Essay: Why Good and Evil?

Good and Evil

Some years ago Henry Adams, the descendant of two American presidents, wrote a book titled The 13th, The Greatest of Centuries. One of the outstanding scholars of that century was a German by the name of Meister Eckhart of Hochheim. In his time, as in ours, the God issue was frequently debated. Eckhart’s approach was refreshing and should be reconsidered today. He put it bluntly. “God is not found by adding anything but by a process of subtraction. The most beautiful thing that a person could say about God would be for that person to remain silent. So, be silent and quit flapping your gums about God. Love God as God is – a not-God, a not-mind, a not-person, a not-image. Love God as God is – a clear One who is separate from all twoness.”

I think that what Eckhart is saying is that God is not like us and that “God’s ways are not our ways.” One of God’s ways that’s we are reluctant to accept is the oneness of good and evil. The preference of many humans is either/or -- twoness, “I’ll take the good, but deliver me from all evil.” I recently read an item in the paper from the journal of a lady who had lost her house in a flood. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. I can’t fix it back. Damn you Mother Nature.” Let’s think this through from the beginning.

Everything started with Fire, a Big Bang. Was that fire good or bad? If we take a both/and position, fire is both good and bad. Fire is beautiful and warming in our fireplace or stove, but if a fire burns our house to the ground that’s generally considered bad or evil. Wherever we look we are confronted with opposites – matter and anti-matter, night and day, light and dark, male and female, young and old, good and bad, life and death, etc. Carl Jung reminded us that: “a being without opposites is completely unthinkable, as it would be impossible to establish its existence.” The existence and the balancing of opposites has been going on for 13.7 billion years and has produced an incredible display of creativity. It seems clear in this respect that the Creator’s ways differ from ours. The universe seems to be telling us that there is a cyclical process going on whereby good produces evil which in turn produces good. Balancing means that one tolerates the tension between the opposites and, trusting the process of the Universe, views all situations from a both/and perspective rather than either/or.

If that is the case then it seems logical to seriously consider how the one Universe operates, and how we might become those dynamics in human form. Most of our plans, actions and evaluations of them, however, are frequently made from a narrow and personal point of view. Because of our inability or unwillingness to consider a larger picture and/or other options we often make costly mistakes. For example it is foolish to build one’s house on sand or in hazardous places where wind, flood, or fire can destroy them. Yet thousands of people do it anyway and then blame the Creator for the disaster.

When the entire process of life is examined it is consistently noted that in every creature a new dimension or slight advance occurs and that dimension is then passed on to a future generation for further enhancement. When the process of evolution arrived at the enhancement stage of consciousness in homo sapiens around 200 thousand years ago, Earth was ravishingly beautiful and fruitful. The Universe then decided that a risk of major size was ready to be taken – the evolution of the human psyche with an ego capable of willing and choosing. The risk was: could conscious beings see themselves as the latest expression of growth in creation with the unique role of assisting the Universe to become aware of herself? Or, seeing the beauty and tasting the bounty of creation, would they selfishly grasp that beauty and bounty as their own, take over and domineer like kings and queens of the castle?

What has happened in the last 200,000 years is that a multitude of individuals have taken off on vicious ego-trips, created their our own version of reality and ignored the horrendous consequences of their behavior on the rest of creation. What we are now living with is a monstrous snowballing of human ego trips that has accumulated during our brief presence on this planet. This snowballing of self-centeredness has created an abundance of pain and despair for a vast number and a grandiose lifestyle and a denying of death and its functions for a small minority. There is also another multitude of righteous individuals who believe that the risk taken by the Universe was an horrendous mistake and contrive programs designed to eliminate or seriously control those whom they define as ego-trippers.

We are faced with a super task with the snow-balled evil that has been handed down. First of all we have to understand and trust the wisdom of the Universe. By holding the tension of the opposites a resolution will come about. We have 13.7 billion years of evidence. By being authentic to our Self and forgiving others we can help to melt the snow. Today there are millions of humans rapidly growing in a consciousness of compassion and social justice, environmental awareness and involvement, scaling down their lifestyle, sharing with the needy in a multitude of ways. The carpenter from Nazareth offers sane advice in this matter. In his parable about the enemy who sowed weeds among the wheat of a neighbor, he stated, “Don’t pull out the weeds, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest and I will take care of the situation”.

If you would like to join those millions who are growing in consciousness and would like a detailed description of how to deal with ego-tripping and getting beyond it, read Eckhart Tolle’s best seller: A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life Purpose.

1.What do you think of Eckhart’s approach on the God issue?
2. Are you a both/and or an either/or evaluator, and why?
3. Do you have problems with a Creator who takes risks, and why?
4. Where are you on your journey to urge your Ego to defer to the Self?
5. Are you willing to trust the wisdom and experience of the Universe

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