Good Vs Evil

[Salaam]

On 5/12/2017 at 9:17 PM, eskwire said:

This may very well be another way to discuss the same "phenomenon." Enlightenment "experiences" happen and changes integrate. To speak metaphorically, it's like waking up and falling back asleep, but the asleep part is different - even if you are not constantly living in "undifferentiated everything." I can live with that progress. I don't HAVE to live one way. 

For me, the difference is perhaps this. I am the kind of person who needs to follow a path of the extreme to end up in the middle. If I shoot for the middle, I will end up 1. not interested enough to even start or 2. pretty much right back where I started.

I need sweeping, dynamic goals to see any progress. Personally. Others don't. It seems like we are both discussing raising consciousness with different language and methodologies.

Anyway, godspeed! Thank you for understanding my frustration.

 Thanks and good luck with your efforts as well

Also, thank you for explaining your approach it helps me understand where your coming from. I used to be like that as well and maybe to some degree I still am... I guess what I'm saying is I think that approach is a necessary step in the learning process. In some respects, we kind of have to touch the edges, or the boundaries of a thing, before bringing it back in to work on the middle. In a very simple way it's like, builders working to build the perimeter of a house first, before they start working on the inter-connecting interior walls.

For me, I have access to edges that will hurt or limit me if I follow them and attach to the extremes I'm capable of. So instead I focus on building in the middle for a myriad number of things, rather than becoming a spire of progress in one aspect. Basically I pattern my growth off of the goldilocks zone. Making it the zone or space in reality where human life has the highest potential for harmony, evolution, and spiritual expression.

The goldilocks zone is where earth is in our solar system, close enough to the sun to support this diversity of life, but not so close that we burn up. A uncounted number of dimensions and aspects balanced to within that space of  "just right for human life". That's what I do for my consciousness, mapping the untold number of inter-connected aspects and dimensions and harmonizing them so they are in that space of "just right". Fear, desire, pain, sexuality, fragility, brutality, beauty, undifferentiated everything... each aspect has an inter-connected zone of harmonious "just right" and in my experience we can find that space rather then seeking the eradication of these aspects.

The Extreme Approach vs the Goldilocks Approach... but the first can be an eventual step to the second if a person finds that choice worthwhile.
 

On 5/12/2017 at 7:49 PM, Scholar said:

If you know better, define evil.

Ha, that's a tough one man. I'm trying to find a definition that is dynamic, but foundational enough to work universally, while not accidentally include contexts that it shouldn't.

At first I was thinking "the corruption of trust" would make a good universal definition... but I think it still needs work.

I guess if I was pressed to come up with a definition I'd say evil is "a twisting action that replaces harmony and growth with destruction and corruption".

So sex can be a beautiful act that can be mutual and harmonious and bring about growth through emotional bonding and the physical growth of new life. However, it can be twisted and made evil by acting out sexuality in a way that destroys a person via rape and corrupts their ability to have healthy sexual interactions later in life. Fighting or violence, while brutal can be a protective action that halts and contains the efforts of people seeking to spread corruption and destruction or it can be the spreading of corruption and destruction if a person uses violence for the exploitation of others, which would in turn point to a desire that was twisted and corrupted to lead a person to such a choice.

Hitler for instance had his insecurities and inferiority twist him towards eradicating whole groups of people in order to satisfy a twisted set of conditions inside himself that he set up as some goal post in order to achieve inner peace of mind. But, of course it didn't lead towards that peace and satisfaction because it was twisted to only lead towards destruction and further corruption.

Healing I guess, would be the untwisting of destruction and corruption.

Do you see any holes or inconsistencies in that definition? I'd welcome any critiques. I'm still thinking about how intent mediates the definition. Like what if someone accidentally or unknowingly acts in a way that creates corruption and destruction? Is it still evil through negligence of consideration?

It's such a hard thing to pin down, because everything is a dynamic mixture and there are degrees and intensities of twisting actions that then insert itself into the mix, making it hard to properly distinguish.

 

[Salaam]

Perfect is such a weird word

Are there localized kinds of perfection? If the universe is perfect, is it perfectly horrible as well as perfectly beautiful?

If you put a human out in space and the temperature and pressure kills them, is it still valid to say that was the perfect place for that human being?

Why is the universe still expanding if it's perfect?

Personally, I see perfect as a concept created by humans under pressure and stress, creating extreme idealizations. It lacks nuance and practical applicability. It requires an end destination, when absolute endings don't actually exist, instead we have "soft endings" or the point in where our mind comes to a halt about a particular topic because it is too limited to continue containing they gyrations of a particular change. 

 

[Scholar]

5 hours ago, Salaam said:

 Thanks and good luck with your efforts as well

Also, thank you for explaining your approach it helps me understand where your coming from. I used to be like that as well and maybe to some degree I still am... I guess what I'm saying is I think that approach is a necessary step in the learning process. In some respects, we kind of have to touch the edges, or the boundaries of a thing, before bringing it back in to work on the middle. In a very simple way it's like, builders working to build the perimeter of a house first, before they start working on the inter-connecting interior walls.

For me, I have access to edges that will hurt or limit me if I follow them and attach to the extremes I'm capable of. So instead I focus on building in the middle for a myriad number of things, rather than becoming a spire of progress in one aspect. Basically I pattern my growth off of the goldilocks zone. Making it the zone or space in reality where human life has the highest potential for harmony, evolution, and spiritual expression.

The goldilocks zone is where earth is in our solar system, close enough to the sun to support this diversity of life, but not so close that we burn up. A uncounted number of dimensions and aspects balanced to within that space of  "just right for human life". That's what I do for my consciousness, mapping the untold number of inter-connected aspects and dimensions and harmonizing them so they are in that space of "just right". Fear, desire, pain, sexuality, fragility, brutality, beauty, undifferentiated everything... each aspect has an inter-connected zone of harmonious "just right" and in my experience we can find that space rather then seeking the eradication of these aspects.

The Extreme Approach vs the Goldilocks Approach... but the first can be an eventual step to the second if a person finds that choice worthwhile.
 

Ha, that's a tough one man. I'm trying to find a definition that is dynamic, but foundational enough to work universally, while not accidentally include contexts that it shouldn't.

At first I was thinking "the corruption of trust" would make a good universal definition... but I think it still needs work.

I guess if I was pressed to come up with a definition I'd say evil is "a twisting action that replaces harmony and growth with destruction and corruption".

So sex can be a beautiful act that can be mutual and harmonious and bring about growth through emotional bonding and the physical growth of new life. However, it can be twisted and made evil by acting out sexuality in a way that destroys a person via rape and corrupts their ability to have healthy sexual interactions later in life. Fighting or violence, while brutal can be a protective action that halts and contains the efforts of people seeking to spread corruption and destruction or it can be the spreading of corruption and destruction if a person uses violence for the exploitation of others, which would in turn point to a desire that was twisted and corrupted to lead a person to such a choice.

Hitler for instance had his insecurities and inferiority twist him towards eradicating whole groups of people in order to satisfy a twisted set of conditions inside himself that he set up as some goal post in order to achieve inner peace of mind. But, of course it didn't lead towards that peace and satisfaction because it was twisted to only lead towards destruction and further corruption.

Healing I guess, would be the untwisting of destruction and corruption.

Do you see any holes or inconsistencies in that definition? I'd welcome any critiques. I'm still thinking about how intent mediates the definition. Like what if someone accidentally or unknowingly acts in a way that creates corruption and destruction? Is it still evil through negligence of consideration?

It's such a hard thing to pin down, because everything is a dynamic mixture and there are degrees and intensities of twisting actions that then insert itself into the mix, making it hard to properly distinguish.

 

It doesn't seem to correlate with my understanding of evil, because with your definition evil is basicily just a property of the universe. There is nothing bad about it at all. Disharmony is not better than harmony. Destruction and corrupton is not better than love.

What you just listed is more of something that people would call evil. Disharmony is not evil itself, but it is viewed as evil. By your definition, there is no reason for evil not to exist, and evil seems to be something that the mind really, really doesn't want to exist. When we say something is evil, we don't wnat that to happen, right? Some people like disharmony, corruption and destruction, and would not call it evil.

So, what does evil really mean to you? To me it seems like you just picked something that you view as evil, instead of defining the word evil itself.

 

If you are a construction that requires harmony to exist, then disharmony is somethnig that would kill you. So, you don't want disharmony, because it will destroy you. But by creating harmony, you are killing disharmony. So, from the point of view of disharmony, it seems like harmony is what is evil.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Scholar

[Salaam]

@Scholar

I defined evil as an action rather than a noun. To me evil is not a "thing" it's a description of a type of action with certain kinds of results and directions.

I don't get where your coming from with your response to be honest, everything is a property of the universe. And disharmony or conflict is a status or pattern of movement, it's not an entity, and it's not conflict alone that has an "evil" status it is conflict paired with corruption and destruction that could be described as "evil".

Two football teams are in "conflict" when they square off and play against each other, but that "conflict" isn't necessarily evil. It would only turn evil if a person on either team brought destruction AND corruption into the occasion (it has to contain an element of both). Willfully trying to maim or kill another, corrupting the agreed upon rules of the game, like a running back using a gun to shoot people on defense in order to score a touchdown. 

But, whatever you don't have to agree with me

 

Edited May 15, 2017 by Salaam

[Arkandeus]

On 12/05/2017 at 11:14 PM, Salaam said:

@eskwire

It's all good, I can understand the frustration. No worries.

I wish I could explain to people how there are evolutionary firewalls to expanded cognition that require increases in energetic capacitance in order for the brain to exponentiate it's processing power. But, even that sentence won't make shit sense to people. How do you get people to accept and understand split-second shifts that occur under our consciousness that are incredibly complex and interconnect many different automated systems within the body, which all effect and color your cognition and recollection within that moment? Do you know how much training and adaptation it takes to even attempt such a thing? But, who cares, in other people's minds it's not even worth the consideration because it's not a part of their reality. I understand that and I don't expect anything or blame people because of it.

Lol, whatever. It used to bother me a lot... the costs of success. 

Anyways, you can believe me or not, but I understand "enlightenment" or "non-duality" experiences. I call it undifferentiated everything and can access that space whenever I want. But, unlike other people here who seek to be in that space all the time and see that as freedom I see it as the yin to the yang of differentiation. I choose both and am both and reside in both. I superimpose them onto each other and let their interactions inform and help me evolve.

I don't dismiss it, I include it and harmonize it with everything else.

But, again who cares. Some people will just want non-duality and other people might resonate with my choice and wonder at a path where there is an opportunity for superposition and consistency with both physical reality as it is commonly understood to be, plus so much more.

Do I think mine is preferable? Sure. Superior? Yuck, I don't indulge in superiority and inferiority paradigms.

 

In terms of what you consider as teaching it our responsibility as those who want to teach to find simple and understandable ways to teach. 

I'd like to point out, that music, is a very highly respectable tool of teaching these concepts to the regular person. 
movies, art, music, inspire love in people which is amazing. 

I think we need to be open to the possibilities of enlightenment, some people may never really need to know the minute details of consciousness and enlightenment, all they may just need is a very huge source of inspiration to access their inner loving self. 
in the end to be yourself, no one really needs an explanation, it is within everyone's capabilities to be true to their own heart. 
some of us are more philosophical, more able to dwell in concepts, structures and intersections, that is part of our own strength as others have their own. 

as teachers we have to be able to see that our ways of learning are personal to us, and be able to integrate others ways of learning which may not work for us personally but will for others
 

[Salaam]

@Arkandeus

Personally, I don't care about enlightenment. I've got access to it's space whenever I want, so it's no big deal. What I'm about is being able to change and adapt and evolve in any way I choose with actual physical or observable results. And for me that involves working with the actual force of connection and learning to play it like a musical instrument. Being able to sink into whatever subconscious layer I choose, communicate with it and influence the automated systems on that level and bring about change all the way down to my very DNA, while carrying out that action in a way that doesn't damage the very sensitive and fragile natures of those protected layers. 

I've had a lot of success with this focus, but it has threshold requirements in order to gain access to the spaces so we can properly learn and internalize these capabilities and understandings  And until we meet these requirements, we cycle around on a lower level pattern, repeating the same shit over and over again, not even aware of everything that is still left to be discovered and learned behind that threshold. 

There is a tensile resiliency that has to be cultivated, to handle the tension that comes from holding multiple, inter-connecting layers and contrasts, not just mentally, but emotionally in order to properly understand some of these things in nature. Capacities that require a certain depth and breadth that takes years of expansion in order for it be able to contain these things. Down-shifts in the energetic wavelengths of a person that allow for a more stable base state and the ability to slow down the movement of shifting inner qualia and parse it with enough coherency and protection of integrity to make it's observation worthwhile and without unnecessary distortion.

But, whatever who gives a shit. This isn't the place to attempt to share those things

 

[Arkandeus]

12 minutes ago, Salaam said:

@Arkandeus

Personally, I don't care about enlightenment. I've got access to it's space whenever I want, so it's no big deal. What I'm about is being able to change and adapt and evolve in any way I choose with actual physical or observable results. And for me that involves working with the actual force of connection and learning to play it like a musical instrument. Being able to sink into whatever subconscious layer I choose, communicate with it and influence the automated systems on that level and bring about change all the way down to my very DNA, while carrying out that action in a way that doesn't damage the very sensitive and fragile natures of those protected layers. 

I've had a lot of success with this focus, but it has threshold requirements in order to gain access to the spaces so we can properly learn and internalize these capabilities and understandings  And until we meet these requirements, we cycle around on a lower level pattern, repeating the same shit over and over again, not even aware of everything that is still left to be discovered and learned behind that threshold. 

There is a tensile resiliency that has to be cultivated, to handle the tension that comes from holding multiple, inter-connecting layers and contrasts, not just mentally, but emotionally in order to properly understand some of these things in nature. Capacities that require a certain depth and breadth that takes years of expansion in order for it be able to contain these things. Down-shifts in the energetic wavelengths of a person that allow for a more stable base state and the ability to slow down the movement of shifting inner qualia and parse it with enough coherency and protection of integrity to make it's observation worthwhile and without unnecessary distortion.

But, whatever who gives a shit. This isn't the place to attempt to share those things

 

it is great that you share these things,I'm very interested in them

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, Salaam said:

@Scholar

I defined evil as an action rather than a noun. To me evil is not a "thing" it's a description of a type of action with certain kinds of results and directions.

I don't get where your coming from with your response to be honest, everything is a property of the universe. And disharmony or conflict is a status or pattern of movement, it's not an entity, and it's not conflict alone that has an "evil" status it is conflict paired with corruption and destruction that could be described as "evil".

Two football teams are in "conflict" when they square off and play against each other, but that "conflict" isn't necessarily evil. It would only turn evil if a person on either team brought destruction AND corruption into the occasion (it has to contain an element of both). Willfully trying to maim or kill another, corrupting the agreed upon rules of the game, like a running back using a gun to shoot people on defense in order to score a touchdown. 

But, whatever you don't have to agree with me

 

I don't think we are even talking about the same thing, or about what is referred to as evil. Sure, you can make up your own definition, and thus create a symbol for something else and simply call it evil. But, what most people's symbol of "evil" refers to doesn't seem to be what you are talking about.

This is more of a discussion on language, not a discussion on the nature of the mind, really. The only thing that I can see us disagreeing with is words. My word for evil is not referring to the same as yours is. It's like my word for apple is your word for banana. It makes no sense to converse about it, because we are talking about completely different things.

 

 

Edited May 15, 2017 by Scholar

[SOUL]

Perfect can mean 'without flaws' but it also can mean 'complete'.

The logical part of our mind fixates on the 'without flaws' meaning but it may be that some are attempting to express a completeness when they use the word perfect.

So when some say the universe is perfect it baffles the logical mind when they see the misery and suffering in the world and question it being perfect by interpreting it as without flaws.

Another example of words falling short for expressing.

Edited May 16, 2017 by SOUL

[Socrates]

I would describe it like evil creates suffering and good creates love. I still don't see anyone here connect his spiritual theory with real life. If it doesn't connect with real life i can use your paradigm to justify rape, murder and other behaviours that make people suffer. I still don't see any reason to drop that paradigm of good and evil. Even Leo couldn't justify this with real life language and not spiritual theorizations. Also if something pushes self agenda it is probably the paradigm that doesn't allow you to have morals and a notion of good and evil, hypocritical nontheless.

[Nahm]

the universe is perfect

[Socrates]

@Nahm That's too theoritical, it doesn't actually help you anywhere so i dont see any reason to hold that belief. Even the fact that enlightened people try to do well in the world by writing books etc there is no doubt that they still want to provide value and help others. I don't know if you can do good for the world and still view it as perfect, if that is the case it would the perfect paradigm. The other end tilts too much on apathy which is levels bellow enlightenment. 

[SOUL]

1 hour ago, Socrates said:

I still don't see anyone here connect his spiritual theory with real life.

I have asked a question of people who suggest good and evil exists apart from just in the mind many times so I will ask you, from who or where does this standard come from and how to determine if it's valid?

[Nahm]

@Socrates relative to what?

[Socrates]

@SOUL I didnt suggest it excist outside the mind, we basically proved that wrong with @username. I said that it doesn't help you anywhere to ditch that paradigm completely. It is damaging because you become an apathetic spiritual theorist. If you ditch the paradigm of good and bad you need awareness to make sure you don't make others suffer, which wouldn't be "allowed" as long as you hold the good and bad paradigm. This is a complex topic but you can't just say ditch good and bad, that is irresponsible. You need to be empathetic and realise that your actions can actually cause pain or happiness/love. If you can do that without the good and bad paradigm, good for you, but spreading it like the plague without taking into account the potential negative concsioquenses it is not a good move.

@Nahm ?????

[SOUL]

@Socrates You used many words to avoid answering the question, will you answer the question?

From who or where does this standard come and how to determine it's validity?

[Socrates]

@SOUL Did you even read it dude come on. Generally Good=promotes love,hapiness etc. Evil=promotes pain,suffering etc. It is not about the accuracy of those thoughts, it is about having a guide for your behavior. 

[SOUL]

@Socrates  So this good and evil mind paradigm is just relative assessments based on subjective perspective that has no way to conclusively determine it's validity?

How do you apply your "theory with real life" as you asserted others are not doing?

There are a multitude of actions that are very much grey areas of disputed morality, how do they get determined to be sorted in this absolutes paradigm of good and evil?

Is it just left up to each of us in determining which is good and evil depending on our subjective perspective of relative assessments?

Edited May 16, 2017 by SOUL

[Nahm]

@Socrates I don't see why the universe would be imperfect if I helped someone. Still seems perfect to me. 

 

[alyra]

2 hours ago, Socrates said:

@SOUL Did you even read it dude come on. Generally Good=promotes love,hapiness etc. Evil=promotes pain,suffering etc. It is not about the accuracy of those thoughts, it is about having a guide for your behavior. 

one man's evil is another man's good.