lowers society’s respect for taking a vow or oath much more than Clinton’s little fibs and semantic maneuvering.
These are the kinds of contemplation being presented by the current crisis, if we endeavor to look at the events of life from a higher, more objective perspective, Then, it is possible to turn each frustrating moment – not just of the Clinton scandal, but of our own lives as well – into fertilizer for more and more beautiful blossoms of insight and understanding within this infinitely creative, all-inclusive, and ever new play of consciousness.
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