Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Good vs Evil InSpired by Scott Peck



It comes to mind, that after 30 plus years of doing this stuff, certain things have become abundantly clear, although not very obvious to the uninitiated.
First: Spirit and Spiritual is real ... it is something other than we can see, or quantify properly for that matter. We can see the results but it is difficult to actually see spirit itself. It seems to be a force quietly at work under it all, working on our way of doing things. Personally, now that I think of it, I have spent an entire life time coming up against all the various facets of spirit; some pro and some con. There are two sides to this coin.
Second (a): what I have found is there is a “bright side component” to the whole thing and this is often referred to in the literature as “the Light.”
Most religions claim a connection to “the Light side” of things.  Now don’t get me wrong but just because someone claims to be connected doesn’t mean they are, all that it means is that they are claiming they are connected.  The proof is not in what they say but more so in what they do.  I’ll deal more with this later.
Second (b): and there is a distinct “the dark” side to spirit.  It manifests itself in religious literature as the Devil, and it is real. Now it seems that the Devil has a mythical quality and this quality is supported because no one has shown up here on the face of the planet claiming to be the son of the Devil etc. Although there are many, if you stop and look at them and what they did, would appear to be just that.
Whereas the “Light” side of things seems to have repeatedly sent a messenger into our midst.  Each of the major religious aspects have the story of the garden, the flood, and a person who comes into their presence and says he represents God.
Many people write off this “dark side aspect” as mid-evil cock-a-mammy.  Scott Peck, in the Road Less Travelled gets into this with some depth. He comes to the conclusion that original sin is not the eating of the apple from the tree of knowledge, but instead, succumbing to the forces of entropy we face on a daily basis and our lack of willingness to exert enough energy to overcome the entropic forces; it follows that spiritual growth is effortful.  Peck put it bluntly ... to grow we have to overcome our “laziness.”
If we have been paying attention to the world and its ways over the past two centuries in particular, you will notice that many a good cause has turned into a disaster for someone.  Supposed Good causes turn into wars of wills; who is on God’s side. Well, to the victor go the spoils... not the truth... just the spoils. This does not dampen the business of good vs evil.  Evil has many faces ... as does Good ...
So, let’s take this thing apart, because Good vs Evil might not be exactly what we think it should be, nor what it appears to be.
Statement of Fact: the best lie, the Devil ever told was that he does not exist. This implies that the Light side of things does not exist either.  This one makes me wonder.
We all have a pretty good idea of what the Good side of things should look like, so for the sake of this exercise, I’ll start by examining the Darker side of things. To see if there are any commonalities in the world that surrounds you, or the one you were raised in, or the school or church where you were educated.  Politics at many levels, bureaucracy, the functioning of our very society is at stake and most probably the component parts of the society are players, the people who in their own fashion conduct the business of evil for a number of righteous reasons.
First Principle: Evil can’t function without people. 
It seems that animals can’t be evil, tigers can only be tigers and snakes can only be snakes.  They do what they need to do to survive. Evil cannot exist purely on its own. The Devil operates through people.  Why? Because people have over active Ego’s that seems to need to feed the need to compete. That much is a given.
There are people, places, institutions, that respond to life and life’s situations with hatred.  They, given the opportunity, will destroy, crush or kill any “Good” they chance upon no matter where they find it. All appears to be for righteous causes, but destroy, crush and kill none the less. It is not necessarily done with malice of forethought; these people actually believe they are doing right. They believe they are on “God’s team,” on the side of Light and justice so to speak unaware that they are working the processes of evil.
The rules of Cognitive Dissonance apply here.  That is, any evidence that refutes the misbelief structure individuals or institutions are holding, is immediately cast aside. Every effort is made not to see the truth, and the maintenance of the propositions that supports their non-truths are of the highest priority for them.
Evil hates the truth. That much is true. It hates the Light, for one simple reason, the Light reveals the truth about themselves (to themselves).  These people will inflict crushing control on their children or family or fellow workers, in an attempt to extinguish any Light, anyone of the aforementioned may be displaying. Thus, passing it on from generation to generation. 
This is one of the developmental principles of Codependency, “a multi-generational problem.”
It is very simple from this point on, Evil doers hate good because it reveals their sickness to both themselves and the world; similarly, they hate love because in Peck’s terms it exposes their laziness.
Second Principle: Evil is laziness (succumbing to the power of entropy) carried to its “ultimate extreme.”
Fact (a): Love is the extreme opposite of laziness. Sin is described in A Course In Miracles as “the absence of Love.” Whereas ordinary laziness is the passive form of failure to love. Those people who fall into the category of ordinarily lazy, will not and do not extend themselves unless they are compelled to do so. This is a form of lazy... not really Evil. 
Whereas the truly evil person will actively avoid extending help to someone or something that is in serious need. One of the better-worst-examples of this is the USA’s response to the Puerto Rican crisis after the hurricane (Maria 2017).  These types of phenomena are so clearly present in first world countries, those that have, toward third world countries in crisis, for those that don’t ie. Africa and all its many problems are another prime example.
One of the characteristics of the truly evil person, is they will take any action that is within their power to protect their laziness, and maintain the integrity of their sickness. 
It is a fact that rather than nurturing others they will attempt to destroy others in the name of their cause.  The sad fact is they will even kill to escape the pain of their own spiritual growth.
Statement of Fact: For people who are Evil; as the integrity of their own sickness is threatened (the rules of Cognitive Dissonance come into play here) by an outside force (often seen as the spiritual growth by those around them in their social circle), they will seek all manner of means to crush, destroy and stop the growth of that person or persons. It is virtually an act of “social-political-power” amongst the various aspects of a social network based the belief structure that binds that network together. As an outsider might observe, it appears to be a power struggle by one members of the system, or group of members of the system, exerting or attempting to exert power over another member of the system.  This can be individuals, groups, organizations, countries. The scale only matters to the extent that the after affect and collateral damage will be present in direct proportion to the application of the attempt to crush, destroy or kill (look at Syria to day). 
It also seems that in the Syrian example various factions of Evil can come into conflict and slaughter each other.
Peck’s Second Conclusion: Ordinary laziness is non-love, whereas evil is anti-love.

Neil Douglas-Tubb (RCC)
Therapist....
April 2019

Friday, March 8, 2019

From Zen and the Art of Walking Lightly


The Art of Walking Lightly

There is a thought that Leonard Cohen coined in one of his songs or one of his pieces of poetry and it goes something like this: there is a crack in everything … that is how the light gets in. 
I know that is not necessarily a direct quote but anyone familiar with his work will know the song … but it started me thinking … and the tangent I went down was:
… If I am a Bearer of Light … one of God’s children … if I am One With All That Is … and everything that happens to me including all my turmoil and grief … my feelings … are Exactly The Way They Are Supposed To Be … and if I can truly Exercise Freedom of Choice then maybe, just maybe, the choice that I should be making in my own best interests, is to exercise my ability to project God’s gift out into my world … to do this simply as the world presents itself to me … on a daily basis … at my door step …
A second thought comes to mind at about this point … rather than the light seeping through the cracks in everything … what if you and I made a conscious effort to place light around or inject peace and love into every action or thought that we take or make … into every feeling that we have … into every supposed understanding we conjure up … imagine that … being peacefully upsetbeing peacefully disgustedbeing peacefully uncomfortable. 
It strikes me, and it is just conjecture on my behalf at this point, that sooner or later we might just all arrive at the same place … being peacefully peaceful. 
What a thought! Imagine that! Go ahead try it right now. 
Try being peacefully upset. 
If you are anything like me, you may in fact find this very hard to do …
This whole process conjures up the thought that Kahil Gibran (1883-1931) makes in The Prophetdo what you do with another but never take them out of you heart 
So the final exercise to bring closure to this process is an ongoing effort … to finish this thought and begin a new life … with everything that happens to fall upon your door step inject a little lightsome love and some peace … no matter what it is … and when you forget … that’s fine … you are allowed … that is part and parcel of the joy of being human … but when you remember … offer up the Light of God in the form of peace and love into whatever it is that is next or whatever it is that just happened … whatever it is that is before you.
Neil Douglas-Tubb 
(published 2002 available on Amazon.com)