Revenge vs Justice

Revenge vs Justice

[00:45] Restoration of Balance

Jai Guru Deva. Thank you for listening to my podcast, The Vedic Worldview. I’m Thom Knoles. Today I’ve been asked by my listeners to illuminate something on the subject of justice versus revenge.

As regards justice, the Vedic view is that all unsustainable behaviors are corrected best by Nature’s intelligence. From time to time, it may be true that big Self consciousness may use one’s own individuality to bring about the restoration of a balanced state.

When somebody does something which cuts across, and with short-sightedness, cuts across the interests of evolution of another, or a group of others, in order, mistakenly, to try to have self-aggrandizement, or to bring about a benefit, even if that benefit is some dysfunctional mentality benefit or some other more palpable benefit like, “I need the land of my neighbors,” or, “I need to destroy the culture of my neighbors, whatever that may be.”

Sometimes it is assigned by Nature’s intelligence to the individuals themselves who are in the best position to bring about a rebalancing of interests when someone commits some kind of violation of the laws of Nature.

As it turns out, you can’t really violate the laws of Nature. You can only attempt to violate them, but even the attempt is disruptive and time-consumingtime consuming. And so the laws of Nature can’t actually be violated, however, they can be interrupted.

And in this interruption of the free flow of the laws of Nature, Nature has, within it, self-correcting mechanisms of every kind that will bring about a restoration of a state of balance, so that all entities concerned are able to move forward in the storyline which ends up being, in the longest possible term, looking at it, always evolutionary.

And there are times when Universal Intelligence will make use of one of its appendages, we think of that as the human beings, the individuals who are sourced in that Universal Intelligence may be given the task to restore that balance.

So justice is really the restoration of balance. We have a very peculiar idea about justice, sets of ideas of justice. What is it that is just? What is it that is, at least in the collective consciousness, the average of mentality, the average state of consciousness, what is it that is right? The sense of what is right.

And that sense of what is right, interestingly, appears to only be applicable to human interactions.

[05:03] Was It Just?

We look at the descent of an asteroid onto the earth, however many millions of years ago that occurred when the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico was struck and some 90 percent plus all extant life forms were made extinct as a wave of water and detritus 5,000 feet high went out in concentric circles to all quarters of the globe.

And there was global winter because of all of the detritus that went into the atmosphere and whatever creatures survived that ended up, in the end, evolving, and amongst those were these little critters who are our most ancient ancestors. who over the millions of years, became more and more adept at getting their brains and their heads up away from the rocks and the bushes.

They became, instead of quadrupeds, they became bipedal, managed to get up onto their hind feet and move about. And then their brains began to become what we would call neurocentric. That is to say, the talent of the human is not in running, it’s not in climbing trees, it is in behaviors that are very best exemplified in the extraordinary capabilities of the human brain.

And as the brain got larger and larger, and the cranium became larger and larger, there came a point where a cognitive revolution occurred. Was it just that the asteroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula and eliminated more than 90 percent of all life forms on the earth? Was it just? What did it lead to?

[07:33] Misguided Avengers

The idea that as an individual, if I believe that somebody has wronged me, that I will feel satisfied and become peaceful if some kind of wrong comes to that person: they perpetrated a wrong and now, either through me being the avenger, or through some kind of other force of humans, some government body, avenging my claim to having been wronged or Nature’s intelligence having righted the wrong by meting out suffering onto someone who has brought suffering on to others…

The idea that this is going to yield a contented, placid state, a state of satisfaction, is a palpably false concept. Any number of people whom you could interview who were wronged and then, either by their own hand or actions, or by the actions of governance, or by Nature meeting out suffering onto whomever it was that brought them ill, that there was then satisfaction, you won’t find that statement.

If you ask somebody, “Were you satisfied that perhaps an individual or an individual’s lives, life, or the lives of their family, or the lives of an entire nation were destroyed as a reaction to them, bringing about an attempt to destroy others, are you satisfied?” The fact is, satisfaction can only come from not being bound.

To what extent do you have to continue having thoughts? You see, we don’t measure the satisfaction. This supposedly is to come from reparations or is to come from a kind of equal-and-opposite effect happening to whomever we consider perpetrated, “a wrong” against us. If we consider satisfaction simply to be that, “Oh, they also suffered.”

[10:28] Satisfaction Through Moksha – Liberation

Satisfaction: actually, it can’t be really claimed unless there is liberation, moksha, we say. In Sanskrit, we call it moksha, M, as in Maharishi, O-K-S-H-A, moksha. Liberation.

And what is that liberation? The liberating from the necessity to continue thinking about it. The necessity to continue having relatively fruitless thoughts. To what extent has something actually brought about satisfaction to you?

Well, has it liberated you from having to have thoughts about the interruption to the flow of events as you saw it? If it hasn’t, if moksha hasn’t been gained, there’s no liberation from the necessity to have continuous unproductive thoughts, then you’re bound.

And even if so-called “justice” has been meted out on somebody, either by the actions of humans or the actions of Nature, do you still think about it over and over and over again? If you do, you haven’t attained moksha and that ability for restoration of equanimity is lost.

Who is going to bring you the capacity to return to equanimity. What does that mean? Equanimity, it’s such a rarely used word in the English language, we have to spend a few moments defining it, forgive me.

Equanimity means a balanced state, an evenness, which is implicit of readiness to engage in the next right thing. Readiness to engage in the next right thing, not being bound by events of the past, not letting the events of the past dictate to you what your capability is. Equanimity.

[12:50] Karma – Actions or Thoughts That Bind You

And equanimity is one of those great features that is supposed to accrue as a benefit to a practitioner, a regular twice-daily practitioner of Vedic Meditation. According to the mythological mentor of Arjuna, Lord Krishna was the avatar in the story, teaching Arjuna on the battlefield five thousand years ago.

Arjuna, whose family, by any regular way of looking at things, had been terribly wronged by the cousins who were arrayed with their army of millions on the opposite side of a no-man’s land.

And Krishna told Arjuna, “What you have to do is engage, but not engage with a sense of vengeance, engage to the extent that you’re being used as a tool by Nature’s intelligence to restore balance in the collective consciousness. And, if you have as a goal that you’re going to be satisfied personally, because you were used as a tool, you won’t have moksha, you won’t have liberation, you’ll have bondage, you’ll be bound, you’ll continue to be bound in the karma.”

Karma means actions or thoughts that bind you. And so to the extent that you are required to continue having thoughts about a thing over which you have no power, you’re bound. And Krishna advises Arjuna to practice his Vedic Meditation, to allow his awareness to become one with Totality Consciousness which can see things in the largest possible perspective.

And it’s only that capacity which restores equanimity, and it is only the restoration of equanimity that gives us the capacity, effectively, to continue to be relevant socially. Equanimity gives us the capacity to engage and interact with the true need of the time in an effective fashion. Without equanimity, we’re bound, and if we’re bound, our potentials and our capabilities are bound.

[15:43] A Futile Act

And so the idea that, “I will exact vengeance,” even in all of the scriptures of the world, the idea of the exacting a vengeance is considered to be a futile act on behalf of a human.

“If you are in that clear consciousness state, and Nature decides that you are going to be the means whereby a correction and a restoration of balance occurs, it’s Nature doing it. So long as it is the individual ‘I’ seeking satisfaction—meaning seeking the cessation of irrelevant thoughts that are constantly coming—then it just won’t work to be an avenger. 

Sorry, Marvel Comics: being an avenger, someone whose role it is to mete out vengeance, is an individual human decision. Without the Cosmic input into it, a life, or even lifetimes, could be wasted in the futile act of attempting to get satisfaction—satiety—which would mean a supreme inner contentedness restored, a readiness to be available to engage in the next right act that is going to really bring about evolution.”

So, are we ready or are we not ready? If we’re not ready because we’re bound by an idea, then we need to be sure that we’re practicing our Vedic Meditation twice every day. We also need to be ready to let go of rigid attachment to very relative ideas of what justice looks like, because the fact is, we may not be—and here implicitly and in parentheses I’ll put (we are not)—the very best arbiter of what is the Cosmic Plan. The Cosmic Plan.”

What was the Cosmic Plan when an asteroid struck the Earth all those tens of millions of years ago? Knocked the Earth slightly out of its regular orbit, made it orbit even more on its axis than it had before, still wobbling today.

You know, when you take a motion picture or video of the pole star with very precise equipment, it’s not just sitting in one place. It’s going around in tiny little circles. The reason for that is the Earth was knocked onto its axis by two events: the Theia event, when the body later known as the Moon collided with Earth, and then, many millions of years later, the extinction event of the asteroids striking the Yucatan Peninsula, in what is now Mexico.

Both of these events caused the Earth to wobble in particular ways that changed tidal patterns and allowed the tides to move differently. As it turned out, this brought about the end of, if you like, the tyranny of the reptilian era—hats off to Jurassic Park here—where the giant reptiles ruled the Earth. Would it have been possible for humans to evolve, and for us to be having this delightful discourse right now, without that event?

The answer is no, clearly. It could never have happened.

[19:48] Does Nature Know What It’s Doing?

So does Nature know what it’s doing? Evidently it does. Are you going to be called to be the point of rectification of balance? Well, let’s see. But if you assign that task to yourself as an individual, then the extent to which you’ll find satiety, true satisfaction, is going to be very limited.

The fact is you’ll probably continue to think about the events where you felt wronged, and where you brought about rectification, you’re going to continue to think about it for many, many years, perhaps even decades, using up precious consciousness space, which otherwise could have been used for engaging in progressive change.

So we don’t recommend revenge. We don’t recommend vengeance. We don’t recommend becoming an avenger. What we recommend is the realization of a truth: individuality is in fact Cosmic.

To what extent have you realized that fundamental truth in your life? Individuality is Cosmic. Individuality is an individual status and structure that is a manifestation of the unbounded Totality Consciousness. To what extent have you realized this?

[21:33] Aham Brahmasmi – I Am Totality

If you’ve only realized it 10%, then 90 percent you’re going to be on your own in suffering. If you’ve realized it to 50%, then 50 percent you’ll find life becoming increasingly frictionless, and 50 percent you’ll be struggling and suffering to rectify everything. If you’ve realized individuality is Cosmic to the 90 percent value, then 90% you will sense your individuality is the outlet for Universal Consciousness.

To the 90 percent factor, you will be The Universe having a human experience.

Have you realized it 100%? “Aham Brahmasmi, I am Totality.” Is this the way ordinarily you spontaneously think? Or do you have to constantly remind yourself of it? If you don’t have to remind yourself of it and you just spontaneously are experiencing that, “I am Universe, and individuality is the means whereby Universe gets done what it needs to get done. And individuality is not this little bag of neediness that’s all desperate and everything and trying to get vengeance and trying to be the arbiter of what’s right.”

And so learning how to step out of that individuality-only role is a very important part of our spiritual progress. We don’t wish to live lives of futility. We wish to live a life that is highly significant and iconic, and the only way for that to happen is full realization of one’s deep inner status as Unified Field.

All other approaches to attempting to be a fulfilled person are futile approaches. Those are the thoughts on justice and revenge.

[23:53] Further Studies

For those of you who are deeply interested in the subject of revenge versus justice and all the elements that come into that, I’ve recently recorded, with my colleague Jamey Hood, a marvelous course on the subject of Bhagavad Gita.

Bhagavad, B-H-A-G-A-V-A-D, Bhagavad, it means the Divine personification, and Gita, G-I-T-A, it means song, the song of the Divine personification. It is an epic poem, actually, that is the central chapters of a huge epic written by my namesake, Vyasa, Vyasa of enlightened vision who lived about 5, 000 years ago and it is the telling of the rightful heirs to the throne having had their standing usurped by short-minded cousins who are going to debauch the whole Vedic civilization of India.

And into this comes a war. A war is portended because there are millions on either side of a one-mile wide no-man’s land, and into this comes Krishna, the mythological master, who is the embodiment of Cosmic Intelligence, who is advising Arjuna, the protagonist of the story, what to do about all of this that has come to this point.

And Krishna’s advice we’re going to take to heart in our understanding of what justice and revenge actually means. 

Jai Guru Deva.