Nondual philosophy, is not meant to deny the appearance of pain and horror ''out there''. It is simply a fact of life that there are no one sided coins and that good without evil is like up without down, pain without pleasure, joy without despair, such is the nature of yin and yang. This is not meant to be a prescription, but it is more of a description.
The study of Nonduality can actually save you from yourself, contrary to popular belief, it does not kill you off completely.
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"I hope you will die soon."
"Liberation is seen either while the body-mind is still functioning or at the death of the body-mind and it does not matter which, except in the story. “At death there is only liberation. It is just more chic to see liberation when you are alive.”
~ Richard Silvester
Evil & Good
Re: Evil & Good
For me, the concept of non-duality suggests that there is no "other"... that it's all the same expression of creative potential in one form or another (from our perspective)... which WE then define as MEANING one thing or another.
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surreptitious57
- Posts: 4257
- Joined: Fri Oct 25, 2013 6:09 am
Re: Evil & Good
To me non dual simply means that everything is one and that there is no real separation of anything at all within reality
Human beings make distinctions by categorising things but these distinctions while useful are simply mental constructs
Everything that exists and has existed and will exist is ultimately connected and that is the true nature of non duality
Human beings make distinctions by categorising things but these distinctions while useful are simply mental constructs
Everything that exists and has existed and will exist is ultimately connected and that is the true nature of non duality
Re: Evil & Good
I'm not responding to comments made here, because I want this topic thread to be used for people to just leave their thoughts about the concepts of evil and good without them being challenged or refuted or debunked etc. For me, no one can refute your own direct experience of how you see reality. You and only you are the author/authority of your own sense of being. Other people are free to engage and interact with each others comments, but I'm choosing not to.
For me, evil and good are imagined characteristic attributes within the dream of separation when the nondual mind conceptualises itself becoming the unknown known...aka knowledge. The pleasant aspects of living cannot be known without the unpleasant aspects of living. It's simply the price we pay for knowledge of ourselves, which is just the play of infinite timeless birthless deathless consciousness dreaming itself alive in the realm of space and time duality. Notice that animals, insects, and plants and all things of the natural world that is not human, including events such as earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes and tornado's have no concept of good or evil, because all said things are only concepts, so where do concepts come from?
My idea is that for anything to be known at all there has to exist opposites - for me, there is no knowledge of goodness without knowing evil and vice versa. However, who you are essentially as your true identity, as your real nature is neither good nor evil. You are the source of these concepts, and that source remains ever untouched and eternally unharmed by any concept of good or evil. While all known concepts can be negated, the source in which they are birthed can never be negated. It's the eternal well-spring from which everything arises and returns. What ever brought you here will take you home.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Jelaluddin Rumi,
.
For me, evil and good are imagined characteristic attributes within the dream of separation when the nondual mind conceptualises itself becoming the unknown known...aka knowledge. The pleasant aspects of living cannot be known without the unpleasant aspects of living. It's simply the price we pay for knowledge of ourselves, which is just the play of infinite timeless birthless deathless consciousness dreaming itself alive in the realm of space and time duality. Notice that animals, insects, and plants and all things of the natural world that is not human, including events such as earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes and tornado's have no concept of good or evil, because all said things are only concepts, so where do concepts come from?
My idea is that for anything to be known at all there has to exist opposites - for me, there is no knowledge of goodness without knowing evil and vice versa. However, who you are essentially as your true identity, as your real nature is neither good nor evil. You are the source of these concepts, and that source remains ever untouched and eternally unharmed by any concept of good or evil. While all known concepts can be negated, the source in which they are birthed can never be negated. It's the eternal well-spring from which everything arises and returns. What ever brought you here will take you home.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Jelaluddin Rumi,
.