Want to be “good”?
If the article shared yesterday made sense, we could see that to be caught up in the duality of “being good and being bad” is illusory.
Let me put it succinctly. There is nothing “bad” in life for every experience; every single one of those experiences have benefit for the “life walker.” The issue comes when the “I” has desires, projects and expectations to achieve in this lifetime and life does not go according to his “master” plan. That we call suffering; we call it “bad.” Nothing wrong with making projects or having desires, but to know that when the “I” separates itself from the sea of life, duality will be experienced.
Thus, if there is nothing “bad,” what do we call “good”?
That realization is the beginning of acceptance of life as it is without judgment, without opinions, without “mind-full-ness” and thought to analyze things and to dissect it as to invite duality again.
Therefore, there is no need to work on “being good.” All we need to “do” is to get the “baggage”(beliefs, hang ups, taboos, emotional issues) healed and for that we may need to observe the “self.”
Every child has a different personality, but there is no one who could be labeled as “bad.”
A selfish personality is not “bad.” It is acting according to his perception of life, which in turn will bring consequences, which will be felt by that “selfish” being.
That suffering being experienced is not “bad” but the teaching, which is known as “settling karma,” which came about because that person was living according to his nature and not according to an intellectual teaching on “how to be good” in life.
When we live according to our nature, every lesson in life brings a transformation in consciousness.
When we live life according to what a book or a commandment taught us, there is no change in consciousness but just change in activity.
A religion may teach: “You shall not get angry.” If the nature of an individual is to get angry; then the teaching will merely suppress the expression of anger. Although, from the outside it may look as if the person has changed, in reality he has not. Anger is still in him. His consciousness hasn’t changed because his nature is the same.
Life experiences will teach that individual through suffering. Every being goes through that path.
To be honest is to realize that game that we are playing with ourselves.
Is duality “bad”? No. it is just a perception coming from a particular consciousness which is not aware of how “life works.”
When the “I” separates itself from everything else, that “I” is unable to perceive the unity, the wholeness. It is in this consciousness when a personal God is needed with commandments and rules on how to be “pure” or “good” as to change the outside behavior when the inside remains the same.
A being of light projects non-duality without using that label. Non-duality is something to discover. It cannot be taught. It basically means acceptance of life by belonging to it without a particular label.
If “I” consider myself to be a Christian, I will act and think in duality for an automatic rejection of everything else which is not Christian, will follow. If “I” consider myself some other label, rejection will happen to that which is not the label. That is how we could understand how an “angel” belongs to the Totality and not to a particular belief system.
To understand this intellectually will not make a change in our consciousness, it needs to come naturally as if we have a “new life” of unlearning previous concepts. That means a new consciousness.
When the great Tao is forgotten,
goodness and piety appear.
When the body’s intelligence declines,
cleverness and knowledge step forth.
When there is no peace in the family,
filial piety begins.
When the country falls into chaos,
patriotism is born.
Tao Te Ching Ch 18
Exploring the Depth of Living 