Throught human history, men have committed acts for which they have been sought to be punished by others. Institutions for administering "Justice", based on "Laws" and "Precedents" are there in every organized society.
Laws are mostly based on public morality and convention. If there are differences in the way people feel about certain issues, the majority decides what is right. As the deciding authorities of law become more and more distant from the general populace, however, this relationship between law and public opinion becomes blurred or absent.
When a person infringes the law, the institutions hasten to punish him by imprisonment, fine, torture or death.
Since the institutions act as representatives of justice and which, consisting of human beings who can themselves be influenced by ignorance, malice, pressure, greed and short-sightedness, one can reasonably call their judgements right or wrong. Hence, one can justifiably consider a judgement as pronounced by an institution as a miscarriage of justice.
If one is attached to seeing people punished for acts that one considers wrong, and to prevent innocents from being punished by unjust authorities, one is destined for pain. Laws are made and administered by a select group of people in power. They have no motivation to go along with "my" own set of views. They have their own views as to what is right, and what ought to be done, and how.
The feelings of outrage, injustice, violation and helplessness find their expression in anger, violence and mental agitation. Everyday one sees around oneself dishonesty being rewarded and honesty being thwarted, and one asks, is it the scheme of existence?
There are people who feel there is a subtler realm of punishment. They believe that ones who escape punishment in this life will suffer in their next life, that they suffer inwardly anyway, that they suffer from guilt, remorse and fear.
But for the vast realm of human population, outward punishment and pain is more real and fearful than inward pangs of regret. Why would a rapist rape others repeatedly, if he knows that he suffers inwardly for his crimes? That he is ignorant about his presumed inward suffering, means it is not deep enough to shake him out of his habit pattern. And that is why, in every society, outward institutions have been set up to enforce "justice". If nature punishes irrevocably, then what is the need for police?
There is a deep conditioning in oneself, that the so-called wrong acts must somehow be expressly punished.
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One must examine many things here: Why is an act wrong? Who is to be punished? How? And who is to punish?
An act is wrong because one believes it to be wrong. A soldier killing for his country believes that he is performing noble acts. A Brahmin eating meat is convinced that that is a great sin. An American child eating meat is not aware of the Brahmin's beliefs, and he does not consider it wrong at all.
There is a reason for any act, be it a rational reason, designed to result in a certain outcome for oneself, or a reason born of an "unbalanced" mind, with no perceivable motive.
Every act is right for the person who does it. It is only when he is repeatedly told that it is wrong, that he falls into regret and shame. Or if he sees that the act produces consequences counter to his intention, he considers the act wrong. But it is wrong only in a functional sense. A person having revenged himself by murdering another, feels happy and fulfilled. His act has served his purpose. Another person, having chided his son for his son's habit of smoking, sees that the son has become estranged from him, and regrets over his chiding.
Who is to be punished for a supposedly wrong act? It is fundamental to the act of punishment that the criminal feel pain. If he feels pleasure in the process of punishment, the punishment has not served its purpose.
In punishment, one is asked to surrender some money, or to get physically restricted in a jail, or to suffer bodily harm, or to die.
Who suffers this pain? The individual, the entity which is supposed to have committed the crime. In reality, it is the conditioning of the mind which is sought to be changed. The criminal had wrong notions of what he could and could not do, the purpose of the institutions is to re-educate him. He should be more careful in future.
All pain, and all pleasure is based on conditioning. The whole system of justice is based upon enforcing the publicly accepted set of norms and conditioning upon an errant mind.
So, we see that it is a set of conventions and conditioning fighting with minds who are not fully into their fold. The set keeps changing over time, but is sufficiently static to permit enforcement at a certain time.
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If, as proclaimed by great religious teachers, there is no Actor, all actions happen in nature; then it is a conditioned desire on one's part to punish someone.
But this desire, its dependant actions, and the justice system, are also therefore part of nature, and should be left alone.
But this Understanding of what nature is, and what I am is Not a conditioning. In the Journey towards this Understanding, which is the shedding of one's relatioinship with the Universe, these conditioned desires are to be understood and put aside.
The desire should be seen as is, in action, and be understood.
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Who am I? I am the Awareness which lights the Universe.
As the Sun is unconcerned about what happens on Earth, As Space is unconcerned about what happens in Itself, This Awareness is un-concerned with what happens in the World.
For Space, objects don't exist. For this Awareness, world is non-existent.
True Love is this Awareness calling on its reflections, You and Me, to realize their true essence.