Do people get what they deserve?

[goonis38]

I was thinking about this earlier today. I think the answer to the question depends on one's definition of what exactly it is to deserve something, and what is being deserved. What is getting what one deserves?

 

Obviously.. there are people that believe without a doubt people get what they deserve.. all the time. It's possible if you think of deservingness as simply what you see is what you get. Or, what you get is by default what you deserve because by the "laws of nature" you have been given what you have dominion over, what you have achieved thus far all your efforts. Therefore, what you deserve is simply, what you get.

 

Is it really this way? You get what you are, or vice versa? Is it always this way? Is everything justified?

 

Does the opinion differ from gender to gender? or How can it?

 

Maybe this is not the way you think of deservingness. Who sets the rules, who decides whether something is worthy enough to deserve something? Is it even based on worth when you put the "law of attraction" in the picture?

 

What if, not everyone has taken advantage of the law of attraction? What if it might take some more time than others to achieve what is deserved? Or does it happen right away?

 

Is it possible that not all people get what they deserve? At least instantaneously?

 

Hi there,

this is a great thing to think on. It is funny I have just been through something in my life that has made me think of this. I was in a very bad car accident and could of been killed. I was hit in my drivers side door by a man that ran a stop sign talking on his phone. I lost my beautiful car that me and my husband have been working our way up to get since we have been married about 13 years. You know you start off small work up...

This has been about two and half months now. Car totaled, concussion and back problems for me. So my first reaction human nature, was to talk this way. That I am now. Feeling sorry for myself, and my lose...

And then it hit me, I'm missing the whole point of my lesson... I was being taught the very thing I was doing. So now I saw it for what it was. Material things aren't everything or anything. They can be replaced, my life can't be. So my daughter has a mother and so on.

And since I have excepted this, things have started to slowly to change in my life. And things have been given back to me... I am 40 I have many more lessons...

Oh no...

Then again, I have a friend she has a little girl born with all these health problems, I can't see a lesson in this. I just don't know...

Take care Melanie

 

[goldisheavy]

This is fun. You quoted my quote of your quote. Did you notice?

 

Yes.

 

"Suppose I am merely an echo. In that case, obviously I don't "get what I deserve." If I am merely an echo, my actions have no moral content at all, and all talk of deserving and/or not deserving is wasted.

 

 

Think about this. If I am an echo, whose echo am I? Echoes have no meaning without the source of sound. If you try to identify whose echo are you, you'll have trouble, but don't take my word for it. Try it. I have no source."

 

I tried it already. I found my first source in the words, thoughts and senses of others I knew and didn't know. Then I went to where there was only stillness and I found, nothing.

 

OK then. So you've investigated various perceptions such as a perception of yourself, a perception of thoughts, and then a perception of stillness and finally a perception of finding nothing. And yet the word "perception" implies passivity. What if perception is not passive but is creative instead? And what if perception is neither passive nor creative? What happens to echoes and deserving then?

 

At the time you initiate the sound, you're conventionally thought to be creative. When you receive back the echo you're conventionally thought to be passive. What if the convention is wrong in more ways than one?

 

Besides, I can look at the top of my head using mirrors. I can taste what's in someone else's mouth if I kiss them.

 

Yes, but how many people can you kiss at once? If there are 30 people in a room, the best you can do is taste a mix of your and someone else's mouth. It's impossible to taste purely someone else's mouth for one, and two, have you tried kissing 5 people at once? How about 30? Not one after another, but at once, instantly? That's how you are more present to yourself than to others. While you are busy kissing one, there may be 30 others you can't taste.

 

I will now have to go look up that word. "Real". I think it's something someone who wanted to instill doubt invented.

 

Who knows. I think it's a way for people to classify experiences into the ones they will take seriously and the ones they won't take seriously. Real experience we tend to take seriously. Dreams, hallucinations and all manner of other experiences we consider unreal are the ones we don't take seriously.

 

So on one hand, it seems like a distinction that makes sense and it seems kind of true and useful, but on the other hand, when you realize it all comes down to your level of seriousness, it all seems to be a big joke.

Edited October 15, 2010 by goldisheavy

[Birch]

"OK then. So you've investigated various perceptions such as a perception of yourself, a perception of thoughts, and then a perception of stillness and finally a perception of finding nothing. And yet the word "perception" implies passivity. What if perception is not passive but is creative instead? And what if perception is neither passive nor creative? What happens to echoes and deserving then?

 

At the time you initiate the sound, you're conventionally thought to be creative. When you receive back the echo you're conventionally thought to be passive. What if the convention is wrong in more ways than one?"

 

Oh good, your "what if" machine is working. Sounds like a neat thing to try.

 

 

"Yes, but how many people can you kiss at once? If there are 30 people in a room, the best you can do is taste a mix of your and someone else's mouth."

 

If there are 2 people in a room (me and someone else) the best I can do is taste a mix of my and their expression/impression. If I read a book, the best I can do is meet it halfway.

 

"It's impossible to taste purely someone else's mouth for one, and two, have you tried kissing 5 people at once? How about 30? Not one after another, but at once, instantly? That's how you are more present to yourself than to others. While you are busy kissing one, there may be 30 others you can't taste."

 

Ah, would that I could I guess I wouldn't actually want to...But I suppose I can, just by breathing and knowing every breath has been someone else's.

 

I feel a musical interlude happening down in my video forum.

 

Quote

I will now have to go look up that word. "Real". I think it's something someone who wanted to instill doubt invented.

 

 

"Who knows. I think it's a way for people to classify experiences into the ones they will take seriously and the ones they won't take seriously. Real experience we tend to take seriously. Dreams, hallucinations and all manner of other experiences we consider unreal are the ones we don't take seriously.

 

So on one hand, it seems like a distinction that makes sense and it seems kind of true and useful, but on the other hand, when you realize it all comes down to your level of seriousness, it all seems to be a big joke."

 

So why are so many people unhappy?

 

 

 

This post has been edited by goldisheavy

[goldisheavy]

"Who knows. I think it's a way for people to classify experiences into the ones they will take seriously and the ones they won't take seriously. Real experience we tend to take seriously. Dreams, hallucinations and all manner of other experiences we consider unreal are the ones we don't take seriously.

 

So on one hand, it seems like a distinction that makes sense and it seems kind of true and useful, but on the other hand, when you realize it all comes down to your level of seriousness, it all seems to be a big joke."

 

So why are so many people unhappy?

 

People tend to take many negative and scary experiences seriously. Perhaps you can dismiss an alien abduction as a bad trip, but few people can dismiss the bill collector as a bad trip.

 

So within the realm of the seriously taken experiences, people tend to have desires. When those desires are not met, they get upset. When they are not met repeatedly over and over, and when a resulting impression forms that perhaps one's desire is truly difficult to meet, depression sets in.

 

I don't know many people who are depressed because of their dreams or hallucinations. However, I think even though it's harder, it's still possible to be depressed from certain types of experiences that are considered unreal. For example a person might have a recurring nightmare. The person might know it's not real, but might still be upset over it. If the person feels nothing can be done to change the nightmare, depression might set in.

 

Just some ideas. What do you think causes unhappiness?

[Easy]

.

Edited October 16, 2010 by Mal
Temporary pending moderator discussion

[The Observer]

Yes people do get what they deserve. Your current situation is only the result of your past actions, in this life or another. I've come to realize, more and more, that life, as well as dreams, are essentially strung together "learning scenarios" in which our progress is gauged off of the maturity of our response to whatever situation we're in.

[Easy]

Edited by moderators for X-rated content

[Mal]

Easy, re: my PM (copy inserted)

 

Hi Easy,

 

We are having a moderator discussion about your post in "Do people get what they deserve?" and have temporally edited your post off the main board while we do that.

 

I don't want to censor your opinion especially as I do feel truly sorry for those who have suffered sexual abuse, and it is a classic example of someone experiencing a horror they did not deserve.

 

But I also felt rather dirty reading the graphic detail and we are not sure if the main discussion is the right place for such....

 

I apologise unreservedly for any distress my action may have caused you.

 

(more complex discussion to be addressed in another post)

[The Observer]

Hey,

First off my sincere sorry for what your lover went through. I wouldn't ever wish that on anyone . However everything happens for a reason...we are here to learn from ALL experiences...even the ugly ones we'd rather forget. I don't get to say who deserves what or why bad things happen to good people. I don't have all the answers. All I have, or try to have, is a can-do attitude, ready to learn from all and forgive all for whatever wrongs have been inflicted.

Oh and I'm pretty sure reincarnation is not as cut and dry as you put it. Beings sometimes don't reincarnate as humans or wait a while to come back.

I don't know what you mean about the Pleiades either...you lost me there.

Much Peace and Love to you and your lover Easy

 

 

 

P.S I didn't see your post when I was typing my original response. It wasn't meant to provoke you :/

[Gauss]

As I see it, as soon as you do something you generate karma or virtue depending on the action.

 

The payback or dividend may come in this life or in your next life, it does not matter, it will come anyway.

 

The only chance to escape Samsara is to cultivate up to at least Arhat level and be set free.

[goldisheavy]

Easy, re: my PM (copy inserted)

 

 

 

I apologise unreservedly for any distress my action may have caused you.

 

(more complex discussion to be addressed in another post)

 

Mal, I don't appreciate your censorship.

[Taomeow]

Mal, I don't appreciate your censorship.

 

It's not Mal, it's the outcome of a two-day discussion between four moderators. Very disturbing content was removed because the unprovable disclaimer "this happened to one of my lovers" didn't do much to change the fact that what was posted twice constituted graphic detailed descriptions of specific criminally insane techniques.

[thelerner]

Karma-I'll define it now as 'Getting what you deserve' is a nice theory philosophically, religiously and appeals to our scientific sense as well. Hard to argue with short term cause and effects. But as we go past short term it becomes problematic for me.

 

Who the hell is keeping score? Don't they have better things to do. Aren't some things just plain random? When karmic reactions start getting into past lives that seems ultimately unfair as well as unknowable guesswork.

 

Its also the ultimate in might makes right, validating the caste systems and the worst in snobbery. Well to do tyrants and oppressors are blessed by the universe and victims are getting what they deserve. Murderous villains in the East have been aided by sentiment that it was the victims karma, no need to get involved, mass murder and torture are fine.

 

 

 

Michael

[Birch]

"Karma-I'll define it now as 'Getting what you deserve' is a nice theory philosophically, religiously and appeals to our scientific sense as well."

 

How does it appeal to our "scientific sense"?

 

 

"Hard to argue with short term cause and effects. But as we go past short term it becomes problematic for me."

 

Well, I dunno. I think it's pretty easy to argue short term cause and effects. Especially if one attributes the wrong (i.e. either over or under) "responsability" to things.

 

"Who the hell is keeping score?"

 

You are

 

"Don't they have better things to do."

 

Hopefully, yes.

 

"Aren't some things just plain random?"

 

Oh. that's a tough one. I don't know what "random" is.

 

"When karmic reactions start getting into past lives that seems ultimately unfair as well as unknowable guesswork."

 

I reckon it depends on what one considers as a "past life". I reckon yesterday is a "past life" for me.

 

"Its also the ultimate in might makes right, validating the caste systems and the worst in snobbery."

 

Ah, that would be "deserving" as well as a misunderstanding of "karma" which as far as I have understood it so far, has little "moral" implications but does have wider "immortal" implications, tending towards "resolution" of desire (life) rather than, well, the opposite.

 

"Well to do tyrants and oppressors are blessed by the universe and victims are getting what they deserve."

 

Human-construct

 

"Murderous villains in the East have been aided by sentiment that it was the victims karma, no need to get involved, mass murder and torture are fine."

 

And in the West. Only way that makes atrocity possible.

[z00se]

Is it possible that not all people get what they deserve? At least instantaneously?

 

Everyone gets what they deserve? Should you care? No. Does it matter? No. Will you get what you DESERVE? You will get what you want. That 'only' is true. At least instantaneously? Everything is current. Looking to the past or the future is only a figment of your imagination. Only what is happening now is true and real.

[Gauss]

As I see it, in a more microscopic dimension it is seen immediately if an action generates virtue or karma. The retribution can come immediately or after life, it does not matter because the karma stays anyway until it is eliminated by suffering.

[goonis38]

Hi there,

I don't think that every time something happens good or bad we deserve it. But I believe there is a lesson in each thing...

A negative can be turned into a positive if we try hard enough... And in some cases it is harder than others...

But I have found it helpful in my life to try and look at what I can learn from even the bad things.

The great things are candy along the way in life...

The hard things, are the the things that hurt, but you learn a great deal...

Melanie

P.S. Deserve is a hard word.... I don't think I deserved for that man two months ago to come and hit me in my drivers side door, but I do believe I have learned a lesson. That material things can be replaced, but my life can not...

[circlework]

you must first figure out who's in charge of deciding what people deserve.. im pretty sure the universe doesn't care

[Birch]

"P.S. Deserve is a hard word.... I don't think I deserved for that man two months ago to come and hit me in my drivers side door, but I do believe I have learned a lesson. That material things can be replaced, but my life can not..."

 

No I don't believe there was any "deserving" there either.

 

The other idea, that there is a "lesson" in everything also smacks a bit of moral judgment. But I suppose it's technically correct too. I just don't feel good about making it into a grand theory.

[goonis38]

"P.S. Deserve is a hard word.... I don't think I deserved for that man two months ago to come and hit me in my drivers side door, but I do believe I have learned a lesson. That material things can be replaced, but my life can not..."

 

No I don't believe there was any "deserving" there either.

 

The other idea, that there is a "lesson" in everything also smacks a bit of moral judgment. But I suppose it's technically correct too. I just don't feel good about making it into a grand theory.

 

Yea I get ya Kate... In my life I deal with things this way. Maybe not a "grand theory" just away to deal in a positive manner... And not to much self pity...

Take care Melanie

[Brian]

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