Karma

Now I am not a religious man, nor even a particularly spiritual one.  I often defend religions, not because I think that they are right, or that there is a creature/being/entity in the sky/heaven/space/another planet that is watching us or judging us, but because I think that people ought to be entitled to their own opinions and beliefs, so long as those opinions and beliefs do not infringe upon the opinions and beliefs of others.

My close friends and I frequently get into heated debates on this subject – dyed in the wool atheists are as much fun to tease as fundamentalist religious believers – and I enjoy those debates.

Yes, plenty of terrible things have been done in the name of religion – though I would argue that the majority of those things were cloaked in religion to cover up the real reasons for the actions, namely power and control, but that is another blog post.  And there are countless good deeds and good outcomes from religions in general as well, but that is also another blog post.

Nope, the reason I am here today is to tell you that I have incontrovertible proof that there is finally one true religion, and that religion is Hinduism.  Or Buddhism.  Or maybe Jainism.  Or Sikhism.  Well, one of those religions is the right one.  The reason?  Karma is real and I saw it in action today.

We went to get groceries today, and while we were waiting for the cashier to complete running our items through, my lovely wife asked the man behind us in line if he collected Air Miles.  He replied that he did indeed, and happily provided his Air Miles card to the cashier, who cheerfully ran it through.  As I paid for the two hundred dollars of groceries, I asked my wife when we stopped collecting Air Miles, pointing to the Air Miles card in my hand.  She laughed and told me she hadn’t been collecting for a long time.  Who knew!?

A few minutes later, standing on the curb and waiting for our taxi to arrive (too many bags to just walk home, and no buses operating yet – damn you transit strike!), the gentleman who received our Air Miles walked out of the grocery store and paused to ask us where we lived.  Once he ascertained we weren’t too far from his route home, he offered us a ride.  Then backed his van into our driveway and helped carry our groceries into the house.

Now some would say that was just the fastest payout of Air Miles in history.  Others would argue that was just a nice person doing a nice thing – which is wonderfully common here in Halifax.  But I put to you that this is nothing less than categorical proof of the existence of karma.