Karma

President Bush's inauguration made me think of a pretty interesting question.

According to Sikhi, and most other eastern traditions (most western traditions have this sort of thinking too), we get punished for what we do wrong and we're rewarded for what we do right. We have a karmic debt to pay in this world which could be erased through good deeds, meditation, etc. And until that happens, we will have to live out the consequences of our actions - of our karma.

You're probably wondering how this relates to Pres. Bush. Well, most people like to go on about how all empires will end and how the American empire will be no different. Theories about overextension and other problems convince people to believe that America will eventually collapse, sometime in the future.

According to a Gurmat/Sikhi perspective, America will collapse if they act unrighteously. No unrighteous force can carry on indefinitely. Karmic debt must catch up with an individual, an empire or anything else. This is what Guru Gobind Singh was saying to Aurangzeb (The Mughal emperor) in Zafarnama. Guru Sahib was telling Aurangzeb that he was a tyrant and that he had no respect for religion, justice, righteousness or anything else. Guru Sahib believed that eventhough he had lost his entire family and many of his most devout Sikhs, he was ultimately the victor because Aurangzeb's empire would come crashing down on itself due to the negative karma he had accumulated through his sins, his tyranny and everything else.

America has done some unrighteous things in the past, through a foreign policy that often placed short term practical benefits ahead of basic ideals. No one doubts that.

President Bush outlined a vision on Thursday which stated that America's ideals and practical interests were one single objective in the coming century. I think he captured it best when he quoted Abraham Lincoln:

The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it."

Maybe President Bush truly understands karma? I think he captured something that a lot of past rulers never truly understood. And maybe because of that, America will sustain itself into the future. It won't last forever, but its nice to know that the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet has such good and noble ideals.

Now of course, all of that's dependant on whether you believe President Bush. I'm not the cynical type, so I do. And how could you not? It really is farfetched to believe that the President is dark-hearted enough to talk about freedom all day and not mean a single word of it. Could he possibly be that deceptive? I personally can't see anything but a sense of genuine belief in his eyes.

President Bush isn't perfect, and he's not the perfect President either, not by a long shot, but I don't understand how anybody could believe that he's anything but a "good guy" - with noble intentions.

I even believe that Paul Martin's a good guy too, just a gutless, spineless wimp of a good guy. Most public officials are actually good guys. Some of them just aren't as courageous as others.

Anyways, back to the point of my post: If America follows through with President Bush's lofty ambitions and truly helps democratically reform the world, much like they've done in Afghanistan and are in the process of doing in Iraq, using my religious beliefs as a guideline, I can only assume that America will prosper for many decades into the future.