Theos-Talk Archives (December 1998 Message tt00200)

>Dear Jerry:
>
>What I had in mind is not the attitude of the victim so much as
>the debt that the perpetrator of a wrong owes to his victim and
>their dependents whose future may have been impugned.
>
>Dal
>


Once again, this touches on a profound and deep thought.
It is quite obvious to me that such "debts" are never "paid
in full" so to speak as with a ledger or balance. I see karma,
in the sense of our personal karmic burden, being more
subjective than objective (modern psychology has shown that
the human mind can't tell the difference anyway). For example,
there is karma in the mind of the victim, and also in the mind of
the perpetrator.  If the victim forgives, then his or her karmic
link can be broken. The perpretrator can also break his or her
karmic link by forgiving himself or herself, which is not at
all an easy thing to do, and probably seldom ever happens.
Also possibly by doing some kind of penance or
purification.  But the balancing of cause and effect in these
sort of situations is not exact, and how our mind views things
has a great influence over what happens.

Jerry S.