If this reality is not for real and that nullifies evil, then maybe all we ought to discuss is how to get to a personal realization that reality is not real.

Bets, do we need to define evil to discuss this? Does it have to be decided on a case-to-case basis?

I posted a link to a radio interview
(see here: http://afterlife-knowledge.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1238099289)
that mentions among other things that monks who have been tortured re-experience the trauma in meditation. (A problem with w professional meditator). The investigator has studied victims of torture and published his results. He mentions that people who make a business of performing torture read his work so they can perfect their techniques and minimalize leaving evidence of their deeds. That's being pretty conscious of what one is doing. Anyone here think using information designed to help people in a way that further harms them evil? (Some of the folks who help in torture are medical people).

Then there's the Magdalyn Laundries, that old Irish Institution for wayward females. It looks to me like a form of slavery. But apparently there were those who sincerely thought they were saving these women's souls. So, is what they did putting people in the laundries evil or not?

Are puupy mills evil? They certainly do unnecesary damage. Nightline says they are common in certain Amish/Mennonite communities, where dogs are considered to be a form of livestock. One of the negatives not mentioned is the absurdity of producing more puppies when there are so many unwanted dogs put down every day in this country. Of course, that would make stupidity evil.

So first we have to define evil, but I'm starting to think that thing Hannah Arendt said about evil...that it is banal...might be close to true. At least it seems to be ubiquitous.


Now we get to decide if babies are born evil. Maybe the only way to tell this is to find the folks who perpetrate this kind of thing...oh, did I mention I think it would be nice to do this experiment OBE. So we need some highly controlled OBE folks...go to the moment when those folks were born and "see" if they look evil, or have that look of evil in their faces. (I reraly wish we could do this).

Then there's the question of what would you do with a baby if you knew it had evil in its heart when it was born and it was still ababy. Wouldn't it be nice to knw how to rediate enough PUL that you could at least protect yourself, if not change the baby for the better.

It's complicated territory Bets (as you know) in that it's not just a matter of always blindly following your 'conscience', because what you take to be your conscience may be 'wrong'.

As in if we had a pure line to Spirit, then we'd 'know' 100% what was right/wrong or more to the point loving. But equally when we achieve that we'll presumably be realised. Meaning that we'll know experientially that this reality is a false invention of ego, and will no longer continue to create and sustain it, and so separation/individuality/fear and all they entail will end.

So we have the parallel problem (as we perceive it through an ego informed filter) of progressively developing those attributes that enable us to 'know' or see from Spirit - compassion, wisdom, equanimity and so on.

Meditation being one central tool (the altered 'view' which follows taking good teaching on board being another, along with self enquiry and properly used life experience) to creation of the mind space necessary to reveal these which are said to be inherent in us all, but buried beneath the mental static created by ego.

My personal experience of meditation is that it does precisely that. As one becomes more relaxed and centred, there can be quite spectacular events in terms of opening of the heart, development of emotional sensitivity, strengthening of intuition, and the dropping of much of the fear that leads to aggressive behaviours. It can be tough for periods, in that this opening (dropping of suppression and projection) brings one face to face with some very painful stuff, but over time there's a parallel development of a sense of joy, and the ability to cope always runs ahead.

So most of us get mixed messages - bits of knowing/insight mixed with ego urges. Which is how for example the Spanish Inquisition could justify a massive campaign of torture in order to 'save' souls, why the Pope could launch the Crusades, why religions in general (and none are immune) keep getting sucked into the wordly power and riches game. Why the fundamentalist tendency is likewise often ready to justify extreme measures.  

The rose tinted, 'nicey nicey' version of what passes for 'love' is the other extreme - indulgence worsens the position of others, but the individual feels good about them self.

Buddhism talks of the problem as 'obscuration', ACIM makes the distinction between 'knowledge' (love based reality as seen by Spirit) and  'perception' . (the fear and aggression based unreality created by ego by projection of faults on to others, and suppression of knowing - although indeed this entire time/space reality is said to be the work of the collective ego)

Setting oneself up as being spiritually superior to another must be the ego using religion to aggrandise oneself. To paraphrase ACIM  - we are all sons of God, all equally loved and loving. The perception that some are less deserving than others is the result of the projection by ego of our own faults on others - it causes us to perceive our own faults in them, and so we are provided with reason to fear them.

The Holy Spirit/higher mind it's said adjudicates between the wholly separate realms of Spirit  and ego, and ensures the feed of guidance and insight we need. Which we of course can experience in any number of forms. We may of course not be listening though, or may be intent on using it for selfish ends.

ACIM Lucy teaches precisely that we should think more about how to transcend this reality, and to not waste our effort on trying to understand how it ( 'egoworld') works - because it's in the end an incoherent and irrational system.

Buddhism does teach 'rules for living' in the Hinayana - not because it's all that real, but because while we are bound by our belief in this reality we need to avoid escalating our suffering to the point where the self work required for escape becomes impossible. Undisciplined behaviour not only causes suffering for others, we also risk digging ourselves so deeply into karmic debt that escape becomes the task of many many lifetimes.

When you stop being led by conditioning, and start to look carefully at the assumptions underlying ego thought it doesn't add up. How for example can happiness follow from an attitude where everybody tries to get ahead at the expense of everybody else?