DWQA QuestionsCategory: KarmaThis whole notion of closure seems less than ideal. It is regarded as of the utmost importance to achieve, and yet, in the end, how much does it actually change? The victim has no role to play but to sit and wait for something outside of themselves to happen. Can Creator comment on this notion of achieving closure, as something that must be done for the victim, rather than by the victim?
Nicola Staff asked 3 years ago
Here again, we would say the dilemma is one of having an inappropriate means to right the wrongs in question in a way that will truly help anyone, perpetrator or victim, or society as a whole, to learn from the mistakes that have been made and make changes for the better that will end up strengthening all in a meaningful way and making them better human beings through that hard-won learning. What kind of meaningful closure can there be when all there is, in terms of options, is to hold out hope that one’s perpetrator will be caught and somehow punished? That is not a kind of meaningful restitution that will take away the pain and fear of having been harmed and threatened in whatever way took place in the commission of a crime. The reality of human behavior is such that one cannot even guarantee that the perpetrator will be persuaded to not seek revenge on their victim in blaming them for their punishment, in which case that innocent victim waiting for closure has a much greater burden than before, when the reality sinks in that the system of jurisprudence will bring them back together, even physically, with their perpetrator and tie them together legally, perhaps for a lifetime. That is a prescription for future mayhem, because it will foster the karmic entanglement, in a very real physical sense, of guaranteeing continued awareness of what is going on with the other party and any sense of outrage the perpetrator might have about having too harsh a sentence, or not feeling any guilt or remorse about their misconduct to begin with and only see their punishment as unwarranted, may well be seething with resentment and longing for the day when they will one day walk out of prison and can seek revenge for their suffering. So this is simply a case of one victim becoming two, in a more severe way, when the perpetrator is every bit as much a victim as the one they harm because the Law of Karma will see to it that they pay a price. For the human culture to add greatly to that seems like a practical solution, but is one that is borne of frustration and not seeing any better options that are workable, but that is the sorry state of affairs you live with in your corrupted world where human lives are often troubled and limited in their reach and the availability of effective options that will improve their lot. What is missing when one is waiting for closure is true healing for what has happened, and that is truly what is needed and is almost universally recognized. But unfortunately, most trivialize what might be required for one to be healed, simply by having their crime solved that victimized them, and seeing someone go to jail for it, and so on. As we have recounted, this can give rise to many new difficulties and will many times keep the episode alive, not only in memory but in real-world reencounters with the criminal justice system, perhaps testifying multiple times during an appeals process and then even for a sentencing hearing, and then again perhaps even years later at a parole hearing where they will make decisions in saying things, or not, that will have karmic consequences through causing difficulty and karmic debt in bringing harm to another. That is actually separate from the reality they were wronged and became a victim in their own right—that still is not a justification for further actions that are a kind of wrongdoing, just because they are not only allowable but promoted by a faulty criminal justice system.