In my recent post on How to Forgive Those Who Have Hurt You, I argued that forgiveness has MUCH more to do with the person doing the forgiving than the person who is being forgiven. We don’t forgive them for them, we forgive them for us. In that post, I also mentioned the desire for retribution, and the fact that when we want to punish someone, we are usually trying to “teach them a lesson”, redress the balance and make them feel the pain they caused, in an effort to get them to see our point of view. But it’s impossible to force someone to take on another person’s point of view. They can be led there and encouraged, but they can never be forced. Ultimately, our desire for revenge and retribution keeps us stuck in an emotional state anywhere between helplessness and rage, and only ends up hurting us more.
After that post was published, I received several questions like this one from Awesome Reader Ismael: “Do the wrong doers in our lives ever learn the hurt they cause? If not, then how come it’s not ok for me to start trouble just for fun? I mean if they can do wrong and still get away with it maybe I should do the same…I know it’s a chain reaction thing and you have to be the change you want to see but I’ve met individuals who have purposely gone around being malicious to others. Do they ever at least understand what they’ve caused, or is it just something I have to get used to – that some/most people never learn or that they’ll never know what they’ve caused…?”
Why we want revenge
One of the main reasons we feel so helpless when we’ve been wronged and why we want revenge is that we’ve grown up with a notion of a God who would judge us and hopefully (although we have no evidence of this, EVER), step in when the balance seems to be getting tipped the wrong way and punish those who have wronged us. We like the idea of some kind of force being out there, looking out for us and having our back. Even if we don’t or no longer believe in this type of God, the beliefs resulting from this paradigm are still very much alive and kicking. “How could a loving God allow this to happen?” becomes “If I truly create my own reality, then how could this horrible thing have happened?”
The problem is that we’re still often looking for an outside source to make and enforce the rules (even if we don’t know it). We want the world to be fair. And it is, but not in the way we thought it was (and let’s face it, it never was fair in that way.) If there truly were moral “rules” against killing and stealing and cheating and cursing, then why have these things gone on since the beginning of time? God doesn’t sit in the clouds, silently judging us for our deeds while doing nothing about it and neither does LOA.
Here’s the thing: There is no judgment. God (if you believe in a God) doesn’t judge. Neither does the Universe and neither does LOA. You get to want whatever you want, do whatever you want to do and no cosmic force will stop you, nor will you be punished for it in the afterlife. But why the hell not? And as Ismael asks, if that’s the case, then what’s to stop us all from becoming sociopaths and running around killing each other?
We’re not killers
What stops us from killing each other, en-masse, is not the fact that we’ve grown up with “morals”. If that were the case, then Neanderthals, who were born before morals were invented, would’ve just bludgeoned each other into extinction. And so would all animals, for that matter (animals kill each other, but not willy nilly. There is balance in the animal kingdom). What stops us is that we, at our core, are not killers. Far from it. We are love, pure and simple. Who We Really Are is pure love and is always calling us toward that love. This is why, when we turn away from love, loving others and loving ourselves, we hurt so much. The further we turn away from Who We Really Are, the more we suffer. And while the majority of humans have a ways to go before they vibrate at the frequency of Who They Really Are and are able to look at everyone and everything with pure love, most are close enough to find hurting others absolutely abhorrent.
Your conscience
We all have a conscience. Actually, most of us have two of them. One, we were taught. These are a set of things that are “wrong”, and which we’ve been taught to feel guilty about. This is the little voice that pipes up when you do something you’ve been taught that you shouldn’t. It’s full of shame and guilt and fear of punishment.
Then, there’s our REAL conscience, which is the voice of Who We Really Are. This little voice never tries to scare you (“DON’T do that, you’ll get punished!”). It operates on feeling. When an action would take you further away from Who You Really Are, it will feel awful. This is why, for most people, the thought of bashing someone’s brains in, makes them shudder with revulsion, even if they’ve seen it done on TV a thousand times. Who We Really Are does not inflict pain. We, at our highest level, are not a match to suffering or creating suffering. And the closer we are to our real selves, the louder that little voice becomes.
Why anyone ever hurts anyone
Ismael mentioned in this question that he’s seen “individuals who have purposely gone around being malicious to others.” If we, at our core, are pure love, how does it ever happen that anyone hurts anyone?
Those who hurt others are nowhere near the vibration of Who They Really Are. Hurting others only becomes a viable option when you’re coming from a place of supreme powerlessness. When you feel that you have no power at all, hurting someone else actually makes you feel better. Power over another feels better than no power at all. And of course, if that individual has been taught by their family/society/culture that violence is an option (or possibly the only option), then the potential for that violence increases dramatically. Powerlessness coupled with a belief that violence is an answer leads to some the worst of what human behavior has to offer.
You can’t pass off the pain
Individuals who hurt others are often stuck in a cycle of pain. They’ve usually been hurt themselves. The most violent offenders are often the victims of violence. Child abusers have usually been abused themselves. An alcoholic father, steeped in a feeling of powerlessness, cruelly tortures his son in order to feel some relief. The relief is temporary, of course, since putting pain out into the world only ever serves to hurt ourselves and keeps us stuck right where we are (and can even send us deeper into despair). His son, in turn, is made to feel equally as powerless by the abuse and, having been shown no other options, adopts the belief that violence against others provides relief. It’s the only outlet he knows. So, as he grows up, he finds relief in bullying others, hurting those who are weaker than him, and goes on to hurt his own children. Perhaps, hearing the faint call of Who He Really Is, he’s able to feel the supreme discord of his actions, and decides to not physically abuse his own kids, passing on only the verbal barbs. Or perhaps, his desire to feel better is so strong, he runs away, and manifests a kind adult who shows him a better outlet for his rage. He learns to feel true relief by moving towards love and surpasses the need to hurt others completely.
When his father was beating him, he was trying to relieve the pain he was feeling himself. But you can’t pass off the pain like a baton. When we inflict pain on another, we are not passing our suffering to them, leaving us with none. We simply create more suffering.
The problem is that when we look for retribution, we are also trying to pass off our own pain. We are hoping that by making the perpetrator pay, we can pass our pain to them, or at least lessen it. But that’s simply not how it works. Inflicting suffering hurts the victim AND the perpetrator. And as I already covered in the post on forgiving others, we cannot force the other person to “know what they did” or understand our point of view.
So, is it “ok” to go out and hurt others?
Ismael goes on to ask “…how come it’s not ok for me to start trouble just for fun?” My question to that would be: Why would you want to? Unless you’re stuck in supreme powerlessness yourself, hurting others wouldn’t be fun. It would make you feel horrible. Again, the question pre-supposes that, if left to our own devices, we’d all go crazy and hurt each other and the only reason we don’t is because someone has deemed it “wrong”. The truth is, the more self-aware we become, the less viable the option of hurting others becomes. And even when we feel powerless on some issue, the mere fantasy of retribution is enough to shift us. We release our anger by briefly thinking about inflicting revenge, allowing us to shift to a better feeling perspective without ever even coming close to acting on those thoughts.
So, even if the Universe doesn’t judge you (and honestly, has this deterrent ever actually worked??), do you really want to hurt someone? Even if someone else out there is doing it? The question for me is not “Is it ok to hurt others?”, but rather “Do you really want to?”
Surpassing the need to hurt others
I truly believe that a society filled with fully self-aware people would be a society with very little or no violence (possibly a slapping here and there…) Those who understand their own power to manipulate their realities, who understand their full responsibility for what comes into their lives and how to change that, and who understand that we are all connected and that inflicting pain on another only hurts the whole and most of all the individual inflicting the pain, would not even consider hurting someone else. And not because it would be illegal or immoral, but because the idea of it would simply not even occur to them (even if it did, it would feel so off, they wouldn’t consider it).
But in order to surpass the need to inflict suffering on others, we have to surpass judgment. What do I mean by that?
Only when we truly understand how violence and the need to hurt someone comes about, and when we can feel true compassion for those who have hurt others, can we stop the cycle of pain. Judging someone, seeing them as broken and evil, inflicts a type of suffering on them, as well. We give energy to the version of them that’s stuck in powerlessness. We perpetuate their situation, rather than helping them to pull out of it. When we surpass judgment, the need to see something as right or wrong, and understand that there is only that which moves us closer to love and further away from love, and then do our best, individually, to move towards love, we add positive energy to the world in three ways:
1.)Â Â Â We serve ourselves by letting go of limiting thoughts that don’t serve us. Whenever we look at anyone with condemnation, it takes us away from love.
2.) We serve the perpetrator by shining a light on Who He Really Is, giving him a better chance of finding his way back to love.
3.) We serve the whole (physical and non-physical) by adding to love. Whenever we raise our own vibration, we raise the vibration of the whole just a bit.
So, if someone punches me in the face, I should just love them?
I understand that the last section was a bit out there. Theoretically speaking, of course it sounds great to love thine enemy and all that. But what about the real world? If someone punches me in the face, should I just love the punchy bastard? Well, yes and no. First, I’d get the hell away from him. Second, I’d work through the feelings of rage and revenge and powerlessness stemming from having been punched in the face and work my way into a better feeling place. Third, I’d figure out how I attracted this experience in the first place, and THEN I’d send love to the puncher.
I’m also not advocating never locking anyone up. The fact is, we are not yet living in a completely self-aware society. So, if someone is going around killing others, I’m all for getting them off the streets. While I don’t believe that punishment does any good at all, I’m certainly not a fan of spreading more suffering around. I would then, however, advocate rehabilitation for the perpetrator, in the form of therapy designed to teach him how to relieve his pain without inflicting suffering on others and to raise his vibration, allowing him to surpass any such need. I advocate taking those actions that move us closer to that vision of a free and peaceful society (which will not be brought about by force or retribution) instead of those actions born of fear and the need for revenge.
And just in case anyone out there is thinking “That’s all fine for you to say. You’ve never been victimized”, let me assure you that I’ve had my share of suffering at the hands of others. In spite of that suffering and perhaps in part, because of it, I’m sitting here today, advocating unconditional love and asking you to do the same.
Great post as usual melody, however I would like to ask how about manipulating others for your own personal gain???? How does it relates to Who we Really Are
Hey Kaycee,
When we manipulate others, it’s because we don’t understand just how much power we have over our reality. It’s a way of trying to “make it happen”, rather than allowing things to flow to us. So, manipulative behavior comes from fear. The “victim” of manipulation, however, also has to be a match to that. So, they will generally be someone who feels quite powerless themselves, and who isn’t good at setting boundaries. Being manipulated will allow them to get annoyed enough by it to finally do something about it. They can learn to stand up for themselves and not put the happiness of others ahead of their own (that doesn’t work no matter how much we think it should). When we’re fully aligned, we feel our own power and we have no need to manipulate.
Great question!
Huge hugs,
Melody
It seems you think that aggressors are somehow more virtuous than victims, and that life is somehow meant to be passive and painful.
I would say that as sentient beings, humans seek contentment over pain and ease over disease. in that sense, it’s counter-intuitive to let others commit hurt and do nothing about it.
Hey Christopher,
It seems there’s been a misunderstanding. Life is not supposed to be passive nor painful. We create a lot of suffering, but that’s not how it’s supposed to be at all. Life is supposed to be joyful.
This post focused on the anatomy of those who hurt others and how that kind of behavior comes about. It didn’t focus on the victims. But I never called aggressors virtuous (it’s not a word I use except in the context of describing limiting beliefs, such as “suffering is virtuous”). I have compassion for everyone.
Pushing against those who hurt others doesn’t help in the long run. We have been doing that for ages and all it does it create more and more pain, more and more aggressors. Should we let murderers and rapists run free? No. Not at all. But we shouldn’t JUST lock them up. That doesn’t help them. And if we want to create a safe society for all, we will have to learn to help those who have lost their balance.
Huge hugs,
Melody
Hey!
I don’t believe so much in this unconditional love towards EVERYONE as much as unconditional love towards oneself. Who wants to sit and look at those who hurt us and feel unconditional love? It is a mad thing to do!!! This world is made up of so much good stuff that we cant possibly love enough.
And I also don’t agree with the point that we all ‘need’ to take up responsibility. I would like to give a quote by a master Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev, Isha Foundation founder and teacher, who said, (not exactly the same words) this world is made in such a way that anybody can be anyone they want to be and do their life in any way they choose.” Hindu yoga tradition teaches that free will is the independence granted to the living entity by God or the Divine Being. So if someone wants to put the responsibility on an outside God or destiny or previous lives or good deeds or karma, they have all the freedom to do that. Agreed this knowledge helps greatly; however society or government or anyone cant do anything to anyone. There is no need to rehabilitate anyone. Rehabilitation and healing will automatically happen in the best way that is suited to them, when a person opens the heart.
Murderers and rapists can be helped only if they are open to being helped; just as much as a poor little schoolboy. There is really no ‘need’ to restore the balance of people who have lost balance. We cant interfere with someone’s free will. If they want balance, it will come automatically. Ask and it will be given!
So, there is no need of stress, ever! 🙂
Hello again, Melody!
I love this article and it’s been very helpful concerning a man I dated. I’ve gotten through your 1st, 2nd and 4th steps after being “punched”. But I’m having difficulty with the 3rd step of figuring out how I attracted this guy into my life to begin with.
He is one of very few men I’ve attracted and he is so opposite from me that I don’t know how the LOA worked here. When we first met I felt a tingling sensation in my chest which I now realize was my soul recognizing his soul. (I’ve only experienced that feeling once before with another guy who also had a profound effect in my life.) I used to think it was a spark of attraction sensation, but that didn’t explain this guy b/c I wasn’t attracted to him at all. We spent 9 months in class together and I felt absolutely nothing despite his mild flirtations. But last fall he reached out to me once more and I finally agreed to see him which led to me falling in love with him. We seemed to have such an intense emotional bond – something I had NEVER experienced before. We both have childhood abuse in common, and shared a lot of those experiences with each other. But things fell apart and, in looking back at it all, I can now see he is a true lying manipulator who boarderlines on being a full blown sociopath. He had me hooked for months b/c I projected my own characteristics of honesty & openness onto him and therefore believed all the things he said. Eventually though, I started to see while he ‘talked the talk’ he didn’t ‘walk the walk’. His internal pain led him to develop total self-serving habits, while I don’t have a self-serving bone in my body (as my therapist put it). LOL
On some level I think this was a pre-birth arrangement between our souls so that I would learn the countless lessons that I gained from knowing him. (And I am SOOOOO grateful for those lessons. I’m not the same person I was a year ago, and I like who I am so much more now.) So is it possible we have prearranged agreements between souls that would bring about things that we didn’t manifest ourselves? Or is EVERYTHING all due to LOA, and if so, how do we go about figuring out how we attract people or events into our lives?
Thank you so much,
Lauren
Hey Lauren,
It’s doubtful that this was a pre-birth arrangement. Those are way more general. If you learned lessons from this encounter, then the clues as to why you attracted this man are in those lessons. He caused you to grow in some way, which means that he ultimately caused you to release resistance of some kind. He was mirroring some fears back to you. If you felt the need to protect yourself for months, there was fear there. Perhaps he was mirroring those fears (by making them come true). There are trust issues in there for sure – fears that you can’t trust your own judgment, the whole wolf in sheep’s clothing thingy…
If you don’t have a self-serving bone in your body, that’s an imbalance, too. You are supposed to take care of yourself. Whatever the reason for your reluctance to do so, it could’ve manifested through this man, too. I’m just spitballing here, but this was not just about one belief.
I hope that’s helpful.
Huge hugs,
Melody
I actually believe you *can* use the LOA to hurt others, but in reality you’re really hurting yourself. Here’s the deal, and you pointed this out so well in your article, you have free will. At our core, we are love and when we turn away from love, the more we suffer.
I love your points about your two types of consciences too. You’re so right that hurting people comes from powerlessness. It’s such an amazing cycle.
Thanks so much AJ. I read a book a few months ago by a highly regarded spiritual teacher and Shaman. He’s convinced that shamans can “attack” you with negative energy no matter what your beliefs are. I struggled with this for a bit, but then asked for clarity and here’s what I got: This man’s perspective makes sense of what he’s experienced by translating it into what he understands. I received a different explanation. If someone is very accomplished at manipulating energy, they can use your own negative vibrations against you. They can focus on the negative beliefs you have on an energetic level and cause them to grow. However, you still have to have those negative frequencies in your energy body and you can shift out of them if you want to (and know how) The problem is that we ALL have negative beliefs to some extent or another, even if we’re not aware of it and very few of us are so stable in our vibrations that we are unshakeable (I’m working on it. Yay!) So, even if you meditate a lot, there’s still going to be some resistance within you. The great thing is that we can also focus all of our attention on someone’s highest vibrations and also affect them positively. So, from my perspective, we can’t hurt anyone really, but it is possible to influence people energetically. Of course, we focus ourselves on that same energy, so if we focus on the worst of someone, we are a match to that frequency as well, which will manifest all kinds of ugliness into our own lives. Why anyone would want to purposely do that is beyond me…
Huge hugs!
Melody
Very good points here. This is why it’s imperative that we learn to live in the moment. When those things arise from within us, we should be asking ourselves questions like “That’s interesting, why did I just think that? That’s not me!”. For spiritual protection, I think it’s really important to know what is your own and belongs to someone else. This is double true if you’re an empath and you pick up on other people’s energy. It is so much easier to live life observing first, then participating, don’t ya think?
Absolutely AJ! In fact, I think that’s one of the biggest shifts people can make – the realization that we have the power to choose our reactions, instead of just being a slave to what life throws at us. 🙂
🙂 I advocate unconditional love. I recall, I once had a misunderstanding with someone and told her love is unconditional and she said I was talking like I had a halo around my head, that she was only human, and would prefer to “move on”, which she did. I remember feeling bad and hurt. But when I was talking to my best friend, she told me to be grateful that this person was out of my life. I hardly needed someone who was judgmental and thought her way was the best way. 🙂 That made sense – probably because I’ve offered that advice from the other side of the table.
As a child I’d often ask my Mom why was it that “bad” people always seemed to get away with it. And she’d say, oh, they don’t. Just because we don’t go after revenge, does not mean they got away with it. There’s a balance in life. This reminds me of an interesting Feng Shui concept and aligns with the LOA. Always wish your enemies well, and pray for good things for them. They’ll be so happy they won’t have time to trouble you. 😀
As always, awesome post. Big happy shiny standing in the sand with waves washing over and watching the sunset hugs to you, Melody!
Thanks so much for sharing more of your awesome mother’s wisdom, Vidya!
I love that – wish your enemies happiness. If they are only acting out because of their own pain, then getting happy would take away the cause of those actions.
And you’re right. People that don’t resonate with where you are – who want to judge you for not agreeing with them, are not people you want to hold on to. Let them gravitate right out of your existence. 🙂
Huge super happy shiny puppy hugs to you my dear,
Melody
Hi Melody,
I hope you don’t mind if I take this to an even more abstract level:
It’s an attractive universe. Period.
There is no such thing as aggression, on the universal level. What LOOKS like aggression, is STILL attraction.
When you are in a vibration that would predispose you to an aggressive act (usually a point at which you feel powerless, even though you never are), your vibration attracts a victim, and the victim attracts you.
That’s how every single “negative” event happens. (Quotes intentional, because all a negative experience is, is one we don’t want, but is coming to us because of our habitual attention and beliefs, and therefore is attracted to us, and alerts us to our being off track of our connection to source.)
In a universe where LOA is in operation, there are really no aggressors or victims… aggressors and victimhood are labels, and in the context of our physical illusion, they are very real characterization of the unfortunate situations and real feelings of real people, but in a metaphysical sense, they can’t be true. There is only vibration, and the physical manifestation of it.
~M
Hey M!
I don’t mind at all! I agree 100%. I didn’t write much from the victim’s point of view this time, because I felt like that was a whole other kettle of fish. Most of the questions I got around this after the forgiveness post were around need for retribution and the discomfort around the idea that someone who hurts another really has no responsibility to the victim. People have a really hard time wrapping their heads around that.
The energetic principles behind how the victim attracts the incident are the same of course, but it’s another, separate issue that most people can’t yet find a lot of comfort with. It takes time…
And yet, when we find a way to really feel how we attract everything, EVERYTHING into our existence, it’s not depressing. It’s empowering. If I attracted that, I have the power to change it.
Thank you so much for sharing your valuable point of view here! I hope to see you around more! 🙂
Huge happy shiny puppy hugs!
Melody
Hi Melody,
Thank you for your prompt reply!
Yes, I agree with you about the empowering, yet sometimes difficult, victim discussion.
My intent in posting was to challenge some of the readers to open up a bit to a higher view of the causation as a co-created event, generated by similar vibrations in both parties. I’m trusting that those not yet “in the vincinity” of wanting to own this way of thinking will miss my comment completely, hear it in a way comfortable to them, or simply think there is somethng wrong with me, lol.
You, of course, did a great job of practical example in your post. 🙂
BTW, thank you for your post at MY blog. I love it and will approve shortly.
And you can call me Mark. I use then M. Kenneth Petruzzi name to separate my LOA blog from my more mainstream one (www.successwaypoint.com) in the search engines. One day, when it feels appropriate, I will combine them.
Great to meet you Mark! Hope to see a lot more of you around here. 🙂
Huge hugs!
Melody
In my opinion, when we decide to love, we also accepted the possibility that we will get hurt in any way sometime. Getting hurt is one thing, but we cannot get over the hurt if we will try to get even. Passing the hurt to others won’t help either.
Hey Felipe,
You make a great point. We do assume the risk of getting hurt. But knowing that the hurt is not permanent, that we can shift out of that hurt and end up stronger for it, helps a lot with being able to assume that risk. That, and knowing that the pain isn’t ultimately real. 🙂
Huge hugs!
Melody
Hi Melody,
You do such a great job with these big ticket questions!
The premise seems simple on the surface – of course we are born inherently good. Just like other animals, we don’t have the natural impulse to hurt. But try telling that to the baby gazelle that the jaguar just took down and is eating alive. Or to her mama.
IMHO, that the baby gazelle energetically attracted the jaguar is irrelevant, true but irrelevant. The lesson we can learn here is that, unlike us humans, the animals don’t suffer – pain yes, death yes, but second guessing, what-did-I-do-wrong-as-a-mother, oh-I’m-such-a-bad-jaguar suffering – no. Baby dies, jaguar eats, mama gazelle has more babies.
Bad things (at least bad from our limited POV) are going to happen. And occasionally, despite our best efforts, we are going to cause them to happen. The key, as you so clearly state, is to avoid judgment, ie guilt and blame. The happy upside is that when we stop blaming others, we lighten up a lot toward ourselves as well. Whew!
I love your vision of a future filled with people who’ve gotten past needing to hurt others. That future may be closer than we think. I call it waking up the Golden Baby. Everybody has a Golden Baby inside them, and once that Baby wakes up, once we know Who We Really Are, it’s impossible to judge, or to do deliberate harm. And more and more Golden Babies are waking up all the time.
Like I said at the start, this is a really big ticket post – Does evil exist? Congrats for tackling it!
Hugs, peace, and love,
Mary Carol
Hey Mary Carol,
I adore your golden baby analogy! and I totally agree – more and more people are waking up and searching for better feeling options. They may not yet know what those options are, they just know they’ve had enough of how they feel and they are starting to hear the calling of their golden baby, that other options DO exist. We CAN feel better. We do have control over how we feel. We don’t just have to react to whatever life throws at us. And it’s happening faster and faster. YAY!!!
HSP Hugs!
Melody
Hi Melody,
Love your concept of love unconditionally. I do believe behind each person who hurts another is a wounded little boy or girl. They’ve been hurt and they are lashing back in whatever way they can. This doesn’t excuse it, but if our society had the resources and will to truly rehabilitate people, most would get to the core of their issues and understand what is behind their aggressive behavior. Punishment of course is necessary and victims are the ones suffering, but there is psychology behind aggression which is often overlooked. I also like your point that we all need to take responsibility.
Hey Cathy,
I’ve used that image many times myself – seeing someone who is in a fit of aggression as a wounded child. It really helps us to have compassion for them, which is necessary in order to forgive and change the cycle of pain.
Personally, I don’t believe punishment does any good at all. Teaching people to avoid certain behaviors for fear of punishment means taking away options, often the only one the person has. When we expand those options, however, make other courses of action possible and viable and heal the cause of the aggression, we empower that person to make better feeling decisions that no longer hurt others. If we have to lock someone up while that happens, so be it. But I don’t think the locking up, itself, does any good at all (quite the opposite in fact. It reinforces the powerlessness).
Thanks so much for joining the discussion!
Huge hugs!
Melody
We’ll just keep’em going ’round and ’round………………Thanks! Always good stuff here and it is needed now more than… hate cliches, but it’s true.
I agree Phil. Now more than ever. Oh wait…NOW more than ever. Wait, wait.. NOW. Oh damn. 😉
Kia ora :]
this is a well explained answer to a tricky question Melody. It’s the kind of thing I get asked all the time and it can be one of the most difficult for peeps to get their head around. We’re all so tied up in judgement, good-bad, right-wrong, higher-lower, people getting their just desserts, punishment, justice, deserving – it’s not an easy concept to dismiss. But dismiss it we must if we are to keep moving closer to our Larger Selves.
I don’t believe in karma personally. For me, it’s just another man-made concept made to control us, like hell or divine retribution. It’s yet another thing to give our power away to. The Divine Presence knows no malice or spite and it’s not into storing up all our wrong-doings to throw back at us at a later date. Just the opposite in fact. It’s us that keeps the list of trespasses albeit on a sub-conscious level so that we can use it to measure our ‘deservedness’ by. It’s another way we limit our self-worth. I create everything in my reality, there’s nothing out there that’s going to come back and get me not unless I’ve set it up that way. Yes, what I think today creates my tomorrow and the day after that but it can change momentarily because I can choose for it to change.
It doesn’t matter whether you like what you created or not, the second you accept responsibility for creating it you are free. Right there and then reality shifts and a new day dawns for everyone in so many subtle ways. Isn’t that beautiful :]
Live Love Leap everyone!
Hey Dawn!
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom here. I totally agree on Karma. That’s why I didn’t mention it. Like I said in my comment to Phil, I see it more int he way that the pain you create keeps you stuck in pain. Until it doesn’t. Some people stumble out – something happens to shake up their world enough to make them stop and take pause, of the suffering simply gets too great to bear and they finally give up and let go. But we can also pull ourselves out deliberately, and then the suffering ends. Just like that.
I love this: “It doesn’t matter whether you like what you created or not, the second you accept responsibility for creating it you are free.” That’s so true. The trick is to accept responsibility, not blame. One is empowering, the other will just lead right back to depression.
Huge happy shiny puppy hugs!
Melody
I think it all depends on how you interpret Karma. I have read that the word means something like action. Say you do something that destroy the balance, whatever balance. Karma then means that it requires some action in order to restore the balance, which might be an apology or the action of taking responsibility. I do not think that there is much wrong with the concept of Karma as such but there might be with the way it usually is interpreted. But that goes for a lot of other words as well. Karma, if interpreted in the right way might fit in with LOA perfectly.
Love,
Anny
Spot on Anny. It always comes down to perspective with ALL things, words, actions, etc. There is never a definitive answers, just different interpretations. 🙂
Huge happy shiny puppy hugs!
Melody
🙂 “Thank you for giving of yourself so freely here.” Damn, that means I get my self back. Knew I was doing something wrong!!! Hugs back-you give, you get!
Ahahaha! That’s true Karma! You get yourself back. I love it!
Thanks for the laugh. 😆
More hugs! (Boomerang hugs?)
Mel
This gets to the Law of Responsibility and, obviously, Karma. You NEVER get away with anything. What goes around DOES come around and these days it is happening faster. To the universe there really is no ‘time.’ All events are in the eternal NOW. Every action creations a reaction. At some point, although often not fast enough for us, but no time has passed for the Universe, what someone does returns. Negative = negative return, positive = positive return. There is no escaping this so rest assured, sayings like every dog (no offense to real dogs) has it day is true. Hurt, you WILL be hurt in return, soon, later, in a thousand years. It will happen. This is not a punishment. When you toss a ball in the air, it will fall. It is not being judged or punished, it’s just what happens.
Hey Philip,
I didn’t really use the word Karma because for a lot of people, it represents some outside force. But you’re absolutely right. If you keep yourself stuck in a place of pain, and create more and more pain, you will get more and more pain. It isn’t BECAUSE you are hurting others, but by doing so, you are lining yourself up with the vibration of pain and powerlessness and that’s what then gets attracted. Serving others usually lines us up with a much higher vibration (providing it’s not done out of obligation but actually feels good) and therefore attracts more positive events.
I would disagree that all the pain you caused comes back to you necessarily. Usually, it does and often more so, but there’s no score keeper. In my experience, the person’s pain comes FIRST and then gets passed on, rather than being passed on and then coming back… It’s kind of like the chicken and the egg. Which came first? The important point for me is that we can exit that cycle and stop being in pain as well as passing it on.
Thank you for giving of yourself so freely here. Kind of selfish of you, really, LOL.
Huge hugs!
Melody
Ya just gotta love this…
Who We Really Are is pure love and is always calling us toward that love. This is why, when we turn away from love, loving others and loving ourselves, we hurt so much. The further we turn away from Who We Really Are, the more we suffer.
Since learning this decades ago I can apologize instantaneously because I can’t stand to be miserable. Now that I’ve said that I’ll probably be tested today. LOL at the LOA;)
Oooh, I love that Tess! You apologize because YOU don’t want to be miserable. That’s so powerful. You let go of stuff because it’s more important to you that you feel good rather than that you’re always right.
Thanks so much for sharing your wonderful wisdom here.
Huge hugs,
Melody