Going into the room five minutes before the class arrived, I wrote the date on the board, 9th December 2020.

”Forty years ago today,” I thought, “John Lennon was assassinated.” I doubted many of the Year 8 students had heard of John Lennon.

I switched on the projector and the title of the lesson appeared on the screen, “Sikhism and Human Rights.”

The class filed in and one of them pointed out that we had done Sikhism and human rights two weeks ago. I hastily changed the PowerPoint presentation and the lesson on Sikh beliefs about evil and suffering appeared.

Sikh beliefs have no place for any idea of the devil, or any other force of evil. For Sikhs, evil in the world comes from the choices made by humans. Sikh beliefs about suffering include the notion of karma, that people are punished or rewarded in this life for good or evil acts in a previous life.

It seemed an apt lesson, an oblique way of remembering John Lennon who believed in karma to the extent that he wrote a song called Instant Karma. John Lennon expressed the idea that people would bear the consequences of their own actions, not in some distant future, but in the here and now:

Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin’ to do
It’s up to you, yeah you

Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna look you right in the face
Better get yourself together darlin’
Join the human race
How in the world you gonna see
Laughin’ at fools like me
Who in the hell d’you think you are
A super star
Well, right you are

Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Ev’ryone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you’re ev’rywhere
Come and get your share

Without mentioning John Lennon, I asked the students if the believed in karma in this life. There was overwhelming endorsement of the idea. A couple shared anecdotes of bad things happening to them because they had done bad things, one declared, “Sir, what goes around comes around.”

Perhaps the notion of karma, whether expressed by John Lennon, or by a group of Year 8 students, is a reflection of the belief in fairness in the cosmos. Perhaps it is about a belief that making the right choices will bring the right consequences. Perhaps it shows a confidence in the power of freewill.

Forty years after the death of John Lennon, there seemed something reassuring in young people still holding a belief in instant karma.