Good and Evil from a "universal perspective"

[bythos]

Hey all. I’d like to share something. It is a mystical experience as I came to realize, but it did not involve any substance, so I must describe the conditions that brought it about. Bear with me. I know it’s a long read, I made it as compact as possible.

 

It is autumn of 95, probably September, I am 19 years old. I don’t have the slightest clue about enlightenment, and if I have heard something about it, I have definitely labeled it in my mind as “one of many kinds of religious delusions”. I knew a few things about psychedelics, never tried anything other than marijuana. There is no internet for me yet, so no easy access to information. I am very introverted, and I like to distract my mind with philosophical issues that usually arise from my daily life and human relationships.

 

A story from greek mythology, the one that in the beginning of his life, Hercules had to choose between the path of virtue or the path of vice, comes to my attention, and thus started my next philosophical undertaking. {Mycenaean period}*, I think to myself, {a culture that is ancient even to the ancients of classical Greece, very much different and alien to us, yet there is a concept of good and evil that is pretty much the same today}. {And if you look at modern times, in all different cultures, there is always this same concept of good and evil. As if it is part of our instincts}. {But what exactly is good and evil?} {Why should anyone be good and not evil and what is the meaning and the value of such a choice?}.

*I’ll put my thoughts from the past in curly brackets{}.

 

The answer that the evolutionary pressure led humans to become social animals and develop a code of ethics, was not good enough for me. I was looking for the essence of the matter. And I had to understand it using only logic, if possible even express it using math formulas. I used to believe that logic is the best tool to check and guide feelings, and feelings is the best tool to check and guide logic, and that they always had to validate each other. So this concept that I could very easily dismiss sentimentally, in order to have a holistic view and a deep understanding, I had to approach it logically and pragmatically. And, of course, I would do that from an objective third person perspective.

 

So I began examining various cases in my memories, looking for intents and motives, trying to interpret thoughts and deeds, mostly in other persons, because I feared that I could not be objective in judging myself. This must have been in my mind for 2-3 weeks, I would ponder it before I would sleep, and then the first thing in the morning, and whenever I got a chance during the day. I was trying to keep it alive in the back of my head all the time. I would observe people and their behavior, trying to find something that would give me food for new thoughts. I remember at some point I had come to a conclusion that {good and evil are two ways for one to organize his relationship with the outside world}, {Different viewing angles of the same object}, {like the two sides of a coin}. But still I was not at all satisfied. At this point I was feeling overwhelmed. Although I knew I would not let it be, I had to change tactic, maybe define my questions more accurately and limit their scope.

 

So I would be content if I could find the mechanism and the exact reasoning behind my mind’s labeling of things as “good” or “evil”. I started a process of introspection that was familiar to me from my dabbling with computer programming: To write my code, I would usually examine how my own mind worked to reach the solution. I would play my thoughts in slow motion, trying to fully analyze any conclusion that was already formed and summed up in my mind as fact. I spent a few more days contemplating, watching my own mind and its judgments on each and every situation that it found itself in, until the answer found me instead, and it literally came to me out of nowhere.

 

I was walking on the sidewalk with my sister, next to a small park. We were going to a kind of prep school that we have here. I started having a bodily sensation like goosebumps but I knew right away that what was coming to me was something out of the ordinary. If I describe the goosebumps as a wave that comes and wets my feet as I’m standing on the beach, what I was feeling was such a wave, but instead of it crashing and receding back to the sea, it kept coming and rising, and before I knew it, it had already taken control, carrying me wherever it intended. I remember struggling to focus on putting one leg in front of the other and keep walking. If my sister was not next to me, I’d just stand there motionless. I didn’t want her to know that I was someplace else and spoil this experience for me, so I tilted my head downwards and away from her and my gaze fell on the wheel of a parked car. What was going on inside me I could not describe in language. Only after the peak of this wave had ended I could find words that would approximate it. {This wheel is me, I am this wheel} {I am all the people} {There is nothing different between me and the next person, such distinctions are silly} {Doesn’t matter if I cry and others laugh or if I laugh and others cry} {What I feel now is true love, whenever I thought I’ve felt love before, it was only a shadow of this true one}. I felt like a creature that had spent its whole life in a swamp and now for the first time it raised its head out of the muddy waters and looked at the sun on the horizon… The question I had on my mind for so many days, now felt “cute”. I know the answer as if it had always been part of me. But I have to work in order to describe it in terms of language, so that I can remember it. {I absolutely have to remember this}. I can feel that this wave is going to recede eventually, and indeed its echoes lasted as long as it took for us to walk the remaining 150 meters to our destination.

 

The answer I managed to express out of it was that the root of all evil is always some kind of egoism. It’s the idea that there’s me and there are others, over there, different, separate. {All evil comes from the ego. There can be no evil that does not come from an ego}. The set with the label “evil” is fully contained in the set with the label “ego”. As for the opposite, no matter how much I wanted to say it, I couldn’t be certain that ego is only evil, and that these sets are equal. So here’s the formula: Evil ⊆ Ego. Ask yourself this: Why steal? Consider all the plausible reasons. Why kill? Why rape? Why deceive? {The absence of ego is true “good”, pure, effortless, consistent, independent of external or internal circumstances}. {According to this definition, from a universal perspective} I thought, {We are all evil. Just some of us more, some less}. I did not wonder back then about the possibility of no ego, or about a method of achieving it. I imagined that as something that humankind might conquer in the distant future. As for the second part of my question “why should someone be good and not evil and what is the point and the value of such a choice” I managed to express the answer like so: {Evil is lack of information. The kind of information that is beyond the borders of the self. In most cases, the information that is missing is what is in another person’s mind. Thoughts, feelings, perspectives, experiences. One that has access to this information, cannot be evil. So since the existence of evil relies upon lack of information, it cannot be considered a valid choice. It is only a silly misunderstanding, an illusion, and in no way equal or opposite to good}. {An evil person is is more like a child that has a lot to learn and to grow up}.

 

The conclusions that this experience brought to me, did not feel like a product of my intellect. Only the “translation into language” part maybe. But there was a huge gap. I could not find my own thought patterns anywhere. I remember being very perplexed because of this. I could not even be proud of my achievement, It didn’t feel like my own, but more like something bigger than me, something that was accommodating me as a guest. Pride and achievement… My mind certainly went there, but then I had this feeling that I’m selling out this “great ideal” by being proud.

 

This was, and still is, one of the most important moments of my life. {But why did this happen to me now and not earlier?} {It definitely came as a result of my intense philosophical seeking} I thought. {Oh, and then there’s this that might have played a part}. During this time and since about a month before that, I had been meditating for 1 to 2 hours every day. I started doing this for a reason one could never imagine. I knew back then that meditation was a practice in some eastern traditions like yoga, and that it had positive effects on the health of both mind and body, but the real reason that made me take it on was that my Dungeons and Dragons character would meditate to regain his psionic strength points and even to unlock new powers. And I found that super cool.

 

Many years later, I was casually watching youtube videos and I stumbled upon one that, if I remember correctly, had the word “consciousness” in its title, and this was what made me click it. This guy at some point said in very plain language that enlightenment, like the kind that the Buddha had, is actually shedding one’s ego and escaping its prison. Well, I was in shock, trying to digest what he just said and the fact that I understood it perfectly well. {Fuck me, is this what the buddhists and the yogis always been mumbling about?} I thought. The guy in the video was Leo, and this is the reason why I wanted to post this story here. Many thanks for this heads up.

[Inliytened1]

@bythos yeah...evil and good is a duality and thus evil and good are relative.   Relative to what?  Well take for example, as you said.   What is good and evil is completely relative and thus fabricated by the ego.  The duality is thus established to ensure the survival of the ego.   A real minduck right?  It means that good and evil actually can collapse into eachother.  But into what you might ask?  Well - Absolute Good.  This is God.  This does not mean God shuns rape or murder.  It means God understands that everything must contribute towards the Greater Good of Reality.  That's a tough pill to swallow for the ego.

[Zeroguy]

4 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

@bythos yeah...evil and good is a duality and thus evil and good are relative.   Relative to what?  Well take for example, as you said.   What is good and evil is completely relative and thus fabricated by the ego.  The duality is thus established to ensure the survival of the ego.   A real minduck right?  It means that good and evil actually can collapse into eachother.  But into what you might ask?  Well - Absolute Good.  This is God.  This does not mean God shuns rape or murder.  It means God understands that everything must contribute towards the Greater Good of Reality.  That's a tough pill to swallow for the ego.

Everything is Love.

[Inliytened1]

Just now, Zeroguy said:

Everything is Love.

Everything is God.

[gettoefl]

20 minutes ago, Inliytened1 said:

@bythos yeah...evil and good is a duality and thus evil and good are relative.   Relative to what?  Well take for example, as you said.   What is good and evil is completely relative and thus fabricated by the ego.  The duality is thus established to ensure the survival of the ego.   A real minduck right?  It means that good and evil actually can collapse into eachother.  But into what you might ask?  Well - Absolute Good.  This is God.  This does not mean God shuns rape or murder.  It means God understands that everything must contribute towards the Greater Good of Reality.  That's a tough pill to swallow for the ego.

think you meant endorse not shun, right?

[bythos]

@Inliytened1 Yes! I understand this, on a philosophical level, and when I am on some peak experience, but I do not embody it. I do not know it's true every waking moment of my life. That's where I am now. I don't want to skip ahead and start repeating this as a mantra. It would be empty words. Road signs that point to make-believe destinations. That's how the monster of organized religion came to be. It was the "pretentious understanding" at first, and the next generations kept building upon that. So you get further and further from the truth.

[Breakingthewall]

On 10/5/2022 at 5:31 PM, Inliytened1 said:

@bythos yeah...evil and good is a duality and thus evil and good are relative.   Relative to what?  Well take for example, as you said.   What is good and evil is completely relative and thus fabricated by the ego.  The duality is thus established to ensure the survival of the ego.   A real minduck right?  It means that good and evil actually can collapse into eachother.  But into what you might ask?  Well - Absolute Good.  This is God.  This does not mean God shuns rape or murder.  It means God understands that everything must contribute towards the Greater Good of Reality.  That's a tough pill to swallow for the ego.

Not agree, good an evil are absolute. Good is unity, evil is division. the point is that evil is not "bad", it is necessary for appearance to exist. it is the tool that creates the appearance. if you are sensitive and take the life of an animal, a fish, even to eat, you will feel the evil that is in that act. it is something absolute. but it is necessary to survive and justified, so you call it "good" since without it you and your family would die. that is, you would return to unity, to absolute good. everything is ego, everything is bad, at different levels. but there is nothing bad with evil. is only apparent, unity is always the case 

i think that social morality takes this notion of absolute good and evil and puts them in relation to itself, not to reality. good is what unites society, makes it bigger, stronger. evil is what weakens it. Are relatives because there are many societies . If there is only one society, only one life, good and evil will be absolute again

Edited May 11, 2022 by Breakingthewall

[bythos]

@Breakingthewall Ok, I don't think this is an important point, but, having said that, I believe that it is a duality if you're looking at it though an ego, but an absolute if your ego is gone, even for a moment. And that's why, for the life of me, I could not see it before that experience, but it was so clear afterwards. But then it does feel like a different concept, like you need new words to describe it. Those you mentioned work just fine. Division and unity.

[WelcometoReality]

On 2022-05-11 at 6:40 PM, Breakingthewall said:

Not agree, good an evil are absolute. Good is unity, evil is division. the point is that evil is not "bad", it is necessary for appearance to exist. it is the tool that creates the appearance. if you are sensitive and take the life of an animal, a fish, even to eat, you will feel the evil that is in that act. it is something absolute. but it is necessary to survive and justified, so you call it "good" since without it you and your family would die. that is, you would return to unity, to absolute good. everything is ego, everything is bad, at different levels. but there is nothing bad with evil. is only apparent, unity is always the case 

i think that social morality takes this notion of absolute good and evil and puts them in relation to itself, not to reality. good is what unites society, makes it bigger, stronger. evil is what weakens it. Are relatives because there are many societies . If there is only one society, only one life, good and evil will be absolute again

It still takes a thought to distiguish something as good or evil so they are an illusion. Is a lion evil when it kills its prey or is evil only reserved for humans?

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

It still takes a thought to distiguish something as good or evil so they are an illusion. Is a lion evil when it kills its prey or is evil only reserved for humans?

Maybe i didn't explained well. Yes, a lion is evil, same as human. A tree is evil too. A bacteria, or a molecule. Even a proton. Evilness is that it is what makes it possible for "things" to exist. evilness is selfishness. without selfishness, there would only be absolute undifferentiated. egoism is what makes the absolute want to be something. selfishness really is love. evil is love, a torture room is love. egoism is partition. selflessness is unity. both are sides of the same coin. both are two manifestations of love. one leads to suffering, which is love. the other to harmony, which is love.

Maybe selfishness and suffering, which are always together, are the greatest love, since it separates from unity to create difference paying the price of pain. Great tale of jesus and his torture, that surrendering to the supreme pain renouncing to selfishness, returns humans to unity, or to the possibility of unity, when they were condemned to hell, which is pure love, due to their increasing tendency to separation

Edited May 12, 2022 by Breakingthewall

[WelcometoReality]

6 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Maybe i didn't explained well. Yes, a lion is evil, same as human. A tree is evil too. A bacteria, or a molecule. Even a proton. Evilness is that it is what makes it possible for "things" to exist. evilness is selfishness. without selfishness, there would only be absolute undifferentiated. egoism is what makes the absolute want to be something.

I see, so the appearance of "things" is what you call evil and without "things" there would only be good.

I'd say that it's an illusion too. There are no separate "things" without a thought. There only seems to be separation but there is only unity. Nothing can ever be out of unity, it can only seem to be that way.

6 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Maybe selfishness and suffering, which are always together, are the greatest love, since it separates from unity to create difference paying the price of pain. Great tale of jesus and his torture, that surrendering to the supreme pain renouncing to selfishness, returns humans to unity, or to the possibility of unity, when they were condemned to hell, which is pure love, due to their increasing tendency to separation

Yes, surrender is the key to see unity but there was never any separation to begin with. So it's not a return to unity, it's like a veil that is lifted to see what always was. Which is unity.

[Breakingthewall]

3 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

 

I'd say that it's an illusion too. There are no separate "things" without a thought. There only seems to be separation but there is only unity. Nothing can ever be out of unity, it can only seem to be that way.

.

Well, i would differentiate between thought and reality. thought does not create reality, it defines it. let's see, ultimately everything is unity and any difference is apparent, but we talk about the apparent now. apparently the differentiation exists, whether you think about it or not. you, as an apparently separate being, are not god, you are not creating reality, you are creation. in the end, yes,  you are god and you are creating reality, and only you exist since you are existence, but apparently not, and now we are in the apparent. then, thought is not a creator of difference, but a multiplier. if you were a tuna, for example, you would not think, but you would perceive differences, say 500, hunger, fear, etc. without them you would not survive as a separate individual. as humans we are social and we develop thought. multiplies the chances of survival, and multiplies the differences up to millions. and with it multiplies suffering, which is the price of differentiation, created by selfishness, or evil. without evilness there would only be an unlimited undifferentiated field, absolute unity, that's what we are in the end, but apparently infinite differentiation, infinite creation, infinite evil. Buddha speaks of the end of suffering, but I think he was referring to the end of multiplying suffering, since the only true end of suffering is the disappearance of separation, of the individual. But it seems that they see the individual as something negative and their goal is to stop being an individual... maybe bit coward  (I'm coward too, of course). If you like to be an individual, you would enjoy of suffering in some extent, there is nothing wrong on it

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by Breakingthewall

[WelcometoReality]

6 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Well, i would differentiate between thought and reality. thought does not create reality, it defines it.

Yes, thought are only a part of reality and does not create it but "things" are created by thought by defining "things".

Where does a tree begin and end? If you contemplate this deeply you'll see that the only reason it begins and ends at certain points is because we have defined what the word "tree" points to in reality. Now let's say there's mushrooms growing on it. Are they a part of the tree or are they separate "things"? And if we remove the word mushroom would we still define them as separate "things"?

So, that separate "things" exist and that all "things" make up reality is a belief. It's just that words are so engrained in us (beliefs) that we believe them.

6 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

if you were a tuna, for example, you would not think, but you would perceive differences, say 500, hunger, fear, etc. without them you would not survive as a separate individual.

A tuna doesn't believe in "things" but can still notice differences in the "sense space".

7 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

without evilness there would only be an unlimited undifferentiated field, absolute unity, that's what we are in the end, but apparently infinite differentiation, infinite creation, infinite evil. 

What do you mean by this? The way I interpret it is that without "things" there would be infinite things which seem contradictory to me.

7 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Buddha speaks of the end of suffering, but I think he was referring to the end of multiplying suffering, since the only true end of suffering is the disappearance of separation, of the individual.

Depending on how you define suffering. To me suffering is only created by believing thought.

7 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

But it seems that they see the individual as something negative and their goal is to stop being an individual... maybe bit coward  (I'm coward too, of course). If you like to be an individual, you would enjoy of suffering in some extent, there is nothing wrong on it

I don't think they see it as being negative and it's not their goal to stop being an individual. Just stop believing in separation.

[Breakingthewall]

16 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

So, that separate "things" exist and that all "things" make up reality is a belief. It's just that words are so engrained in us (beliefs) that we believe them.

16 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

 

Everything that we are talking are beliefs, or mind, since we are talking concepts and ideas, but stop eating until you are almost dead, and let's see if you need any though to perceive yourself as separate of that is not you. You are a separate being, if you want to return to unity, you must die. 

16 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

What do you mean by this? The way I interpret it is that without "things" there would be infinite things which seem contradictory to me.

I meant in absolute level, selfishness create the "things".  a human strongly wants to be a human. You are made of desire. All are patterns of selfishness shaping the absolute. Without selfishness you would stop breathing. No selfishness is undifferentiated unity 

16 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

Depending on how you define suffering. To me suffering is only created by believing thought.

I think suffering is directly proportional to selfishness. existing separately creates suffering, to a greater or lesser extent. thought is a separating factor, since the act of thinking implies the need of controlling the reality, so a new dimension of selfishness  , thereby multiplying suffering, and multiplies the possibility of survival. But without though there is suffering too. Smaller and more bearable, you are in the garden of Eden, in the present, without need of control, and you are expulsed because the act of thinking, but to be separate you need desire and desire is always frustrated. But anyway, there in nothing bad in some suffering imo

[WelcometoReality]

7 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

Everything that we are talking are beliefs, or mind, since we are talking concepts and ideas, but stop eating until you are almost dead, and let's see if you need any though to perceive yourself as separate of that is not you. You are a separate being, if you want to return to unity, you must die. 

I'm trying to convey something outside beliefs and concepts. Something I'm directly conscious of right now.

You don't need to stop eating or die to be conscious of that.. but you need to die before you die. ? (not actually but it sounded funny)

7 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

But without though there is suffering too. Smaller and more bearable, you are in the garden of Eden, in the present, without need of control, and you are expulsed because the act of thinking, but to be separate you need desire and desire is always frustrated. But anyway, there in nothing bad in some suffering imo

Desire can be transformed into higher feelings and then there is no more suffering from desire. 

Edited May 14, 2022 by WelcometoReality

[Breakingthewall]

17 hours ago, WelcometoReality said:

Desire can be transformed into higher feelings and then there is no more suffering from desire

The thing is how you define suffering. Id say that it is the disharmony between what is and what should be. the ego magnifies this by thousands, but egoless also exists. life is suffering by definition. each breath is an effort not to stop breathing, which will inevitably happen