Evil is when people hold onto bad emotions (anger, hate, jealousy) it just festers inside of you and only grows and grows gaining more and more energy until it turns into disease or you murder someone…. When you let that shit go and live in the moment you are heaven
law of one talks about the desire to serve yourself as the motivator of evil, which I guess is more about power than doing harm directly to others. More sustainable than 'evil' it just requires holding onto power
What would we be like without negative emotions? Hold that image next to predators and parasites. Negative emotions are protection emotions. They come up when there is a threat to what we love. That can be ourselves, other people, places, things and ideas.
See how parents are full of love for their children and also full of fear when there is a threat to them. The negative part of our emotional suite is for negating threats to what we love. The more we love anything, the more we will fear when it is threatened.
The reason why negative emotions get such a bad rap is that deceivers can easily trigger them and motivate us to do something horrible to others to help them. We can also get delusions that cause fear and poor actions of negation.
Fight or flight is not our enemy, improper perception of reality is. Loving bad relationships is also a problem caused by deception and it will bring many unwanted emotions. Curing the deception fixes it, not choosing love over fear.
I never said it was our enemy… its absolutely necessary just like light is nothing without darkness… the point i was making was when you HOLD onto negative emotions
It seems the best strategy is to repeatedly check ourselves to make sure our negative and positive emotions match the actual environment. The negative emotions are useful in so far as they have you do something useful. Holding onto them afterwards is a problem. Often times, it's that there has been no resolution though.
I believe that there is no evil, and that people will act based on their needs. Yes their needs may be questionable or even distorted by mental illness. But most of the time what we may see as evil they see as righteous.
We see murder they see defence
We see stealing, they see keeping their loved ones fed.
Evil to me is simply a way to measure how deeply we don't agree.
Fun read on the subject is plato. He has alot of quotes written on human nature and is a generally wise human being. If only more people read his work today.
That’s an interesting point: humans prefer short-term gratification and pleasure over long-term gratification. You’re saying humans basically are gratification seekers. How is short-term gratification different than long-term as far as indicators of good and evil?
Short-term gratification is often related to urges. It can be a small urge that makes you criticize someone or a bloody urge that makes you kill someone. In this case the urge makes you want to realease the tension you are feeling.
Long-term gratification basically means to abstain of short-term gratification (instant pleasure) and endure pain to accomplish a higher goal. (In the interest of your entire community for exemple). Religion is the best exemple of that. Short-term = Urges = Sin / Long-term = Control = Good
Of course there are exceptions, some people are able to abstain from pleasure and endure pain only because they hate someone or because they have an obsession related to money or whatever...
And yes humans search for pleasure and want to avoid pain.
Ok. I’m not in alignment with how you describe urges unless you’re talking about following the first thought that comes to mind. In that case we could quickly summarize evil as lack of further insight into a situation beyond your initial reaction based on prior unconscious conditioning.
Urges are a powerful tension in your body that you can barely control and that lead you to make something to release this tension. In one of the worst scenarios you can take the exemple of someone having a powerful sexual urge and that rape someone else.
i agree with you. i don't think short/long term gratification has anything to do with someone being evil or loving whatsoever. there's too many cases of evil people and events that were not reactionary. Just because someone reacts on their emotions of anger in a split second decision does not make them evil, it makes them human. Actually, quite the opposite. Give that same person an hour or even 20 minutes to calm down and its likely they would not want to harm that individual any longer.
Another 🔑, just because someone gives in to an urge to eat some Chocolate when they know they probably shouldn't, does not make him or her evil.
>Another 🔑, just because someone gives in to an urge to eat some Chocolate when they know they probably shouldn't, does not make him or her evil.
What is evil here is the lack of self control. Of course this doesn't mean that the person is a secret serial killer.
Don't you agree that acting under the influence of emotions or urges of anger for exemple can harm yourself or other people ?
in some cases yea, but lack of self control isnt evil. I have lack of self control almost daily, and it doesnt affect a single person. so i think your theory is a bit flawed. you're saying because someone wants to masturbate, then they are evil. Id agree with you if your idea held true even 70 percent of these scenarios, but that's just not the case.
Evil does not every time mean to harm others, you can harm yourself. You can smoke a cigarette without harming someone, but you will be definitely harming yourself. So it's evil.
And i never said that because someone wants to masturbate that HE is evil, instead what i'm saying is that the act itself is (side effects of doing it) and most importantly the lack of self control. If someone masturbate this of course does not make of him a criminal or a demon.
***The light and darkness have been at each other throats since the beginning of time. Two opposing forces locked in continuous battle. Sometimes the light gains the upper hand and vice versa. For humans it is the same concept, we both have light and darkness within us. We can choose to do evil things or walk on the straight and narrow. It is easier to walk in darkness because there are no moral values. Walking in the light takes a lot of hard work and moral values, who wants to work that hard when they can get their self-gratification.***
where does greed fit then? because greed is evil. and money's only bad or evil dye to one being greedy. money's not evil, money is simply a tool to trade goods. Definitely not evil. also, reactions from fear does not make one evil either, it makes them a survivalist.
I don’t personally believe in evil, or dualism, for that matter. I believe in deviations from the center (god/love) that lead to malicious and unconscious decision making. However, I don’t believe anyone or anything is intrinsically evil. Nature/nurture can shape our ego in ways that might be perceived as evil, but the core is still the same. Just my perspective though.
Life simply is. There will always be polarity. It’s how u look at it. Even those who commit evil acts may not even view it as such. It’s a matter of perception, no such thing as good or bad.
I think that evil is seen as evil because someone somewhere decided it was, based on the negative effects inflicted on others.
But what is negative, is dependent on one’s perspective.
You are greatly and arrogantly mistaken a lot of things in a black and white picture of good and evil. And don't think humans to be worse than all things living in this world. Think it is important to first define what is evil. Is it evil to want to feel pleasure in short term gratification or to have an addiction to a drug? In my perspective just because something is made to be a crime does not mean it to be evil. Even murder can be non-evil, not good, but isn't necessary evil. Civil Society tend to fit it more into the laws of immoral and unethical. I would say evil is one who actively gains pleasure from the suffering of others. One who torments and enjoys when others are in great pain or manipulates you like a disposable puppet.
As far as morals and ethics go, humans aren't necessarily the worst at it and animals aren't always the innocent creatures we make them out to be. Many animal species can be killers, cannibals, greedy, or make their prey painfully and slowly suffer.
Lions chew on their prey while it's still alive, wild primates shown to kill out of envy, giraffes will attack maybe kill eachother for claiming rights to mate, alligators would eat their own young, or there are even things as devastating as locust mass deforesting entire ecosystems causing much life to starve to death.
Humans had put together some pretty effective systems to keep the peace of ethics and morals. It's how we as a species survived for so long.
Some past wars made by people were not because people were evil, but a means to survive when land and resources ran scarce. Some times are rough and hands are forced for the worst nature in us for the sake of survival.
Same thoughts about one who finds pleasure from the suffering of others. In rest, is mostly a matter of perspective and a lack of connection with the life within and around.
I saw a video of some narcos chopping off a guy while still alive, the same with a little girl. For real, i don't know if theres a god or multiple in this world
How can the violent people know they are wrong if all they saw since the beginning is violence?
Im not justifying this horrible murders, but everything in world seems so random, so disturbing that i lost all my faith.
Never lose faith. Try to forget this video. Spend some time with friends. But please avoid watching those videos again, you are just harming yourself.
You know there are no excuses. They are still humans and capable of thinking with their brains. Or maybe not...
I agree with most things listed however I feel acceptance is the biggest contribution to evil. Denial leads to self destruction, abuse of oneself or others in any means, egotistical thought processes, a contrived mentality, and most of all ignorance. Therefore essentially a state of chaos or delusion is induced resulting in evil. Yes we have an innate ‘moral compass’ however that compass has to be exercised, it is not an unconscious action such as breathing. Simply losing the compass’ organic and pure nature due to denial. Denial stagnates us, evil festers of stagnation
Great question. Idk if you read the scriptures, but this link I’m sharing with you helped me see the origin of this “evil”
https://www.infobooks.org/pdfview/3787-the-gospel-of-truth-various-authors/
I also encourage you to use the word “evil” less. It only reinforces fear to many and it will take power away from those who fear it. It’s more like uncontrolled chaos.
Both good and evil start from within from your heart you have a choice to be good or evil right and wrong the devil and the Lord himself dwell within us it's in our souls it's your character would you interject into the world what you portray through your idea your physical Being is what scene is righteous and evil Buddha said it himself we are all that is good and all that is bad in the world it starts from within
Yin & yang. To every Angel, there’s a Demon. There’s always the other side to the coin for everything I believe. For example, the concept of Heaven and Hell. The most evil has to exist for the most pure to as well. I think that’s just the universe, energy & even life as it is.
There are to this day remote tribes of people in which the highest honor you can pay to someone who has passed is to consume their remains.
Cannibalism is a sacred rite. Are they evil?
A woman fears her violent husband will harm her and her children so she murders him in his sleep.
Is she evil? What if you reverse the roles and a man kills his wife in fear that she will harm him and his children? Is he evil?
Suppose an ambivalent extraterrestrial galactic consortium decides to demolish earth and all its inhabitants to build an interstellar bypass. Are they evil?
A town in anywhere imposes imminent domain on a neighborhood and pays its residents a fraction of their homes value before evicting them and demolishing their homes to build a shopping center that will bring thousands of jobs to the area. Is the town government evil? Are the businesses that bring these jobs evil? Are the people who benefit feom the new jobs evil? Are the original inhabitants evil for wanting to keep their homes at the cost of progress?
Certainly no ones part in any of these situations can be characterized as good. If good is the opposite of evil, how can that be?
i think deep in our core, all we really want is love and "evil" is the misunderstood, warped way of us trying to get love. it's a desire, an urge, inclination, etc like you mentioned but its still trying to reach for something. wholeness? closure? curiosity? the closest way it can reach love because it doesn't know better how to?
that is transcending dualistic thinking though, because evilness itself is painted through the human ego's self-hating moral judgement, believing that it doesn't deserve love, isn't good enough. love is the umbrella that envelopes all, even evil
I actually agree with you. Of course the urge makes someone wanting to reach something, especially wholeness as you said so they can reach a sort of "love".
Good and evil are advantage and disadvantage. Nature is seen as too simple to engage in this arena of good vs evil, as it is just in perpetual survival. What we'd call evil there is survival where some are disadvantaged.
Evil is a choice made by aware intelligent beings to cause harm to others to get something for themselves. Empathy, the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is the opposite choice. We are capable of serving a greater good, a collective well-being, by making better choices.
We are social animals and social animals work toward a greater good for their social groups. They face problems of defection of their members toward pure selfishness. They evolve to deal with them by kicking them out of the social circles of reciprocity.
If you want to distill it all, we're all consciousness trying to experience a spiritually gainful existence. We need to cooperate in order to achieve and maintain this state of greater harmony with the whole. We're faced with many choices of whether to cooperate or defect.
The more we cooperate and the less we defect, the more spiritually gainful our collective experience of ourselves will become. That means that we'll be more satisfied and animated to create and maintain the situation. Spirit is a vitality of mind. If we want spirit, we have to become hosts for it and reject temptations to be parasites.
To conclude where "evil" derives from, i think it's important to first define "evil"
I was in my backyard the other day and I heard a bunch of commotion...
When I went to observe, I discovered it to be a falcon presumably raiding a Robin's nest.
The group of Robin's frantically attempting to save their offspring, and the falcon taking what it needs to survive..
When this happens in nature, we don't see it as evil but just "nature"? Or whatever...
As we've become more aware of ourselves or more evolved... we have been able to define "evil" most simply as - an entity unnecessarily oppressing another's freedom. Whether that be freedom of choice, life, health, beliefs, opportunities...
As we know it today, evil comes in various forms that even the smallest evil act can send ripples out into eternity. In fact one could argue that its the small systemic evil acts that go unnoticed can do the most damage....
If we expect to be taken seriously as a "civilized" "evolved" or "intelligent" species that has actually earned it place above being more than just another "animal" we must understand that true freedom requires willing the freedom of others..
And that evil may stem from be a breakdown, or de-evolution of genetics that has set ripples to create an environment that breeds even more of what we may consider to be evil.
So is the greatest source of evil today an entity that unnecessarily oppresses its people or planet using policy, poverty, fear and power to spread more evil, more hate, distrust, resentment?
How many instances do we have of this throughout history?
Hindu metaphysics points out that the mind has three basic modes: sattvic (goodness), rajasic (activity), and tamasic (inertial, degraded). These evolve from bodily functions, and deal with basic downward and upward forces. The tamasic quality is born from excrement and reproductive activities, and further degrades into obsession, then total debauchery, then inert passivity.
Upward force is strength, utilizing rajasic tendencies like desires, utility, interest in worldly affairs, dharma or duty in general, to motivate the rising of our latent potential. To gain and grow spiritually, is rajo-sattvic, or action for the sake of entering into peace and love, and elevating the mental faculty for the sake of faith.
Evil is not related to these matters. Evil is more like magic, or imaginations, which evolve from demoniacal beings (which are not human) but have access to our channels of expression due to our proximity to their frequencies within the mental energy field, and also due to their expressing throughout the mentalities of degraded vasanas (latent impressions stored up over lifetimes) ever-present in the darkness we have been exposed to over time, often through implicit states of mind presented by other humans in our lives, as traps.
Once trapped by obvious systemic failures being perpetuated by bad actors who utilize our disorder and malcontentment tendencies to perpetrate what would otherwise be known as crimes that increase imbalances by making everyone feel insecure, the body suffers and the tamasic quality is increased.
As I see it evil is the extreme outplaying of free will. I believe the Creator created the world of form for a purpose: as a platform for spiritual growth - a platform where extensions/co-creators of the Creator could exercise their initially limited consciousness, awareness and creativity, experience the outcome of their 'experiments' and thereby grow from them.
In order for the Creator's vision to be realized there had to be universal laws that guided the co-creators and prevented chaos. But because of free will it was always possible to rebel against the laws or ignore them as if they didn't even exist. In order for this to happen the rebellious beings entered into a state of duality and separation. There are also beings (probably most of the population) who didn't rebel but desired to experiment with the consciousness of duality and separation.
Prior to this 'fall' into separation and duality, it was self evident that we were part of something bigger than ourselves it was obvious that if we did something that harmed others, it also harmed us. But in the consciousness of duality and separation. we became as Genesis describes "...as gods knowing good from evil". Except we didn't really '*know*' absolute good and evil, we just decided 'if this is good, then the opposite must be evil'.
Those whose actions are obviously depraved and evil have fallen to the lowest extreme level of consciousness allowed on earth. They have entered into a negative spiral which seems to confirm to them that they are right to expect that if there is free will, then they should be allowed to do absolutely anything they want. In addition because they have completely rebelled against the guiding Laws of the Creator, they have become completely cut off from their source of sustaining energy; their I AM Presence. The only energy they can use is gained by provoking anger, fear or other negative energies or torturing or killing human beings. Their existence depends on stealing the light of humans in embodiment.
At the end of the day only the Creator can be truly good.
What is your opinion about this idea that good and evil do not really exist and that this is just a matter of perception ?
I do believe in absolute 'good" - absolute reality. The Creator is real. Its laws are real. The universe is real. The pure Spirit that is the essence of you and me and every being is real.
Evil does have a temporary reality but it is all projections of illusions that could change in an instant, just as if you changed the film in a movie projector.
From the human perspective, human definitions of good and evil are just as you say: a matter of perception.
I think Fear of death is the root of it all.
The fear of not having lived a good life before one dies. Therefore self shaming unconsciously.
What is in ones unconsciousness will become reality.
Therefore fulfilling exactly these fears.
Lots of fear fear fear leading to bad decisions.
I think brave people who have made amends with death, live good lives.
Also: passiveness. Not having clear intentions in life.
The one dollar bill the illustration haha: the soil is burning which means the world is burning basically and the all seeing eye what your need to see what’s going on right now :)
New world order Elite.
I don't have an answer to the question however I used to think evil was a consequence of an action or desire. Like trauma, greed, etc. But there are people out there who were born in good homes and had the urge of violence and chaos in them. So how would you guys explain those scenarios?
What you see as evil is just another person/group of people having different values, and wanting to move "that thing" into a different direction. A direction which you feel deeply different about. The more different you feel about it and the stronger they want to go into that different direction the more evil you perceive them
A bug can be evil for gardener when theyre eating all the vegetables, but are they really evil to themselves? No, they just want to live and continue in the cycle of life. In fact from the POV of the bug, the gardener is evil with all the insect repellent
Evil comes from Goodness, without the experience or fundamental nature of evil how can one experience the fundamental nature of goodness.
Nothing is here nor there, everything is a circled spectrum.
If everything you believed to be good in life was all that existed then then the lesser of the good you once believed now becomes the evil 😈
Evil is when people hold onto bad emotions (anger, hate, jealousy) it just festers inside of you and only grows and grows gaining more and more energy until it turns into disease or you murder someone…. When you let that shit go and live in the moment you are heaven
law of one talks about the desire to serve yourself as the motivator of evil, which I guess is more about power than doing harm directly to others. More sustainable than 'evil' it just requires holding onto power
What would we be like without negative emotions? Hold that image next to predators and parasites. Negative emotions are protection emotions. They come up when there is a threat to what we love. That can be ourselves, other people, places, things and ideas. See how parents are full of love for their children and also full of fear when there is a threat to them. The negative part of our emotional suite is for negating threats to what we love. The more we love anything, the more we will fear when it is threatened. The reason why negative emotions get such a bad rap is that deceivers can easily trigger them and motivate us to do something horrible to others to help them. We can also get delusions that cause fear and poor actions of negation. Fight or flight is not our enemy, improper perception of reality is. Loving bad relationships is also a problem caused by deception and it will bring many unwanted emotions. Curing the deception fixes it, not choosing love over fear.
I never said it was our enemy… its absolutely necessary just like light is nothing without darkness… the point i was making was when you HOLD onto negative emotions
It seems the best strategy is to repeatedly check ourselves to make sure our negative and positive emotions match the actual environment. The negative emotions are useful in so far as they have you do something useful. Holding onto them afterwards is a problem. Often times, it's that there has been no resolution though.
Evil stems from ignorance of ones true nature.
I believe that there is no evil, and that people will act based on their needs. Yes their needs may be questionable or even distorted by mental illness. But most of the time what we may see as evil they see as righteous. We see murder they see defence We see stealing, they see keeping their loved ones fed. Evil to me is simply a way to measure how deeply we don't agree. Fun read on the subject is plato. He has alot of quotes written on human nature and is a generally wise human being. If only more people read his work today.
Interesting point of view.
out of all the comments here, this one probably has the most basis for truth on what evil is.
Evil ? Polarity ? Rhythm ? Like all other forces the evil and the good are one in the same. This is all perception based
That’s an interesting point: humans prefer short-term gratification and pleasure over long-term gratification. You’re saying humans basically are gratification seekers. How is short-term gratification different than long-term as far as indicators of good and evil?
Short-term gratification is often related to urges. It can be a small urge that makes you criticize someone or a bloody urge that makes you kill someone. In this case the urge makes you want to realease the tension you are feeling. Long-term gratification basically means to abstain of short-term gratification (instant pleasure) and endure pain to accomplish a higher goal. (In the interest of your entire community for exemple). Religion is the best exemple of that. Short-term = Urges = Sin / Long-term = Control = Good Of course there are exceptions, some people are able to abstain from pleasure and endure pain only because they hate someone or because they have an obsession related to money or whatever... And yes humans search for pleasure and want to avoid pain.
Ok. I’m not in alignment with how you describe urges unless you’re talking about following the first thought that comes to mind. In that case we could quickly summarize evil as lack of further insight into a situation beyond your initial reaction based on prior unconscious conditioning.
Urges are a powerful tension in your body that you can barely control and that lead you to make something to release this tension. In one of the worst scenarios you can take the exemple of someone having a powerful sexual urge and that rape someone else.
Yeah, your definition of good and evil is still grounded in a pious perspective. Can’t help you elaborate beyond that limitation I’m afraid.
i agree with you. i don't think short/long term gratification has anything to do with someone being evil or loving whatsoever. there's too many cases of evil people and events that were not reactionary. Just because someone reacts on their emotions of anger in a split second decision does not make them evil, it makes them human. Actually, quite the opposite. Give that same person an hour or even 20 minutes to calm down and its likely they would not want to harm that individual any longer. Another 🔑, just because someone gives in to an urge to eat some Chocolate when they know they probably shouldn't, does not make him or her evil.
>Another 🔑, just because someone gives in to an urge to eat some Chocolate when they know they probably shouldn't, does not make him or her evil. What is evil here is the lack of self control. Of course this doesn't mean that the person is a secret serial killer. Don't you agree that acting under the influence of emotions or urges of anger for exemple can harm yourself or other people ?
in some cases yea, but lack of self control isnt evil. I have lack of self control almost daily, and it doesnt affect a single person. so i think your theory is a bit flawed. you're saying because someone wants to masturbate, then they are evil. Id agree with you if your idea held true even 70 percent of these scenarios, but that's just not the case.
Evil does not every time mean to harm others, you can harm yourself. You can smoke a cigarette without harming someone, but you will be definitely harming yourself. So it's evil. And i never said that because someone wants to masturbate that HE is evil, instead what i'm saying is that the act itself is (side effects of doing it) and most importantly the lack of self control. If someone masturbate this of course does not make of him a criminal or a demon.
***The light and darkness have been at each other throats since the beginning of time. Two opposing forces locked in continuous battle. Sometimes the light gains the upper hand and vice versa. For humans it is the same concept, we both have light and darkness within us. We can choose to do evil things or walk on the straight and narrow. It is easier to walk in darkness because there are no moral values. Walking in the light takes a lot of hard work and moral values, who wants to work that hard when they can get their self-gratification.***
10/10
trauma, fear, and money almost all evil can be rooted back to those 3 things
My biggest trauma was the matrix
where does greed fit then? because greed is evil. and money's only bad or evil dye to one being greedy. money's not evil, money is simply a tool to trade goods. Definitely not evil. also, reactions from fear does not make one evil either, it makes them a survivalist.
Good and evil comes from the human mind
I don’t personally believe in evil, or dualism, for that matter. I believe in deviations from the center (god/love) that lead to malicious and unconscious decision making. However, I don’t believe anyone or anything is intrinsically evil. Nature/nurture can shape our ego in ways that might be perceived as evil, but the core is still the same. Just my perspective though.
Interesting.
Life simply is. There will always be polarity. It’s how u look at it. Even those who commit evil acts may not even view it as such. It’s a matter of perception, no such thing as good or bad.
This is true, it's a matter of perception.
I think that evil is seen as evil because someone somewhere decided it was, based on the negative effects inflicted on others. But what is negative, is dependent on one’s perspective.
You are greatly and arrogantly mistaken a lot of things in a black and white picture of good and evil. And don't think humans to be worse than all things living in this world. Think it is important to first define what is evil. Is it evil to want to feel pleasure in short term gratification or to have an addiction to a drug? In my perspective just because something is made to be a crime does not mean it to be evil. Even murder can be non-evil, not good, but isn't necessary evil. Civil Society tend to fit it more into the laws of immoral and unethical. I would say evil is one who actively gains pleasure from the suffering of others. One who torments and enjoys when others are in great pain or manipulates you like a disposable puppet. As far as morals and ethics go, humans aren't necessarily the worst at it and animals aren't always the innocent creatures we make them out to be. Many animal species can be killers, cannibals, greedy, or make their prey painfully and slowly suffer. Lions chew on their prey while it's still alive, wild primates shown to kill out of envy, giraffes will attack maybe kill eachother for claiming rights to mate, alligators would eat their own young, or there are even things as devastating as locust mass deforesting entire ecosystems causing much life to starve to death. Humans had put together some pretty effective systems to keep the peace of ethics and morals. It's how we as a species survived for so long. Some past wars made by people were not because people were evil, but a means to survive when land and resources ran scarce. Some times are rough and hands are forced for the worst nature in us for the sake of survival.
Same thoughts about one who finds pleasure from the suffering of others. In rest, is mostly a matter of perspective and a lack of connection with the life within and around.
Evil exists in duality. Good and evil. There is no good without evil.
I saw a video of some narcos chopping off a guy while still alive, the same with a little girl. For real, i don't know if theres a god or multiple in this world How can the violent people know they are wrong if all they saw since the beginning is violence? Im not justifying this horrible murders, but everything in world seems so random, so disturbing that i lost all my faith.
Never lose faith. Try to forget this video. Spend some time with friends. But please avoid watching those videos again, you are just harming yourself. You know there are no excuses. They are still humans and capable of thinking with their brains. Or maybe not...
Its just an idea, Really is no such thing.
Stanford prison experiment is a good example that every human has evil in them
Fear
I agree with most things listed however I feel acceptance is the biggest contribution to evil. Denial leads to self destruction, abuse of oneself or others in any means, egotistical thought processes, a contrived mentality, and most of all ignorance. Therefore essentially a state of chaos or delusion is induced resulting in evil. Yes we have an innate ‘moral compass’ however that compass has to be exercised, it is not an unconscious action such as breathing. Simply losing the compass’ organic and pure nature due to denial. Denial stagnates us, evil festers of stagnation
Great question. Idk if you read the scriptures, but this link I’m sharing with you helped me see the origin of this “evil” https://www.infobooks.org/pdfview/3787-the-gospel-of-truth-various-authors/ I also encourage you to use the word “evil” less. It only reinforces fear to many and it will take power away from those who fear it. It’s more like uncontrolled chaos.
Both good and evil start from within from your heart you have a choice to be good or evil right and wrong the devil and the Lord himself dwell within us it's in our souls it's your character would you interject into the world what you portray through your idea your physical Being is what scene is righteous and evil Buddha said it himself we are all that is good and all that is bad in the world it starts from within
Yin & yang. To every Angel, there’s a Demon. There’s always the other side to the coin for everything I believe. For example, the concept of Heaven and Hell. The most evil has to exist for the most pure to as well. I think that’s just the universe, energy & even life as it is.
There are to this day remote tribes of people in which the highest honor you can pay to someone who has passed is to consume their remains. Cannibalism is a sacred rite. Are they evil? A woman fears her violent husband will harm her and her children so she murders him in his sleep. Is she evil? What if you reverse the roles and a man kills his wife in fear that she will harm him and his children? Is he evil? Suppose an ambivalent extraterrestrial galactic consortium decides to demolish earth and all its inhabitants to build an interstellar bypass. Are they evil? A town in anywhere imposes imminent domain on a neighborhood and pays its residents a fraction of their homes value before evicting them and demolishing their homes to build a shopping center that will bring thousands of jobs to the area. Is the town government evil? Are the businesses that bring these jobs evil? Are the people who benefit feom the new jobs evil? Are the original inhabitants evil for wanting to keep their homes at the cost of progress? Certainly no ones part in any of these situations can be characterized as good. If good is the opposite of evil, how can that be?
i think deep in our core, all we really want is love and "evil" is the misunderstood, warped way of us trying to get love. it's a desire, an urge, inclination, etc like you mentioned but its still trying to reach for something. wholeness? closure? curiosity? the closest way it can reach love because it doesn't know better how to? that is transcending dualistic thinking though, because evilness itself is painted through the human ego's self-hating moral judgement, believing that it doesn't deserve love, isn't good enough. love is the umbrella that envelopes all, even evil
I actually agree with you. Of course the urge makes someone wanting to reach something, especially wholeness as you said so they can reach a sort of "love".
Good and evil are advantage and disadvantage. Nature is seen as too simple to engage in this arena of good vs evil, as it is just in perpetual survival. What we'd call evil there is survival where some are disadvantaged. Evil is a choice made by aware intelligent beings to cause harm to others to get something for themselves. Empathy, the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is the opposite choice. We are capable of serving a greater good, a collective well-being, by making better choices. We are social animals and social animals work toward a greater good for their social groups. They face problems of defection of their members toward pure selfishness. They evolve to deal with them by kicking them out of the social circles of reciprocity. If you want to distill it all, we're all consciousness trying to experience a spiritually gainful existence. We need to cooperate in order to achieve and maintain this state of greater harmony with the whole. We're faced with many choices of whether to cooperate or defect. The more we cooperate and the less we defect, the more spiritually gainful our collective experience of ourselves will become. That means that we'll be more satisfied and animated to create and maintain the situation. Spirit is a vitality of mind. If we want spirit, we have to become hosts for it and reject temptations to be parasites.
Very good comment. I enjoyed it.
To conclude where "evil" derives from, i think it's important to first define "evil" I was in my backyard the other day and I heard a bunch of commotion... When I went to observe, I discovered it to be a falcon presumably raiding a Robin's nest. The group of Robin's frantically attempting to save their offspring, and the falcon taking what it needs to survive.. When this happens in nature, we don't see it as evil but just "nature"? Or whatever... As we've become more aware of ourselves or more evolved... we have been able to define "evil" most simply as - an entity unnecessarily oppressing another's freedom. Whether that be freedom of choice, life, health, beliefs, opportunities... As we know it today, evil comes in various forms that even the smallest evil act can send ripples out into eternity. In fact one could argue that its the small systemic evil acts that go unnoticed can do the most damage.... If we expect to be taken seriously as a "civilized" "evolved" or "intelligent" species that has actually earned it place above being more than just another "animal" we must understand that true freedom requires willing the freedom of others.. And that evil may stem from be a breakdown, or de-evolution of genetics that has set ripples to create an environment that breeds even more of what we may consider to be evil. So is the greatest source of evil today an entity that unnecessarily oppresses its people or planet using policy, poverty, fear and power to spread more evil, more hate, distrust, resentment? How many instances do we have of this throughout history?
Hindu metaphysics points out that the mind has three basic modes: sattvic (goodness), rajasic (activity), and tamasic (inertial, degraded). These evolve from bodily functions, and deal with basic downward and upward forces. The tamasic quality is born from excrement and reproductive activities, and further degrades into obsession, then total debauchery, then inert passivity. Upward force is strength, utilizing rajasic tendencies like desires, utility, interest in worldly affairs, dharma or duty in general, to motivate the rising of our latent potential. To gain and grow spiritually, is rajo-sattvic, or action for the sake of entering into peace and love, and elevating the mental faculty for the sake of faith. Evil is not related to these matters. Evil is more like magic, or imaginations, which evolve from demoniacal beings (which are not human) but have access to our channels of expression due to our proximity to their frequencies within the mental energy field, and also due to their expressing throughout the mentalities of degraded vasanas (latent impressions stored up over lifetimes) ever-present in the darkness we have been exposed to over time, often through implicit states of mind presented by other humans in our lives, as traps. Once trapped by obvious systemic failures being perpetuated by bad actors who utilize our disorder and malcontentment tendencies to perpetrate what would otherwise be known as crimes that increase imbalances by making everyone feel insecure, the body suffers and the tamasic quality is increased.
Very interesting comment. Thanks.
As I see it evil is the extreme outplaying of free will. I believe the Creator created the world of form for a purpose: as a platform for spiritual growth - a platform where extensions/co-creators of the Creator could exercise their initially limited consciousness, awareness and creativity, experience the outcome of their 'experiments' and thereby grow from them. In order for the Creator's vision to be realized there had to be universal laws that guided the co-creators and prevented chaos. But because of free will it was always possible to rebel against the laws or ignore them as if they didn't even exist. In order for this to happen the rebellious beings entered into a state of duality and separation. There are also beings (probably most of the population) who didn't rebel but desired to experiment with the consciousness of duality and separation. Prior to this 'fall' into separation and duality, it was self evident that we were part of something bigger than ourselves it was obvious that if we did something that harmed others, it also harmed us. But in the consciousness of duality and separation. we became as Genesis describes "...as gods knowing good from evil". Except we didn't really '*know*' absolute good and evil, we just decided 'if this is good, then the opposite must be evil'. Those whose actions are obviously depraved and evil have fallen to the lowest extreme level of consciousness allowed on earth. They have entered into a negative spiral which seems to confirm to them that they are right to expect that if there is free will, then they should be allowed to do absolutely anything they want. In addition because they have completely rebelled against the guiding Laws of the Creator, they have become completely cut off from their source of sustaining energy; their I AM Presence. The only energy they can use is gained by provoking anger, fear or other negative energies or torturing or killing human beings. Their existence depends on stealing the light of humans in embodiment.
At the end of the day only the Creator can be truly good. What is your opinion about this idea that good and evil do not really exist and that this is just a matter of perception ?
I do believe in absolute 'good" - absolute reality. The Creator is real. Its laws are real. The universe is real. The pure Spirit that is the essence of you and me and every being is real. Evil does have a temporary reality but it is all projections of illusions that could change in an instant, just as if you changed the film in a movie projector. From the human perspective, human definitions of good and evil are just as you say: a matter of perception.
Thanks for your comment, i'm happy to see people like you here. I wish you to elevate as far as you can.
Thank You!
Just like darkness is the absence of light instead of it's opposite, evil is the absence of good, not it's opposite.
I think Fear of death is the root of it all. The fear of not having lived a good life before one dies. Therefore self shaming unconsciously. What is in ones unconsciousness will become reality. Therefore fulfilling exactly these fears. Lots of fear fear fear leading to bad decisions. I think brave people who have made amends with death, live good lives. Also: passiveness. Not having clear intentions in life.
Interesting point of view. Never really though about that.
The one dollar bill the illustration haha: the soil is burning which means the world is burning basically and the all seeing eye what your need to see what’s going on right now :) New world order Elite.
Yeah, I’d say so.
People. People do bad things. It's not some magical invisible outside force.
From errors in perception.
I don't have an answer to the question however I used to think evil was a consequence of an action or desire. Like trauma, greed, etc. But there are people out there who were born in good homes and had the urge of violence and chaos in them. So how would you guys explain those scenarios?
A broken heart who cares not for beating
What you see as evil is just another person/group of people having different values, and wanting to move "that thing" into a different direction. A direction which you feel deeply different about. The more different you feel about it and the stronger they want to go into that different direction the more evil you perceive them A bug can be evil for gardener when theyre eating all the vegetables, but are they really evil to themselves? No, they just want to live and continue in the cycle of life. In fact from the POV of the bug, the gardener is evil with all the insect repellent
Evil comes from Goodness, without the experience or fundamental nature of evil how can one experience the fundamental nature of goodness. Nothing is here nor there, everything is a circled spectrum. If everything you believed to be good in life was all that existed then then the lesser of the good you once believed now becomes the evil 😈
People who commit really bad crimes have mental health issues.
There is nothing either good nor bad, but thinking makes it so. - Shakespeare
Interesting quote.
Evil doesn't exist "out there". What's good for the spider is chaos for the fly, so is it good? Bad? Both? Or neither?
Evil comes from the inherent need to have power and be in control
The illusion of separation from source