Commentary: The Karmic Implications Of September 11, 2001

Most people don’t know that there are two cards in the Tarot that deal with karma. The card “Justice” (or “Adjustment”) deals with personal karma, the law of cause and effect that speaks to the consequences of our choices and actions. This is fairly easy for most people to understand: if you stick your finger into a flame you’re going to get burned. But there’s another kind of karma that’s collective and often identified with the concept of luck. In the Tarot, this collective karma is identified by the card “The Wheel of Fortune.”

The karmic wheel is concerned with the karma that we all share with the world, our nation and our communities. When you’re stuck in a traffic jam on your morning commute to work, you obviously haven’t done anything awful to invoke the wrath of the gods, you’re merely sharing karma with all of the other thousands of people who have to be using the roads and highways at the same time as you. By the same token, people who have beach front property destroyed by a hurricane haven’t done anything to cause the hurricane, they just share karma with all of the other people who’ve built property in a hurricane prone area. Although there is usually a certain degree of personal responsibility associated with collective karma, it’s nowhere near as clear-cut as the responsibility associated with personal karma.

The people who were in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and aboard the four highjacked airliners on the morning of September 11th are victims of this sort of collective karma. None of these people had personally done anything to bring this tragedy into play, they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It would not be trite to say that they were victims of some incredibly bad luck.

The same can be said of all of us individual Americans who have been touched and affected by this grave tragedy. Most of us had no personal argument with any of the religious or cultural groups that this act of terror was supposed to represent. In fact, many Americans have been sympathetic with the causes of the Palestinians and other people who feel that they are being treated unfairly by the world community. Obviously then, this attack is nothing we’ve brought upon ourselves as individuals. We only share the karma of being Americans during a time when our country is regarded by many people as being the leader of a world that has not listened to their concerns.

The tragedies of September 11th were not carried out by rational people, but were the work of mad men, blinded by hatred. However, to dismiss this act as being only the work of the criminally insane would be to settle for an answer that is much too easy. We can condemn the terrorists as the madmen they are, but we need to pay attention to the fact that all peoples around the globe did not share our grief and were not as appalled by these acts of terror as we were. It’s important for us to note that along the West Bank and elsewhere, there was cheering and celebration because of our fate.

We must look into the collective American soul and ask ourselves some pretty tough questions. We must come to understand why there are so many people who dislike us and wish us ill. We must come to understand the truth, that actions speak louder than words. We must face the fact that while we claim to be the defenders and supporters of democracy, we partner with some extremely repressive regimes (like the Saudis) when it is in our financial or military self-interest to do so.

We must ask ourselves these difficult questions because desperate people support desperate causes, and there is a surplus of desperate people in the world. If we don’t these issues, then our quest to rid the world of terrorism is doomed to failure. If we fail to begin to act like true supporters of democracy and freedom, then we will take-out Osama bin Laden only to find him replaced by someone just as bad, or worse.

We are supposed to learn from karma. As we prepare for our war against an enemy with no face and no name, we should be mindful of the five thousand civilians who died only because they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. As we move our military forces into “nations that harbor terrorists,” we should remember that the civilian populations are mostly innocent. We must not visit upon them the unspeakable terror that has been visited upon us. If we attack civilian populations, then we will have become like those who attacked us.

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