Q & A: Is there nothing bad?
There is nothing
either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.
— Shakespeare
With regard to the above quote, a reader in Iowa asks:
Q: If I think that torturing babies is good, does that make it good?
Is the inherent nature of life merely based on human opinions?
If a person or persons think Jews or Christians or Muslims are evil, does that make Jews or Christians or Muslims evil?
If I think it's OK to rape a woman, does that make it OK?
A: Of course not! Full stop.
Shakespeare's quote is often used in metaphysical discussions to illustrate that our perceptions and interpretations of events—rather than the events themselves—determine our experience. The poet is not alone in his observation:
The world is as we are.
— Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,
founder of the Science of Creative Intelligence
We are the world we walk through.
— Margaret Laird,
We Are the World We Walk Through
One is the source
of all one’s troubles,
for the light of God
pours over one eternally.
— Martin Buber,
Martin Buber's Ten Rungs
ONe replaces Man, one’s replaces his, one replaces him
What we physically sense
as our human experience
is but the objectification
of our human consciousness.
The world you look out upon
is the world of your own thought.
— Jack Hubbell,
quoted in Physics, Metaphysics and God:
A perspective on physics yielding to metaphysics by Jack W Geis
Our chief delusion
is our conviction
that there are causes other
than our own state of consciousness.
— Neville Goddard, Neville Goddard The Complete Collection
Our replaces Man’s, our replaces “his,”
No one can give you freedom but you.
— Byron Katie
We are not
the creatures of circumstances.
Circumstances are the creatures of us.
— Benjamin Disraeli
Evil is a limited point of view in an infinite field of Love. Non-dual teacher Rupert Spira points out that, “All the acts that we consider to be evil in society are acts that are generated by people who have a deep feeling of being separate.
“What we judge or describe as evil behaviour always has its source in the sense of separation. But evil doesn't exist as a source that is independent on its own. Nothing has an independent source. Ultimately, the source of everything is consciousness or Love.”
To me, this deep feeling of being separate equates with what Jonah C Steinberg terms, 'the delusion of separateness.' It can be said that our society is built on a paradigm of separation. For a new paradigm, we must:
Relinquish the notion
that we are separated
from the all-knowing
Mind of the universe.
Then we can recover
our original pure insight
and see through all illusions.
— Lao Tzu
All the Buddhas
and all sentient beings
are nothing but the One Mind,
beside which nothing exists.
This Mind,
which is without beginning,
is unborn and indestructible.
— Huang Po
As we understand the power and importance of our individual perspective, and as divine Truth and Love unfold concretely in our conscious awareness, we awaken to see that Reality is always and only God's creation.
Such understanding of Absolute Love is the basis of spiritual healing. The spiritual scientist does not try to change either mind or matter—but rather acknowledges that God, divine consciousness, is all there is.
We come to know divine Mind as our very own Mind.
[We come to know] God
as [our] own Being
and God as the Being
of everyone and everything;
God as [our] own silence and activity;
and God as the silence and activity
of the entire creation.
— Evan Finkelstein, God is Everything and More
The true reality of our existence is Ein Sof, infinite, and thus the sense of separate self that we all have—the notion that “you” and “I” are individuals with souls separate from the rest of the universe—is not ultimately true. The self is a phenomenon, an illusion, a mirage. This view is called “nonduality” (“not-two”), and it is found at the summit of nearly every mystical tradition in the world. Nonduality does not mean we do not exist—but it does mean we don’t exist as we think we do.
— Jay Michaelson, Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism
That may be the way it looks, but that's not the way it is.
— Margaret Laird as quoted in Mind the Athlete
...That which we behold
as an erroneous
condition or circumstance
is not of Mind or its formations,
but is the universal belief
in good and evil...
As you know the Truth,
this Truth will free you
from…situations or circumstances
conditioned by [the belief in] good or evil...
— Joel Goldsmith,
From "The Thunder of Silence" by Joel S. Goldsmith
The world is not as it appears to the busy, troubled mortal. A beautiful and magnificent harmony is spread over the entire face of the land; perfection permeates everything. This perfect Harmony is readily discernible and immediately available to anyone willing to acknowledge its presence...
— William Samuel, A Guide To Awareness and Tranquillity: The entire universe of Truth has been within us all the while—within the Heart! Here! Now!
God-consciousness is individual consciousness... To the extent that we consciously realize that God is unfolding as our daily experience in infinite form, variety, and activity, we will enjoy outwardly abundant life, health, harmony, peace, joy, and success — without taking thought of them.
— Bicknell Young, God is Individual Consciousness
