A friend whom I love recently said to me that she's going to go for it and do some really hard things to make her dreams of working to improve children's lives a reality. She said that she had to believe the Universe would provide for her.

See, I used to believe that. I want to believe that, but I don't anymore. I asked her to explain this, not to be a bitch, but because I was hoping she'd be able to convince me that the Universe works this way. 

1/3 of the people on this planet don't have access to drinking water. The Universe is clearly not providing for them. Now, being American is working for me in this regard. Does the fact that they have no water to drink mean that the Univerrse hates them? That they are bad people? And that the Universe likes her and me because we have drinking water? Why does accident of birth (being in a ruling imperialistic nation) mean that I deserve to live and they deserve to die?  How did the Universe decide who to provide for?  So why should I trust that "we always get what we need" when clearly the facts say that we don't?

We don't always get what we need. Children born with AIDS are not getting what they need. Women and boys sold into prostitution are not getting what they need. A junkie in prison is not getting what he needs. You cannot make me think life is fair. There is no loving force in the Universe helping us. WE have to help each other. Not God, not spirit, not New Age (NuAge = sewage) bullshit. Those things can help you do the work of love, peace, and justice, but they won't do it without us.

A friend once pointed something very wise out to me. When people get sick in our culture, we blame them. If they had a heart attack we blame them for eating a hamburger and not managing stress properly. And I would add that in the bullshit NuAge community when you get sick or bad luck it is some lesson you karmicly have to learn! Blame the victim? You betcha! We shame people for having misfortune. It's a "lesson" they chose to have before we were born.  That allows us to not feel compassion or responsiblity for the people who are hurting.  They deserve their fate.  They chose it!  They want it!  To grow!  So let them be miserable and grow like they chose - How nice for us! If they are sexually abused as a child, it is some lesson they came here to learn. Aughhhh! Lies! No, if someone is sexually abused as a child it is because they are born into a sicko society that hates children and sexuality and has a lot of power and control issues. If you get raped walking in a park after dark, it is not your fault for being in a park after dark - It is the rapist's fault for doing this and society's fault for allowing this to be the norm.

"Creating your own reality" is blaming the victim.  Blaming the victim keeps the system in place. It justifies harming of innocents. This is another form of that God's will bullshit that the church has used for centuries to keep people from fighting for their freedom.  We don't have control over our genes, our economics, our race, our sex, our childhoods - There are a lot of things that were set in motion that affect us.  We can work with what's there, but if you were born in a place without clean drinking water, you will die of thirst.  It's not an issue of spiritual skills used to manifest things - It's an issue of capitalism.

I don't think I was born with health problems because I wanted to learn a fucking lesson. No. I believe people have health problems for several reasons. Some are because the world is filled with pollution and chemicals. Illness is related to how we've destroyed the environment. We are destroying our people, our children. How can our children be healthy when the soil and air and water are poisoned? That's why so many get cancer. It isn't a type C personality that causes cancer. Don't blame the victim. If you were born in Mexico City and had brain damage from the air pollution, would that be due to your personality? Your karma? No, it's because some greedy capitalist asshole doesn't give a shit about you. Some health problems are just genetic. It is not the role of the person with the disability to change their karma so they aren't born with CP, it is is the role of society to help them handle it. And some health issues are due to environmental things like being raped or turning to heroin to comfort you in a very scary time.  This NuAge shit of blame the victim is a way to justify the good fortune of being in a community where we are not shot at daily and have too much food. It is a way to appease our guilt about other people not being so lucky.  It means that since everyone chose to suffer to learn lessons, we can just leave them there.  But what it if just was luck of the draw in the world we were born into?

Is this what is so hard to understand? That luck is really half of the way things are? Yeah, those who right now don't have cancer or someone shooting at them, who have clean drinking water and comfortable shoes -They lucked out. They're not special or karmicly better.

I saw the worst of the NuAge nonsense when The Secret came out.  You can visualize for a dumb ass Porche and maybe you'll get it, but you know what? That doesn't make you a spiritually advanced person, it makes you a superficial greedy person. Psychic powers are a gift with no moral value of their own. How you use them - like how you use your money - determines what value they have. (Many people think that psychics are spiritual people, when it really is just a skill we have.)  My friends in Canada laughed hysterically at The Secret - They said it was so American. Pray for stuff.

If everyone in the world lived like the average American we'd need three and half Earths to provide the natural resources for this. So I think everyone praying for stuff is a pretty horrendous idea, don't you? Maybe we should be praying for the grace and wisdom and strength to give up stuff?

Life is much more complex than good people have good lives and bad people asked for it due to their karma. This is the same bullshit as was done to the Scottish Highlanders - When they were forced to leave their homes (by their traditional clan leaders who sold out and became Anglo) the Calvanist priests screwed them even more by telling them it was God's will - because they were "wicked". If they were good people, they'd have land and food and homes. ARGH. (Those priests BTW often got some of that stolen land.)

If you get attacked when walking the dog, it is not your fault that your white light protection didn't work.  You live in a violent society filled with layers of unfairness.

I repeat: Bad things do not happen to people because they are bad. Donald Trump is evil and he seems to be doing fine. Money and happiness and good health are not a reward for being a good person. It is not the fault of people who suffer that they suffer. The fact that we live like this (wealthy, greedy) gaurentees that other people - a lot of other people - are going to suffer for it. They suffer because of our consumption. So some NuAge bullshit about creating your own reality isn't going to make that go away or take us off the hook. We as Western consumers are creating their reality for them. You have cheap clothes because some kid is chained to a sewing machine in Asia. Is that really the kid's karma?  Is that God's will?  Or do people say these things to avoid dealing with reality?

There is no plan that I can see. There is no simplistic lie that it all happens for a divine reason. Well, yes, things happen for a reason, but not something as stupid as karma. People die because they are old or sick and there's no health care that can help them. People are poor because it is a capitalist system. People are raped because it is an aggressive, violent society. It doesn't always have to be this way. Yes, death will still come, volcanoes will cover villages with lava, but we can work as a people together to help each other, not blame each other.

A friend told me that she believes karma means that everyone has to experience all sides of things - like being a rapist and being raped. Now, I obviously disagree with this. There is no spiritual reason why these things happen. There is no force deciding that we need to suffer. We are not powerless victims of fate.  What creates suffering is other people's indifference and cruelty. She can work to stop these things. I find it interesting that she also says she hasn't really experienced anything that bad in life - she's a white, middle class American, married and healthy, with a large nice home, regular vacations, and doesn't take jobs she doesn't like. She's not a single Mom working in a factory living in an area rife with gangbangers.

I have some serious problems with karma.  I was raised vaguely hippie Hindu and love that I was.  However, when I started researching to find a way to translate Aristide's liberation theology into a Hindu version, karma got in the way.  Unfortunately, karma is often used to justify the unfair caste system in India.  You were born an Untouchable?  That's your karma.  So do it well and don't try for more.  If you don't do it well, you're going against God.  And maybe in the next life, you'll be a Brahman.  Oh wait, does this sound like a Calvinist Scottish Priest?

OK, there is no karma. The Universe is not taking care of us. We must take care of each other. Evil or good in the world is a human choice, not preplanned by some spiritual beings. The Universe really doesn't give a shit about us. If we blow ourselves up, that's our problem. (Oh yeah a millions of innocent species unfortunate enough to live with assholes like us.) If you find a good lover or get hit by a car it is not a sign of your worth. It's all pretty random or it is set into place by the societal forces in your world.

I felt a lot less self hateful for not being "perfect" when I let go of NuAge crap.  I gave up the illusion that I could make my life perfect without changing the world I live in.  We are not isolated.  I do believe we can co-create our reality, but the amount of power we have changes all the time.  I decided to assume things are random to stop obsessively trying to make sense of the violence I experienced.  When I looked at my past through NuAge eyes, I always came out as to blame.  There is possibily a huge web of energies that we are a part of, that the Gods and the ancestors and the trees and the fish and everything are a part of, but I am not sure there's any force controlling all of it.  I don't think I want there to be, or I'd be very angry with it.

I know we all want to make sense of things and be able to sleep at night, so we invent fabrications like a benevolant Universe or karma, but the world is nowhere near that human-centric. It just is. If we want it to be good then we have to change it to be that way. If you want to have these awful things end, then make the hard choices about your lifestyle. It won't be easy and it won't be in your lifetime that it gets better probably, but you can know that you lived as a decent person who didn't take the easy way out. Be grown up enough and mature enough to see the truth. Don't blame yourself and others for their misfortune. It does not have to be the way it is! Again: No spirit has written down that we have to live like this. Fuck 2012. Fuck fatalism. Don't give away your power to some concepts about things being a certain way spiritually.

Bad things happen because it is a complex world. But you can make it better. OK?