Relax, no one gets away with anything

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Would you rather act unjustly or be acted upon unjustly? If you said that you would rather be acted upon unjustly than to be the cause of injustice or to have anything to do with injustice, then you are aware that it is much more beneficial to have a clean conscience than whatever profit is promised by doing a certain injustice. Because you know the true cost of having anything to do, participating in any way at all in injustice makes us unable to sleep at night. It makes us regret what we've done. We experience shame, conflict, and guilt and sorrow. Hardly able to think about anything else, unable to forgive ourselves and not knowing if this is this ever will be possible. But as an experiencer of injustice, meaning when someone else is the cause of the injustice that we are suffering from, then we have the benefit of a clean conscience. And then we will get to it as best as we can. This awareness about the true cost of being the cause of injustice. Is this something that you had to read books on to learn? Did we have to join some kind of a seminar or a course before we were able to answer this question that it would be more profitable to experience injustice rather than be the cause of injustice? Or was this not an intuitive answer? As soon as you heard the question, you knew about the true cost of injustice and about the benefit of having nothing to do with injustice, no matter what may be the cost of this. Anything's better than to be the cause of injustice. Now, if this is not something that only you and I have learned, have drilled it into ourselves, have brainwashed ourselves to think this way, if this is not just you and me, but if this is a feature, a commonality, a mutuality of human nature, then we must realize that this, whether they know it or not, is everyone's experience. Because we often have this idea that people who commit injustice and get away with it don't have to pay, don't never get punished for what they have done. But what is a greater punishment than this anger, this hatred, this confusion, and this conflicted nature that every wrongdoer experiences due to their human nature? We have all done injustice in our lives, and we know exactly what it feels like. We know exactly the confusion, the restlessness, the hatred, the feeling of being a stranger to the whole world, unable to sleep at night, full of regret and shame and guilt. We know this true cost. And so when we say that people can get away with injustice, we are forgetting this fundamental, inescapable feature of human nature. No wrongdoer can be a peace. Every wrongdoer is consumed by hate and anger and misery. But for some reason, we think that we are the saviors of justice, that we are the warriors, the soldiers, and the ones responsible for justice to be served. And we say, yes, I hate these people, I hate wrongdoers. Of course I do. What is there to love about them? I hate what they have done, and I hate also almost as much the fact that they seem to be getting off without any punishment. And so I will hold on to this hate, I will hold on to my unforgiving nature, because to forgive someone like this, to let go of hatred for them, would be like to approve of their actions, and then they really getting off without any punishment. At least I can punish them by holding on to my hate. This doesn't make any sense. Because, again, intuitively, deep down in your heart, tell me this. Is justice such a small thing, such a weak thing, such an ephemeral thing as to need help from you? Or did justice only ever ask you to not participate in injustice? Justice has never asked us to save it, to help it, to be its hero. Justice has only said you. You don't participate. And to save the world, to bring justice to every wrongdoer and to hate and to not forgive all these people, this is a lot of work. But to not participate in injustice, to simply abstain? This is the simplest thing to do, and this is the most effortless thing to do, actually, because it is nothing to do. And it is because we try to meddle with these things, it is because we say, well, this person is getting away with a big injustice. What if I just did a small one? What if I told some white lies or got some other people really emotional and angry about this injustice so that I can use their anger and hatred as motivation, as energy to go after these people? I can use their resources, their money, their time so that they can help us. After all, it is for a good common cause. But this is what every wrongdoer thinks. Ask any wrongdoer in the entire world, ask any tyrant, any king, any murderer, anyone. It was their goal to punish someone. It was their goal to set things right, it was their goal to avenge someone. It was their goal on a larger scale, as we have experienced many times in the world, to rid the world of entire countries, people, and races to save the world, to purify the world, to save the world from its own destruction by the hands of these people. This is how every wrongdoing, every atrocity, even, every genocide, even, has been committed in this spirit of I am not the wrongdoer, I am the one fighting against the ones that are wrong, that are evil, that are filthy. And so, what does it matter if I have to commit a much, much smaller injustice? In other words, what we think is our ends will justify our means. And the price we have to pay for that is immense and it's not worth anything. We know this from ourselves. Every time we have committed a wrong, we felt miserable. We felt anger, hatred towards ourselves, towards the entire world, towards how things could have turned out, should have turned out, but didn't. And that is the true punishment for every wrongdoing, and that punishment comes with the wrongdoing itself. There is no delay in it, it's instant. And there's no separating it from the act itself. It always comes with it, and it is instantaneously there, and no one needs to do anything for it to come about. The wrongdoer themselves brings this about the very moment. They commit a wrong even before the wrong, actually. Just the intention of committing an injustice brings with it an immediate punishment even before the act is ever attempted. What we are doing in the courts of law and the justice system is not punishment. It is security. It is safety. Meaning this person, this wrongdoer, should not be allowed to do this again in order for us to live in a safer society in peace. That is not punishment. That is simply insurance, security, and safety. The punishment has already occurred. Because it is infinitely better to sit in prison for the rest of one's life as an innocent person who has been wrongfully put there than to be a free person who has indeed committed the wrongdoing. Because the wrongdoer is never ever truly free. Even a physically free wrongdoer is still spiritually enchained. They cannot sleep at night. They are consumed by hate, by anger, by suffering, misery, and confusion. Not understanding that this misery that they're experiencing is actually caused by themselves, by their own way of life. And they attribute it to anyone else, the whole world, the past, their parents, politics, the whole world. Not understanding that they are the true cause and they're forever fighting, forever battling people and events and ideas. And they will never find peace. To live like this is the ultimate punishment. And the amazing irony is that we put ourselves, we punish, we punish ourselves in this way, and we put ourselves in this misery and this suffering, thinking that we are adhering to justice and that we are helping justice to do its job. The very best thing that we can do against injustice is to not participate in it ourselves. Because if everyone did this, there would be no injustice ever. And you are never asked to do more than this. So I urge you to let your anger go. And I urge us to forgive. Because as long as we carry hate, we are no different than the wrongdoer. Just as they are ignorant about the true cost of wrongdoing, we are ignorant of the fact that the most ignorant act of all is to hate someone else's ignorance. And so we punish ourselves with the hate that we feel, we punish ourselves with the anger that we can't get away from, we punish ourselves with the confusion and the misery and the suffering that we think is caused by ignorant, unfair, even evil people. But no, the injustice, the hateful heart of another cannot harm you. Only your own can spread hate to your entire body.