Is Goodness Pride?
 

So it has finally dawned upon me. The disagreement in me with certain factions of Eastern spirituality. For many years I spent arguing against the I AM (which is pure consciousness without thought) teachings. Eventually I conceded and accepted the premise.

However, it has now dawned upon me why I ever disagreed with them at all. Certain factions of Eastern spirituality, which are now spreading to the West, see Goodness as 'Pride'.

They see God as neither Good nor Evil. Therefore any notions of Goodness are by default slight deviancies. God, to them, is pure and perfect Neutrality.

I feel that I cannot agree. To me Goodness is not a deviancy. It is not Pride.

For example, I might be raving about how great Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire films were, but 'pure consciousness' is tutting "no mate, that is ego and pride!"

It is pure hypocrisy.

Which one's Honza ?

I'm not sure that is an eastern belief is it? I tend to think it's a new age western version of eastern if anyone knows what I mean. Like new age types in the west who think they are somehow eastern or intellectually superior to others by stating they believe there is no good or bad or something along those lines.

I think Buddhism does not say anything about God, but then the lay people worship God in some way maybe. Maybe worship Buddha or other deities. But then I'm sure others don't. Then in Christianity we have Jesus who was about being good and selfless, non-judgmental of others etc. Love others as yourself. Buddhism has loving-kindness which is similar or maybe the same.

I think it's hard to say Eastern belief is this or that or Western is this or that as now days seems like we have all kinds of beliefs all over the planet. But I think Eastern tends to be Hinduism or Buddhism and Western is Christianity as far as majority religion of the locations or cultures. But then Muslims are also in India and that general area I think.

Some people are probably proud of "being" or "doing" good and want recognition for it since they are prideful. Thus the saying of keeping the good you do secret so you are not prideful or egotistical about it.

Matthew 6
1
"Be careful not to do your `acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2
"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
3
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4
so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

I don't agree either. I think the idea is pure speculation and intellectualizing without any ground in reality. I think from a human perceptive, everything is about finding pleasure (good) and avoiding pain and suffering (bad). The variation I think is about HOW we seek and avoid such things. That can vary a lot. In other words, there are good ways to seek pleasure and bad ways. Good ways to avoid pain and suffering and bad ways. That's where wisdom comes in and higher awareness, compassion and empathy for others etc.

I think the fact humans can experience pleasure and pain in itself proves our creator wants us to learn to be and act a certain way. So to me, that proves the creators or creator knows of good and bad.

The ones which advocate the notion of pure conscious.

Can you point to a Teaching please from 'the ones' as I personally have never heard of goodness being pride....

[Quote Maisy,
"Like new age types in the west who think they are somehow eastern or intellectually superior to others by stating they believe there is no good or bad or something along those lines."]

People think differently and I personally don't see those that do as trying to be 'intellectually superior to others'....

No one teaches Goodness is Pride. It is more of a shared understanding by those who believe there is no good or evil. For example, if you believe there is no good or evil then what is the feeling or notion of such? It is explained as 'ego' or 'pride' or incomplete realisation etc.

To pure neutrality - what actually is good and evil?

Which Eastern Religion teaches that there is no good or evil ? I'm trying to see what you mean. The Title of your Thread is asking a question....

You told me yourself you do not believe there is good or evil.

Yes that is my personal belief not Religious.... If there is good and evil then we have to have 'general morality'.Morality is viewed differently from culture to culture, person to person, the most popular opinion around us is generally what we consider to be good or bad and we change our opinions when it suit's us.... Look at Religions, some see slaughtering those who do not hold your beliefs as being good., the Christians also slaughtered in the name of God and believed what they were doing as being good and I could go on and on but will leave it.....

No religion teaches there is no good or evil. But I have heard it said many times. Usually by mystics. What worries me is that one is left with neutrality. Is neutrality really the answer?

Why does it worry you ?

Is neutrality a worthy God? It is very indifferent. I have tasted evil, good and neutrality. By far my favourite experience is goodness.

It refers to motive. We say goodwill is 'good' and ill-will is 'evil'. It's only believing good and evil are external forces (usually perpetuated by supernatural beings) that is questionable, but even if that is true, it's dependent on their volition.

I don't know if pride is a wrong intent. Not sure what 'pride' means exactly, but taking pride in your work means you're motivated to do it well. I think that's a good motive. if 'pride' means vanity, then not so good (sez the guy who flexes in the mirror :redface:).

Neutrality is important, but it only means non-reactive. Wrong volitions are incited by a reactive mind. No good will come from greed and hatred toward yourself, others or the world. The neutrality of mind we call equanimity is the ability to leave experiences as they are without aversion toward them nor craving that they should be other than they are. As such, avoidance and resistance subsides along with clinging and grasping, and the true love of the universe can emanate through.

The Bible doesn't seem to recognize these three categories of good, neutral, and evil.If one is not doing good, then one must be doing evil, they obviously didn't understand that what some see as good is evil to others and vice versa....

Neutrality can be important. But one can reach a state of such equanimity that one is totally unaffected by badness (bad things happening, like murder etc.) and even go so far as to ENJOY the bad things.

Enlightenment implies that one is happy with everything - both good and bad. So while one person is suffering, another person is enjoying it.

Also one reaches a state of complete equanimity with good things. So that no merit is ascribed to that goodness. It just becomes an equal part of the whole.

Really, I've not heard that description before....

[quote=Honza]

Enlightenment implies that one is happy with everything - both good and bad. So while one person is suffering, another person is enjoying it.

/QUOTE]


Let us say there is someone who has had a very , very dark past, not to say they indulged in , for the sake of ease , evil acts but suffered from them greatly their entire life but views everything in the end fine and worth that, that the bad never outweighed the evil. What do you make of such a person?

A bit lost. If I committed evil acts I would try to feel remorse. To apologise.

Because people generally assess good and evil by how they feel rather than the real motive behind their activity, there's no requirement for the truth. If we assess goodness by our own nature of volition, we are required to be deeply truthful about what our own motives really are. For example, a person may regard themselves as good because they feel compassion and are devoted to helping others, but they are actually motivated by a strong desire for other's gratitude and are just trying to elicit that from others.

Motives come from two places. The first place is where ill-will (evil) comes from, and that motive is perpetuated by adverse and craven reactions, which the larger portion of people are driven by. The second place is where good-will comes from, which is the outpouring of love that is endemic of our own nature and fundamental to nature herself. The outpouring doesn't exert any will on anything, but sees all things with the utmost purity of love. As that pours through a human being it expresses in all aspects of their lives. Hence all merit pertains to good-will, and none applies to ill-will.

It's deeper than will applied to what people want. Rather than pertaining to what is desirable or undesirable, goodness pertains to what is true. This is the cornerstone of morality of truthfulness, honesty and trust, which is foundational to a spiritual path.

In contrast, evil pertains to what is delusional. It's not evil in terms of judgment or punishment. It's evil in terms of suffering being caused by volitions perpetuated by craving and aversion that arise due to delusion. Hence, Christ says, 'Forgive them for they know not what they do,' and Even while being tortured feelings don't elicit the adverse, hateful reactions that cause ill-will (evil) in Him. He's a channel through which the love of nature flows. We all are, but we have by and large lost sight of it, and there's a lot of obstuctions that clog up the channel.

On the ego level we are affected by everything, but fundamentally we're indestructible, immovable and nothing can affect us, but that's not dead-pan and inanimate. It's alive with the infinite outpouring of pure love which regards all things equally in that way.

Only if you see your 'evil' act's as being 'evil'....

I don't think there is much depth to those who state those views like goodness is pride. Like if someone said, "there is no right or wrong," that in itself is a statement of being right lol. But I think it's hard to find the truth maybe, or "see it" that all words are concepts, pointers, and not what they are attempting to point towards. Also one can debate the whole thing, come to conclusions, make statements of fact etc all within the conceptual mind. And the conceptual is never the actual. It's just a mental creation. I sometimes think of it like a closed box. Inside the box anything can be true because everything in the box is imaginary and word based.

I'm not sure using the word "evil" is appropriate for my ideas as there is a whole range of possible actions stemming from the given which is the nature of the human body and it's brain and mind. But in religion and philosophy the idea of the good or pure soul is added that dwells temporary in a human body and brain. So to me, and I think this is a common view among some biblical writers like John ect and some Christian theologians, but the general idea is the body is "prone to sin" or work from a selfish and self centered way and the soul generally is more universal and all inclusive in it's view. So there is a struggle "in us" between the two natures we are imbued with during an earthly life.

It's pretty basic at it's core I think. Willful actions that harm others for our own pleasure are bad and willful actions that take in the well being of others as important as well as other outcomes is good. Like companies that dump toxic waste into ground water others will depend on to drink. They are not considering others as equals in their actions.

Evil will always exist in the absence of conscience. Why were the 10 Commandments given ? Why were they written in stone ? To me it indicates that early man was without conscience. Perhaps that situation was remedied by God with the new covenant of Jeremiah 31:31-34. Verse 33 says …”I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts…”. Symbolically I have understood this as the formal birth of conscience. It is worthwhile to examine the etymology of conscience……con=with…science=knowledge(truth )…..”know the truth and the truth shall set you free”…..that freedom can be the freedom from the necessity of the written law…..good and evil will be obvious…..

Our conscience is the inner sense of what is right or wrong and is in constant flux....

"Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good." ~ Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach....

Actually the thing that is in constant flux is the ego….this is the two mindedness that the Bible speaks of…..

Yes, there is nothing which is permanent, a person is not a fixed individual, we don't have an unchanging self.....