Good Vs. Evil

[TruthSeeker]

Leo spoke about how objective good and evil don't exist (in the class called Good and Evil). Really any concepts don't really exist...its all just fabrications of our monkey minds.

He said that its really all just preference. We have a preferences towards certain actions. For example Murder isnt BAD or evil. Theres no such thing. Rather murder is most people preference not to do it.

I'm wondering, even though there might not be any action that is objectively BAD or EVIL. Maybe we can suggest that there are certain actions that everyone would agree that bring someone away from the path to enlightenment.

I guess the obvious first one is Cold blood Murder (not self defense). If someone wanted to be on the path to enlightenment, he should for sure have the preference not to murder. If he murders, he will for sure not be fitting to be enlightened. 

Maybe stealing is another one...

Meaning Im wondering are there things/actions that for sure (I guess objectively) remove a person from being enlightened? 

If so, can't we call those things EVIL. 

Meaning the definition of evil would be any action which would prevent one from achieving enlightenment. 

Now I know people are thinking that everyone is different and people have different preferences. Im just wondering if there are universal preferences for people on the enlightenment path that everyone would agree with

Possible suggestions:

• Murder,
• Rape,
• Stealing,
• maybe saying bad things about enlightenment (like screw enlightenment...enlightenment sucks!)
• Maybe cheating on one's spouse (in a marriage where it was agreed not to cheat) or for that matter, sex with your mom or something gross like that or sex with a dog or horse etc. just examples or sex with your daughter or son etc etc
• Torturing animals 
• maybe living in a country with a court system (can you imagine trying to become enlightened in an environment with no police or judges or courts?) Or trying to make a court/police/judge system in the country where you live if you don't already have them.

What are peoples thoughts. Again I'm looking for things that are universal. If ONE person says "well I think cold blood murder will help me towards the path to enlightenment" then we have to take it off the list.

The goal of this thread is to come up with that list. 

Again in as much as enlightenment is a preference for someone to want to make a goal and focus in there life. Then what would be the universal things which such a person would prefer not to do in order to succeed on his path?

[drelamore]

Morality is based on the concepts of good and evil.

If you wanna be enlightened, FUCK CONCEPTS!

Become enlightened and then decide for yourself what you wanna do. Do you wanna rape everybody? do as you like.

Becoming enlightened is EXTERMINATING everything that is FALSE. You are talking about a list that leads to a certain lifestyle, this is bullocks. Since you may become enlightened while starring at you computer screen, there's no certain path to enlightenment, just  moments of realization, which may come at any time, whichever way you can imagine...

[TruthSeeker]

Does everyone agree with drelamore?

I dont think drelamore read my post carefully.

[99th_monkey]

i think i get what youre asking, now. what your doing is questioning what peoples "morality" and its effects of the "enlightened state" BUT no one is born with a certain "morality". all that is, is social programming, in our society (i live in the states) its moral to be monogamous,  dont kill anyone and in general follow the classic golden rule. we are not born with this in us. we are taught it. I tell my kids everyday to stop hitting eachother when in reality they want to kill eachother over legos all the time. i'm positive my 4 year old twins are closer to enlightenment then i am. i'm teaching them my cultures morals. and pulling them away from themselves. 

i think your list is not going to go anywhere because as you work on yourself and get to all the assumptions and beliefs and morals we teach eachother the point becomes moot. 

any "reason" to take any action falls by the wayside. even with boredom. people kill and steal for a "reason" , and you dont even need to be enlightened to see that a or THE "reason" isnt real/ is conceptual. so why do it? i guess it has to do with attachment.. or maybe lack there of... i dunno....

 

[Leo Gura]

Well, in yogic traditions and in Buddhism they have you take vows when you join their community. The Buddha spoke of the Eight-fold Noble Path.

These vows typically include the following:

• Not taking of life
• Not lying
• Non-violence
• Not using people sexually
• Abstinence from sex, drugs, alcohol, and other addictive substances

These are not to be taken as moral commandments or truths, but merely self-imposed restrictions to hasten your path towards enlightenment.

[TruthSeeker]

43 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Well, in yogic traditions and in Buddhism they have you take vows when you join their community. The Buddha spoke of the Eight-fold Noble Path.

These vows typically include the following:

• Not taking of life
• Not lying
• Non-violence
• Not using people sexually
• Abstinence from sex, drugs, alcohol, and other addictive substances

These are not to be taken as moral commandments or truths, but merely self-imposed restrictions to hasten your path towards enlightenment.

What about stealing?

[Leo Gura]

@TruthSeeker Yup, that's part of it.

[Emerald]

On ‎2‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 1:29 PM, TruthSeeker said:

Leo spoke about how objective good and evil don't exist (in the class called Good and Evil). Really any concepts don't really exist...its all just fabrications of our monkey minds.

He said that its really all just preference. We have a preferences towards certain actions. For example Murder isnt BAD or evil. Theres no such thing. Rather murder is most people preference not to do it.

I'm wondering, even though there might not be any action that is objectively BAD or EVIL. Maybe we can suggest that there are certain actions that everyone would agree that bring someone away from the path to enlightenment.

I guess the obvious first one is Cold blood Murder (not self defense). If someone wanted to be on the path to enlightenment, he should for sure have the preference not to murder. If he murders, he will for sure not be fitting to be enlightened. 

Maybe stealing is another one...

Meaning Im wondering are there things/actions that for sure (I guess objectively) remove a person from being enlightened? 

If so, can't we call those things EVIL. 

Meaning the definition of evil would be any action which would prevent one from achieving enlightenment. 

Now I know people are thinking that everyone is different and people have different preferences. Im just wondering if there are universal preferences for people on the enlightenment path that everyone would agree with

Possible suggestions:

• Murder,
• Rape,
• Stealing,
• maybe saying bad things about enlightenment (like screw enlightenment...enlightenment sucks!)
• Maybe cheating on one's spouse (in a marriage where it was agreed not to cheat) or for that matter, sex with your mom or something gross like that or sex with a dog or horse etc. just examples or sex with your daughter or son etc etc
• Torturing animals 
• maybe living in a country with a court system (can you imagine trying to become enlightened in an environment with no police or judges or courts?) Or trying to make a court/police/judge system in the country where you live if you don't already have them.

What are peoples thoughts. Again I'm looking for things that are universal. If ONE person says "well I think cold blood murder will help me towards the path to enlightenment" then we have to take it off the list.

The goal of this thread is to come up with that list. 

Again in as much as enlightenment is a preference for someone to want to make a goal and focus in there life. Then what would be the universal things which such a person would prefer not to do in order to succeed on his path?

Enlightenment could be achieved by someone who has killed before. There is a popular Buddhist story about a mass murderer who became enlightened. But he had renounced murder directly prior to beginning on the path. But enlightenment is seemingly synonymous with unconditional love. So, an enlightened person would likely not be inclined to murder because they don't want to be murdered. That said, enlightenment doesn't make a person perfect or even a moral person.

But even thought there are no clear standards of good and evil in and of themselves, there are proper and improper ways to do things. For example, if you want to lose weight, there are particular steps that have to be taken to do that. So, in that context, eating a lot of high calorie foods is bad. But if you want to gain weight, eating high calorie foods is good. So, if your goal is to achieve an end, particular means have to come into play.

So, for a person to become enlightened there are particular practices for increasing the chances of having a breakthrough i.e. meditation, self-inquirty, contemplation, etc.

[Toby]

I guess the Bhagavadgita deals with this paradox. While in the battlefield Arjuna awakens and he doesn't want to fight anymore and Krishna gives him advise on that.

Also it might be interesting to distinguish between pre-moral, moral and trans-moral. Ken Wilber / Spiral Dynamics and others talk about that.

Also, there are murderers or criminals or soldiers who awoken to their true nature. So one cannot really say what story one have to go through.

[Guest]

^^^^ the context for the Arjuna and Krishna discussion is extremely important...

http://reluctant-messenger.com/bhagavad-gita.htm

Essentially, it was a "righteous" war, the circumstances were forced upon Arjuna to fight.

The reason why the Buddha laid out moral precepts is because all needless suffering caused to other beings is essentially caused by attachment to the physical world (dhukka). So a present-time thief is much less likely to be able to look past the these appearances than another...because why does a thief steal? For material possession. I could go on and name every act which causes unnecessary pain to another, and it would be rooted in attachment to the senses and the physical form.

Some people think that morality is about good and evil though. This is an incorrect view of what it truly is. A murderer isn't "evil", but more "misguided".

The problem is when the concept of morality becomes a cultural and rule-based thing, that is followed without questioning, as I'm sure we all know.

 

[Keyblade Viking]

I wrote this in the "Evil Vs Good" thread:

You want to know the absolute truth about Good and Evil that is not up for debate?

Well it exist but "I can only show you the door, you'll have to go through it yourself".

It's all in the original Sin, how we ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and divided the light so we could only see everything and anything as either "good" or "evil" but that's not how the world actually work.

If you ever read any religious texts and especially the bible (mainly the old testament) this is what the entire book is all about.

It's the Jewis Law and everything, it's putting one pillar against another, it's not looking at any of the causes but ever only focus on the result, it's to constantly lie to yourself and everyone else in order to seam "good" in the eyes of others, it's to always seek "pleasures" and avoid "pain" it is the ego itself.

Leo have made a great video on Karma and that's really what it comes down to, that Evil = Lying to oneself.

That's not the version that the law give you, the law tell you to constantly hide yourself from yourself and all others, for example if you see a hot girl you're not allowed to look at her and if you feel bad you need to put up a smile and when you feel mad (or excited or whatever) you're not allowed to curse and when you walk around among the zombies on the street your not allowed to talk openly with anyone like they are all part of the same "nothingness" or whatever like you and we're all one and when someone is lying to themselves you need to make sure not to hurt their ego...

The list goes on and on but this is the evil of the world that we all simply have to "put up with", it can be sickening but this is what we got right now.

It's also where all of our fears come from - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJWcrMdzMLs&list=PLAzuNEPIFEpysV8i818Kz3dKcQ_WGJOVp&index=33