The path of revenge seems to be the quickest and the easiest, especially in the presence of anger. Revenge finds justification in an assumed right to take an eye for an eye, and the illusion that a score can be settled. The truth, however, is that the scoring has been going on for some time, and is unlikely to end as long as anger finds any place in either side’s perception of events. While most human beings would seldom choose revenge when presented with such an event as a hypothetical situation, very few human beings find it easy to stay free of the impulse to strike back when the real event happens. Anger is the primary force behind any attempt to take revenge, punish and inflict pain. The world is now an angry place because no formal education system has ever taught that the world is no place for anger. In fact anger is encouraged and justified in most cultures, most especially our global culture of entertainment. Few wish to recognize and acknowledge that anger kills not only others, but eventually the creator of the anger themselves, because that would mean much inner work is necessary to change a deep habit that is much easier to justify as human nature. Guns and bullets never killed anyone, fear and anger are always the primary cause. In almost every conflict the path of revenge can be easily seen, but most of us would never choose it, unless we ourselves have been directly affected. Sometimes however, revenge is dressed in the cloak of justice. Action in the name of justice done. If it were, it would contain some mercy and compassion. Mercy lies within the discerning wisdom of the judge, as he or she weighs circumstances, character and other influences on the crime. The voice of mercy within the cry for justice will sound like a genuine desire to understand exactly why the crime was committed, what was the true underlying and probably invisible cause. Also found within the true administration of justice will be the signs of forgiveness. Human beings are forgiving by nature, but not when pain of loss and anger are present, and the emotional wounds are still raw. If a truly enlightened soul were consulted about the subject of human responsibility at the same time of any crime, they might say that for a human being to deliver justice to another human being is an act of arrogance based on ignorance. They would remind us that the deepest understanding of justice informs us that the world at every level – spiritual, mental and physical – is governed by a set of natural laws which ultimately cannot be broken. Any attempt to break any of these laws will always result in eventual failure, and the self correcting and self balancing dynamic within that law is the only source of real justice in the world. We all intuitively acknowledge this when we say things like ‘what goes around comes around, what you give you get, what you sow you reap, and of course what you get is the result of what you have given’. This is the law of karma, found in most eastern wisdom, but more than slightly absent from western education, despite our acknowledgement of the principle of sowing and reaping. While we may know this law, the wisdom and the patience that is required to allow its manifestation in real life events is quickly overridden by the desire to take the law into our own hands and inflict the return of the pain we have experienced. This only perpetrates an exchange of pain and a self sustaining process of ongoing conflict. In the context of ground zero, the meeting of revenge and justice was neatly expressed in a US military bumper sticker which read, “It is God’s responsibility to forgive Mr. Bin Laden….. but it is our responsibility to arrange the meeting”.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 02:53:25 +0000
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