Theos-Talk Archives (June 1998 Message tt00292)

kymsmith@micron.net wrote:
>
> Sophia wrote:
>
> >The curtain of forgetfulness, is
> >dropped upon most of humanity, for many do not have the strength of
> >character to either bear, what they would look upon as injustice meted
> >out to them in former lives and would seek revenge, or be able to bear
> >the horror of the mistakes and dreadful actions they themselves may have
> >committed.
>
> This makes sense, but how does one then know when to "fight back?"  You
> wrote: "They would look upon an injustice meted out to them in former lives
> and would seek revenge."  I agree this is very likely - but then how do I
> know that the person who, say, "robbed" me of my pay-check while I was
> walking down the street isn't simply aiding me in regaining balance because,
> say, I, in a former time, over-charged this person monetarily causing
> hardship for her and her family?  If I called the police, had her arrested,
> she ended up imprisoned - would yet another "rebalance" have to occur?

	Just because someone has karma coming to them does not give anybody a
natural right to inflict it. In the Christian Scripture, for example, a
puzzling case is the fate of Judas. It appeared that it was definitely
in the karma and the dharma of Jesus to be crucified. Yet Judas, who
acts as a major agent of this, is damned for his action. Even thought
the immediate results of his actions were "good", his karma was driven
by his true intent: to stop Jesus.

	You will certainly learn one or more lessons from the robbery; possibly
the correct ones. But you can learn the same lessons by other means. And
the robber was not trying to teach you a karmic lesson; she was acting
out of purely selfish motives (well, with near enough certainty for
engineers). Going by the odds, you will probably generate less personal
karma by going to the police than you would by inaction, if you look at
the total picture.

	Bart Lidofsky