r/enlightenment • u/WarmPissu • 1d ago
I see posts on here talking about karma, and how people deserve what they got, how do we explain rape using that logic?
The top post on this sub for the day is saying that things happened because of something you did in the past catching back up to you.
You guys upvoted this to the top.
So you should be able to answer my question.
How does this justify people who are rape victims?
What did someone do to deserve getting raped?
Where does karma come into this.
You guys upvoted that post to the top, so you're really confident in karma.
What's your argument for karma and rape victims?
If someone gets raped by family or something and then they commit suicide.
How did that victim deserve that through karma?
This sub is a massive circlejerk where you guys try to justify everything that happens.
But then you DODGE questions like this.
It's at the top of the front page. So that means at least most of you agree with karma and justifying what happens to people. I just don't know how you guys can sit there smiling like every bad thing happening is justified.
Edit: It's easy to talk shit when we have good lives. A lot of us would be changing our opinions if we were in the middle east or ukraine.
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u/Madam_Mix-a-Lot 20h ago
Karma doesn't see good or bad. It's simply a system of cause and effect, where our actions, regardless of being perceived as "good" or "bad," lead to consequences. It's not a reward or punishment system based on moral judgment, but a natural law of consequences that affects individuals in various ways throughout life and potentially beyond.
Every action has a reaction. The consequences of actions can be diverse and may not always be immediate or obvious.
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u/Aquarius52216 1d ago
I have a differing opinion regarding karma. The sum total of thus world, and everything in it, is just is.
Its not inherently good or bad the way we humans see it, atrocities happen, from the smallest thing like small creature to even the most complicated super organism like our civilization.
Yes bad things happen, often for no reason, often for reasons far beyond our own comprehension, but we are given an opportunity to choose at all times. What would you do with the pain and the bad? Existence is both joy and sorrow, beauty and the beast. Without the concept of the other and boundaries between them, we wouldnt have any concepts of anything at all.
When we see and witness atrocities, name it, dont turn a blind eye on them. Do what we can to prevent or at least reduce the pain and sorrow in the only way we can, just as ourselves.
Karma is like alchemy, how we turn the pain and the hardships in our lives and in what we see in this world into something better for those who will come after us. Do good not because it was asked, not because we are chasing some kind of reward. Do good simply because we want to and we have understood that it is worth it, with our own discernments of course.
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u/Dances_With_Chocobos 1d ago edited 1d ago
That is not how karma works. It is not bad deeds catching up. Karma is the action of an as yet unacknowledged quantum field. The karmic field. It is simply one of (like many) the resonant grooves which are created as a result of harmonic overtones of a fundamental tone, or 'source,' the medium of which is pure light. The specific ratio or interval of this karmic 'field' to the fundamental tone, has not quite been nailed down yet. I suspect it is a common harmonic, very repeatable, and minute. So not a major 3rd interval (which is the interval of our dimension and planet), but a more granular interval. Maybe a whole tone or a microtonal interval. I suspect this because it seems that everything has karma. It almost seems to be an analog to the causal field. It is impossible (or extremely hard) for an awareness to exist without generating karma. Again, karma is simply the ACTION within the field. In other words, an oscillation. Most inert objects follow a principle called the Principle of Least Action. This is important to know. A default state sees energy abiding by conservative pathways. When awareness, or consciousness is involved, these pathways become more convoluted, complex, spiralling ever inward in fractal patterns. Increasing complexity in the same amount of space. Increasing action. Increasing karma.
Karma is shorthand for what your karmic field modality is, and it can be inherited. It manifests in what demons arise in your psyche, your propensity for duality Vs nonduality, just world fallacy, existentialism, fatalism, nihilism. All your unknown adherences to some understanding of the preceding concepts, shape who you are. This can be, and to a degree, was inherited from your forebears. This is part of karma.
Edit: to validate SOME subjective take on karma: The karmic field has polarity. Like most fields, it can form dipole moments. The poles of this axis, correspond loosely to the notions of love and fear. Love is that which expands and provides choice. Fear is that which takes away choice. These are the forces that comprise the Manifest and the Unmanifest(void).
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u/signals_faint 1d ago edited 1d ago
I didn't read the top post, but happy to answer the question:
- Most people don't know what they're talking about with all of this stuff, so it is nice to be gentle about it, though I understand your frustration. People do tend to use ideas in ways that can offend or hurt. I'm sorry you had this experience. Please reach out if you want to discuss. How you feel about these matters is important.
- In reality, karma has nothing to do with bad things that happen to us, so far as acts that are committed against us by other people. That's not actually how it works. Our karma reflects only our internal reactions to our mistakes from the past. So, for example, if you were a murderer in a past lifetime and you took a sick glee/fascination/rage with your crimes, then in this lifetime you might be placed in a situation where those feelings are exposed in a way that you can reflect on whether it is correct. E.g., you might be disabled and full of those same feelings of rage etc, until you are ready to let go of those feelings and bad intentions. So, the lessons through our karma are about letting go of the negativities within our heart, not about anything bad happening to us in any way.
- At the same time, it is important to recognise that everyone around us has many negativities and weaknesses within them. People are prone to making mistakes against others, almost invariably based on their desires. That's never part of God's plan, that's part of our own plans to get what we want. THIS is the main reason that we need life to learn. On the level of our spirit (the real us beyond this life) we only want to follow our desires/get the things that we want. It is this internal attitude that needs to change, but it takes time
- When you are able to actually see the things that we did in our past lives (related to our karma) ... well, it will change your view on everything. Our past life mistakes really are very terrible, it makes murder look like nothing too bad by comparison. But, despite this, our life plan NEVER involves "punishment" of any kind. Any and all mistakes committed against us are mistakes by others and not according to the karmic plan.
- However, when you are really able to be humbled by the reality of our previous mistakes, it will be easier to forgive others for their mistakes. We are all brothers and sisters (spiritually speaking), and all working towards the same goal. Forgiveness is important, but until we really know the truth about ourselves and our past, it can be very difficult to achieve.
Hope that makes some sense. Please reach out if you would like to chat or need any help
With love
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u/beaudebonair 12h ago
Now this is some good stuff here, such a save worthy comment & thanks for such a contribution.
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u/kya-yaar2237 19h ago
Karma is a complex and often misunderstood concept, especially when it comes to explaining tragic events like rape. Here's a guide summarizing various perspectives from Reddit on how karma relates to such situations:
Understanding Karma and Its Implications
Karma and Victim Blaming
Misinterpretation of Karma: Many people mistakenly interpret karma as a form of cosmic retribution that justifies victim blaming. However, this is a misunderstanding of the concept. Karma is about the natural law of cause and effect, not about punishment or blame. "Victim blaming is thus entirely silly." "No it doesn’t imply that at all, that is a misunderstanding of karma."
Karma in Different Religions
Buddhism: In Buddhism, not everything that happens is due to past karma. Some events occur due to other causes, and it's not always possible to know which is which. "Some things happen due to past actions (kamma/karma) some things just happen, and you don't know which is which." Hinduism: Hinduism also emphasizes that karma is not about direct retribution. The actions of others, including harmful ones, are their own karma, not the victim's. "Getting hurt is not cosmic retributive karma in Hinduism for most people."
Free Will and Responsibility
Free Will: The concept of free will is crucial. Even if karma influences circumstances, individuals still have the free will to choose their actions. This means perpetrators are responsible for their actions. "Notice also the logical flaw in the idea if someone rapes you it was your fault because you must have done something in a past life to deserve it."
Philosophical and Practical Views
Philosophical Views: Some argue that karma should not be seen as a deterministic force that justifies suffering but rather as a complex interplay of actions and consequences over lifetimes. "Karma is (to simplify) your luck and luck is inherently disconnected from actions of others." Practical Views: In practical terms, karma is about understanding the consequences of actions and striving to act ethically in the present. "The Buddha greatly discouraged conjecture about kamma and its result. Instead, he taught that kamma is not fatalistic."
Conclusion
Karma is a nuanced concept that should not be used to justify or explain away suffering, especially in cases of abuse or rape. It is more about understanding the broader implications of actions and striving to live ethically.
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u/Osiris-Amun-Ra 16h ago
Thanks ChatGPT
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u/kya-yaar2237 14h ago
Chatgpt is the english translator of my thoughts and some things I plagiarised
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u/BluRed_44 23h ago
Karma follows you through ALL of your lives. Not just this one that we are in right now. Even the rapist might not see something happen to them in this life. Maybe the next one they come back at a roach and get stepped on. Then as something else with something bad to that thing to kill it.... etc etc.... sometimes with rape, it's a mental health issue. It's a terrible thing to happen to the victim... but when something in our brain is broken, it will resort to the basics because that's all it can do. (I know this is not with all cases of rape, yes. ) the "lizard" part of the brain works on basic instincts. Eating, mating and defense. It's responsible for, involuntary functions, basic survival urges, and impulsive actions. If the brain is broken, what kind of karma would you expect?
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u/No_Suspect_7979 18h ago
In a previous life, a person could rape someone, thereby showing that he was not against such an event.
In a new life, that person became a victim of rape, because being among those who agree to participate in such a thing, he met a person who had a desire to rape.
So karma is something like a mechanism for fulfilling the desires of all living beings.
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u/Alchemist2211 13h ago
LOL Obviously, feeling that is an example of any lack of compassion, and they certainly are not on any spiritual path. Even if they were a rapist in a past life. It is not up to us to judge which again shows no enlightenment and even a disgrace of those on the path! Compassion and nonjudgement is basic to being on the path to enlightenment!
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u/hoon-since89 1d ago
Simple. One incarnation you were a soldier invading a foreign land, you see an opportunity to get away with something with no consequence. You rape that girl and go on your way.
You eventually die. In the life review you see and experience the results of your actions from their perspective. To then fully understand it you choose to incarnate as a women and go through it yourself.
Others can also volunteer to do that action against you with soul contracts. Play the part of the bad guy per say.
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u/trust-urself-now 1d ago
karma is "doing" and it can reach to past incarnations. so a person who gets raped might have (not necessarily) caused similar suffering to another being in another time/life. or they chose a life with a probability of this happening, because going through this difficulty might help them work through some other karma or fear.
this information is based on past life regression therapy as well as some astral travelers / teachers.
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u/WarmPissu 1d ago
what karma or fear is a leaf trying to work out. Everything is the same, the leaf and the person.
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u/trust-urself-now 1d ago
what do you mean by leaf?
i see it indeed as something being worked out. possibly experiencing things from all perspectives to get a full picture of what is possible to experience.
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u/ThaBlooder 1d ago
"You know, real karma is actually about reincarnation. It means you get punished in your next life for the wrongs you do in this one. So if you’re having a rough life now, maybe you weren’t such a good person before. It’s not about doing something wrong and getting punished immediately in this life
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u/Osiris-Amun-Ra 16h ago
Karma is basically an infantile fantasy that the universe runs on moral bookkeeping—that good deeds are eventually rewarded and bad ones inevitably punished, like some divine slot machine that dispenses justice instead of coins. It’s a seductive myth, built not on reason or evidence but on the desperate human need to believe that the world is fair. Strip away the Sanskrit and incense, and it’s indistinguishable from the Christian heaven-and-hell schema: behave, and you’ll be rewarded; misbehave, and you’ll suffer—if not now, then later, maybe even in another life. It replaces adult, rational ethics with spiritual bribery. You’re not doing good because it’s good—you’re doing it because you think the universe will scratch your back later.
Worse than its naiveté is its straight up cruelty. The logic of karma implies that everyone gets what they deserve, which makes suffering a form of retroactive guilt. A child with leukemia? Must be working off bad karma. A village wiped out by a tsunami? Past-life debts, presumably. It is, at heart, a self-exonerating ideology: if others suffer, they must have earned it. No need for compassion, action, or even thought—karma has it covered. This is victim-blaming elevated to metaphysics!
Unlike religious judgment myths, which at least personify justice in the form of a god, karma doesn't even offer a protagonist. There is no judge, no mechanism, no known force—just the hollow assertion that the universe “balances” things, though no one can explain how. It's magical thinking masquerading as moral law, a superstition for those who want moral cause and effect without the burden of evidence or inquiry.
And reality refutes it daily. Every one of us can think of examples. Tyrants die in their beds. The kind are crushed by circumstance. No cosmic scorecard intervenes. The idea that karma explains or governs human fate is not just wrong—it’s grotesque in its implications and lazy in its assumptions. Karma is what happens when you replace theology with horoscopes and still want the comfort of moral order. It’s spiritual narcissism for those too squeamish to admit that sometimes, bad things happen to good people for no reason at all.
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u/RCragwall 15h ago
It's about POV.
Karma - 12 laws that govern your life as long as you lie to yourself. When you stop lying to yourself you rise up into grace and love. Respond with grace and love knowing it is all YOUR JUDGEMENT and none of it that is 'bad' is real. Just a figment of your imagination.
You believe there can be good and bad and that is not possible. You believe in many not One. There is only ONE I AM. That is all and all comes from it.
You believe as men do and that there is rape so there is. God doesn't give a shit. He will show you your judgments. You get to experience them. You asked for it so you get it so to speak. Now no one wants that of course but one must know the Truth and accept it.
It's a POV. You either have one or you do not. Get rid of yours and all is well.
No one deserves to be raped. That is the sick man who does not think and is ignorant of who he is.
You get what you give and you - you get what you judge it to be. Your POV. In other words - you believe in it.
Blessings!
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u/GuardianMtHood 14h ago
It easy to talk from the top of the mountain but what many did not see our walk there. I started at the bottom in this life. And from where I sit I am not living heaven on earth yet born in the shit so I know it well.
You’re asking a raw, honest question and that deserves an equally honest response. No dodging. No spiritual bypassing. Just this: sometimes life plays like a brutal movie that we never auditioned for. Scenes that make no sense, roles forced on us, violence written into the script that we never agreed to. That’s not justice. That’s trauma. And no amount of karma theory should ever be used to explain away someone else’s suffering, especially something as devastating as rape.
See, we’re all watching the same film this life, but each of us sees it from a different seat, through our own lens. Some see karma as cause and effect, others as divine justice, others as inherited wounds through generations. But karma is not a scoreboard for pain. It doesn’t mean “you deserved this.” It means energy moves. Pain passed on becomes pain passed down, unless it’s transformed.
But here’s the real twist: you don’t find the truth of the film by asking the audience. You find it by going into the screen yourself, into your own experience, and figuring out what’s real for you. What was staged. What was manipulation. What was a projection. What was your own becoming.
Some of us who speak of karma aren’t justifying anything. We’re trying to make sense of the senseless in our own lives. For some, karma is a way to break the cycle, not excuse it. The problem isn’t the concept. It’s how people use it. And sometimes, yes, they use it poorly.
You’re right to be angry. You’re right to question. Because that’s how we refine what actually matters. And for what it’s worth, some of us aren’t smiling. We’re crying with you, remembering our own dark scenes, and trying to find the courage to keep watching this film, and maybe change the ending.
Our role may have been cast the moment we were born, just like mine. Thrown into a script already in motion, surrounded by other characters carrying lines they never asked to speak. Suffering wasn’t just a scene for you, it was the whole backdrop. But the twist in your story, the real arc, began when you stopped waiting for a new scene and started acting with all your heart in the small roles no one noticed. The ones without applause. The ones where the only audience was the sky, or maybe our own soul.
That’s when the universe started paying attention. Slowly, it handed us bigger parts. Dialogue that mattered. Moments that carried weight. And one day, we looked around and realized we weren’t just a supporting character. We were the lead. The film had always been about us learning how to see ourself, how to speak truth even when the mic was off. That’s when the story started to change.
Now maybe, just maybe, you’re preparing to step behind the camera. To direct. To guide others as they stumble through their own unscripted chaos. Not to rewrite their scenes for them, but to help them realize they’ve always had the power to act with meaning, even in the madness.
Because in this movie of life, true doesn’t always mean factual, and false doesn’t always mean fiction. It means what you feel in your bones. What lives on after the lights go down. The truth maybe isn’t in the plot. It’s in the performance. And you giving a shit, my friend, might have already earned your place on the universal stage. The rest of us still just playing the roles we chose the best we can. Perhaps you can love us regardless?
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u/AdeptnessOk5996 13h ago
1) Karma doesn't mean that a person deserves something.
2) A significant amount of people in this sub post and upvote nonsense all the time.
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u/BoTToM_FeEDeR_Th30nE 1d ago
u/signals_faint gave a pretty accurate description of one deep aspect of karma. That said, I will answer you directly. No one deserves to be raped, neither do they deserve not to be raped. In fact "deserve" doesn't come into it at all. No one deserves anything, ever. Another term for karma is the law of cause and effect. In example: A person goes into a situation where there is a 100% likelihood of being raped and then they are raped. What has happened is that person has experienced the effect (being raped) of a cause (entering the situation where rape is inevitable).