Everyone and everything exists within you. You cast out a net, and you bring in the net you cast.

Now, this sounds very much like: “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” I ask you to let go of the concept of equal trade, for, when you are generous and good, you also can be zapped while someone else who is not generous or so good in your terms may reap a fortune. Then you may cry out: “Unfair.”

Unfair it may be, yet protesting amounts to your slowing yourself down. You can cry, “Unfair” all your life, and it gets you nowhere. Then your image of yourself is of someone who has been treated unfairly. This is not the image you want to carry. You don’t want to hold the image of yourself as someone stepped on or betrayed, certainly not by God or life or whatever you may call it.

Remember, you are living in a world that could be named Storyland. Can there be a good story without something out of balance? Even if all turns out wonderful, where can story be if you know with certainty what is going to happen?

Stories in the world will never become extinct, and all stories do not have happy endings. Themes can be behind the scenes for you to discover, yet the story itself has to be told, read, or enacted on a stage or in a movie or on TV - and in life.

We are not talking about retribution. We are speaking on a subtler level. When you give joy, you are the receiver of joy in the moment of giving. When you give heartache, you are the receiver of heartache even as you consider yourself victorious. You are the ultimate receiver of what you give, for this is the level you are operating on.

It’s like this: If you use an indelible purple magic marker to make a painting, some of the paint indelibly gets on your hands. Your consciousness is your consciousness. Your consciousness can only go so far as it goes. If you perform a heinous act, it is you who performed it. If you perform a wondrously generous act, you performed it.

If you poison someone, retribution would mean that you will be poisoned or some equally intense ending of your life would be visited upon you or upon your children. This is not how life works, nor would I wish it to work this way. This is more like revenge or vengeance. How would you get off this narrow track? When would there be an ending to it?

The deed performed is the payback itself.

Think in terms of only one verb tense, and this is the present tense. Therefore, how can there be later reward or punishment later? Your rewarding another is your reward. It is instant. Hurting another reaches you whether you fathom that the so-called other is your same Self or not.

Look at the concept of retribution in terms of My attention. C’mon, do you think I would take care of the bookkeeping necessary to fulfill what is called karma? Nor would I hire someone to do the accounting. I have better thoughts to think about and more loving acts to perform. Do not make karma the fall guy.

I would like to ask why retribution may sound right and desirable and important to you. This seems like elementary school or even pre-school where a child might say: “He hit me first, so I hit him back.”

I would not say something so vainglorious as: “Vengeance is Mine.” Vengeance is not at all agreeable to Me.