Do you ever find yourself wondering why people who do so much good have such bad things happen to them? Do you ever wonder why “bad” people seem to get away unscathed?  Do you ever wonder what you must have done that was bad and wrong enough to deserve what is happening to you? Do you find yourself using the idea of past life karma to justify some of the things (both good and bad) that people experience? If so, whether you know it or not, you believe that this universe operates according to deserving. And it doesn’t. 

This truth is: This universe does not operate according to deserving. The very concept of deserving is a human concept that people have projected out onto the greater universe. What does this mean? It means that the idea of deserving was first created and then accepted by people rather than deserving being a truth that inherently exists at a more objective universal level. Deserving is a highly subjective mental concept that is specifically a social construct. Human beings are a highly social species. And the concept of deserving served them socially. Well… better said, it is a concept that both does and doesn’t serve humanity.

Let’s start at the layer of the universe at large. This universe operates according to certain laws or principals that apply to everything equally. For example, cause and effect. Every action within a system triggers a consequence, which influences the larger system. And the universe operates as a collection of interrelated systems. This universe also operates according to the law of alignment. Basically, all systems in the universe must maintain a state of alignment in order to function optimally. Any part of any system must ensure that it does not go out of alignment with any other part within the larger systems it is a part of. This is the mechanism through which universal harmony and integrity is maintained. This universe also operates according to the law of mirroring. Basically, this universe operates like a giant, mirror. This way, the universe can experience itself. Within this principle, all forces and energies in the universe are interconnected by a universal feedback loop. Feedback loops ensure that systems continuously adapt and evolve. They guarantee universal expansion. 

But what does this mean for you at a practical, human level? Well… There are physical laws that apply to everything at a physical level, regardless of any concept of morality. For example, the gravity weighs you down and the sun shines on you with the same intensity whether you are a serial killer or a humanitarian. The law of cause and effect is experienced by you independently of morality, punishment or reward. For example, shyness does not reflect on a person’s badness or goodness at all. But behaving in a shy way, may make other people feel rejected by you, which may cause them to exclude you from social gatherings, leading to you experiencing social isolation. 

Any time the parts within you, whether they be physical aspects of you or mental aspects of you or anything else, go out of alignment, you experience that discordance. The same is true if you go out of alignment with any system you are a part of. For example, if your gut microbiome goes out of balance, it disrupts your brain, potentially causing brain fog, anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance or constant hypervigilance. Or for example, if one part of you wants a relationship, but another part of you thinks relationships are a one-way ticket to loss of freedom, you will experience things like a loss of internal peace, turmoil in your relationships and/or loneliness. Or for example, if you take actions to deplete the soil on the planet upon which you live, you will experience famine.

You experience the law of mirroring when you come into the same time and space with people, places, things and circumstances that are a vibrational match to you. The fact that they are a match to you, is not a judgement on your character. It is not an evaluation of goodness or badness, rightness or wrongness. For example, say at some point in your youth, you developed the adaptive belief of “I’m not valuable.” And say you came up with this adaptive belief to preserve your relationship with your family who did not act in loving ways. Because of this, you are a vibrational match to people who reflect this belief. People who will not value you. And say that a person comes into your life who behaves as if you are not valued by them, you may fight to become someone that this other person values, rather than recognizing and uprooting this belief and moving on to find someone who does actually value you. Yes, if you lie, you are making yourself a match to people who lie. But not because the universe has decided you deserve it. It is because in a far more neutral fashion, that fits with the universal laws. And almost everyone has had the experience where they wake up in a bad mood and suddenly, everything goes wrong. They spill the coffee on themselves, they end up late to work, some crisis kicks off at work, they don’t have time for lunch, they get in a fender bender, they come home to a sick kid. There is nothing deserved about this kind of unwanted cascade. It is simply the universe responding to or reflecting energy and alignment. It is as impartial as making a certain sound and it echoing back. These laws lay the framework for the evolution of consciousness.     

 You are getting constant systemic feedback by this universe. You are not getting rewards or punishments doled out by a higher power. What all this means is: No, the cow did not get slaughtered because the cow deserved it. No, the billionaire is not wiping his butt with hundred-dollar bills because he deserved it. No, the little girl did not get raped because she deserved it. No, the person who has a successful marriage does not have it because they deserve it any more than the person who can’t seem to get a relationship no matter what they do deserves it. No, two drunk people decide to drive and one hits a pedestrian, the one who hit the pedestrian did not end up in this position because they deserved it, while the other one got home safely because they deserved it. No, you do not deserve everything that can go wrong to go wrong on a given day. The belief that you do not deserve or that you are not worthy is a real problem because it causes you to think, decide, say and do things (or fail to do things) which have detrimental effects. This belief also pulls you out of alignment. This belief also reverberates back as experiences that make you feel undeserving and unworthy. For this reason, it can benefit a person to believe in their own worthiness and deserving. But it is an even higher level of consciousness to graduate past the concept of deserving in and of itself.       

When it comes to the topic of deserving, it is critical to understand the difference between causality and morality. This is easier said than done because we must un-learn what we have learned at the deepest cognitive level. Why must we separate causality and morality? Because to understand this universe, we must separate the WHY something happened from the idea about whether what happened is right or fair. Because in this universe, these two are not a married pair, as much as we want them to be. When we have opinions about whether or not someone deserves something, we are concerned with whether the outcome is justified based on the person’s character or intent. If it isn’t justified, we decide it is unfair. This is the layer of morality that we enmesh with causality.   

We want things to be simple and one-dimensional. A part of us wants it to be as simple as: Fill in the blank happened to a person because they deserved it. But the WHY of something happening is far more complex. And the WHY of something happening is independent of whether we add the judgement of deserving or non-deserving to it.  

 I’ll give you just one tiny example. Say that a person’s partner leaves them. The truth could be that their partner left them because they have developed an anti-social behavior that makes having a relationship with them painful. We may apply a filter of deserving to this example and say they deserved to be left, but underneath this human filter is a rather impersonal reality of cause and effect. The truth could alternatively be that they are a high value person with a partner who is insecure about themselves and who can’t feel self-esteem around them, so the partner could have left because being with someone else makes them feel less inadequate by comparison. If this is the case, you run into the reality that there is no form of ‘input” that justified the “output” in that what happened does not reflect a judgment on the individual that fits with the outcome. So, we feel it is undeserved and unfair. You see this everywhere in the world. It is why people who believe the universe operates according to deserving struggle to make sense of bad things happening. You know that a kitten being stuffed in an oven by an abusive owner does not reflect that the universe has decided that the kitten was bad or wrong and that is why it was burned badly. You know it isn’t that the kitten deserved it. On top of this, in this universe, one outcome may have a collection of several contributing causations, not just one.  

Deserving is also not an element of divine orchestration. This life experience is a cosmic dance between you and the rest of the universe which you are a part of. In terms of universal orchestration, the universe is moving energy where it needs to go to keep the "whole" aligned and also evolving. And what you individually think, believe, desire, decide, say and do is a part of this picture. You are a part of this universe the same way that a drop of ocean water is part of the ocean. At that level, it is bizarre to think the thought that you either deserve or don’t deserve something from yourself. We tend to project the relationship we have with our authority figures out into the universe at large. We make the universe or God a substitute mommy or daddy so that even when we grow into adulthood, we can still have a parent.  Thinking that divine orchestration happens according to deserving makes people feel safer and more in control of their life experience. People are even willing to blame victims for the things they suffer to maintain this illusion. People tell themselves that if a person deserves good things, this universe will make sure to protect and reward them by bringing them good things and good experiences. And that if a person deserves bad things, this universe will make sure to punish them by bringing them bad things and bad experiences. 

So, if the universe does not operate according to deserving, where did deserving come into the picture? The short answer is, it is a human concept that functions as a fundamental social tool. Here is a short list of some of the purposes that the concept of deserving served:

1. People decided on punishment and reward as the foundation of socialization. THE tool for behavioral modification. Deserving serves as the moral justification for both punishment or reward. 
2. It creates reciprocity. A pro-social behavior. The idea of deserving creates the idea that a person’s pro-social behaviors will eventually lead to fair returns or good things happening to them. 
3. It causes people to accept the system itself as well as those in power within the system. Believing that people's social positions are deserved stabilizes society by reducing friction and resentment toward those in power. It makes people far more likely to comply with laws and mandates.
4. Believing that "good things happen to good people" motivates individuals to act in ways that benefit others.
5. Believing that “bad things happen to bad people” motivates people to act in ways that benefit others. Basically, all you’ve got to do is to get a person to see something as bad and they will not want to do it because they will fear that this will line them up with deserving a bad thing to happen to them.
6. Deserving helps people to govern limited resources. People live in a world where certain resources can be limited. For example: Limited food, limited time, limited attention. Within this system, people need a kind of logic to decide upon distribution of these resources; one that feels "fair" so the group doesn't blow up with conflict. For example, we decide that the innocent child without means deserves an organ transplant more than an old man who can pay for it. Or we decide that a person who works more hours deserves more money than the person who works less. Or we decide that the person who deserves the attention, when there is only so much to go around, is the one with the most important information. But human beings argue incessantly over which metric of deserving should be used to govern their resources. This is why debates over things like welfare or immigration tend to be so emotional. They aren't just about money or land; they are about our human created rules of fairness. Our human created concept of deserving.    
7. Deservingness makes people believe they can get rewards based off of their merits. Things like talent or good character traits or effort. Social systems that are based off of this are sometimes called meritocracies. Societies use meritocracy to maximize utility. Distributing income and jobs based on merit incentivizes hard work and ensures that resources go to those who will best utilize them. The promise of moving up the social ladder based on individual merit encourages members of all social classes focus their efforts into the existing system rather than seeking to overthrow it.   
8. Deserving creates a sense of psychological safety in a very, very real way. Deserving creates a sense of order as opposed to chaos. Deserving implies fairness. People feel psychologically safe in a system of fairness. The reality is that there are a great many elements of human society that are unfair. But this fact doesn’t cause as much suffering and uprising if people believe it to be fair. For example, those in disadvantageous positions accept their position with more ease and have hope for future reward based off of merit. Deserving gives people a sense of control and predictability, even in situations where there isn’t much of either. The concept of deserving introduces a sense of certainty. People find the idea of a universe that feels random in that bad things happen to people who are good and do good absolutely terrifying. If bad things only happen to people who "deserve" them, we feel safe as long as we "act right” and in this way, we feel we can have control over what happens to us. If you just do and be what is good and avoid doing and being what is bad, you can be certain of the outcome.  

Religions came into the picture and transformed deserving from a subjective human created concept to serve the structure and stability of society into cosmic law. Religion became the absolute most successful tool for social control because it moved the judge from a human courtroom to a divine one. A divine court room with an authority that is omnipresent, omniscient, incorruptible and that cannot be accessed. You cannot argue with it, you cannot kill it. You cannot hide from it. You cannot run away from or escape it. It is immune to failure or flaw. It is a categorical absolute authority. That which can never be risen up against or overthrown. I cannot stress to you how much this changed the face of the human world. When people believe that the authority figure, the one who judges and the one who doles out both punishment and reward, is this all powerful, all knowing, parental figure, they are always being watched. They must begin to police their own behavior. They are likely to follow rules, even when no one else is around. 

Resentment, the perception of unfairness is one of the biggest threats to social order. Religions came in and relieved this by promising that justice is merely delayed! This encouraged those who were oppressed to endure their current situation rather than overthrowing the system, as they were told that the "Ultimate Judge" will balance the scales in the end. It acts as an inbuilt pressure valve within society. By linking human laws to divine "deservingness," leaders made their rules feel objective and eternal rather than just made up by a person who decided to take the power. And if a king says he was appointed by God, then breaking the king's law means a punishment far worse than any king could deliver. And breaking his law isn't just a crime, it’s a sin. When bad things happen to good people (natural disasters, disease), it threatens the social fabric because it makes life seem meaningless. It threatens the concept of deserving. Religions preserved the concept of deserving even when reality looked completely random or incredibly unfair. For example, it promised people that God’s ways are mysterious; there is a plan you cannot see. But that you will understand why you 'deserved' this trial, the good reason it happened, when you reach the afterlife. This kept people invested in the moral system even when the system was not working for them.            

Religion attached eternal consequences to human behavior. This made it so that "deservingness" was no longer just about what you get now, it is about what you get forever. They introduced cosmic justification for unequal resource distribution. For example, the Eastern concept of Karma, provided the perfect justification for unfairness and inequality by suggesting that everyone is exactly where they "deserve" to be based on whatever they did in a past life. Or for example, the idea of a celestial realm for the dead (like heaven) provides the perfect incentive for good behavior. Or by promising things like the "meek shall inherit the earth" or that justice will be served in the afterlife, religion encouraged people to accept unfair conditions now because they will "deserve" a reward later. Religion literally became the instruction manual for deserving. By moving the judge of deserving away from the human realm and projected in out into the sky, humanity created a system of deservingness that never has to be proven in the physical world. A psychological mechanism so strong that people will hold onto this despite any proof to the opposite. This makes deserving an incredibly stable way to keep billions of people following the same set of "human" rules.    

When each and every one of us is born into human society, we are socialized. Deserving is the mechanism through which we are socialized when we are most impressionable. Because this is the way our authority figures, such as parents and teachers make our world operate, we adopt this belief in deserving and decide this is how the world operates. Our parents use punishment and reward and they tie the concept of deserving to the punishment and reward that they dole out. If they are religious, they teach us that this deserving-based system is part of cosmic law as well. Even if our parents are not religious, they have been raised in societies that were for thousands of years and these religious concepts have been woven into the fabric of society. Woven into their perceptions of the world… The ones they pass on to us. So, what is the bottom line? We are literally programmed with the cognitive filter of deserving and it is deserving through which we perceive the world. Regardless of the fact that this universe does not operate according to deserving. And people do not have to believe in deserving in order to be motivated to behave in a moral way. In fact, the concept of deserving impedes our moral development as a species. But I’ll save that for another day.