Bad is winning over Good? Do you agree

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This topic has 7 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 8 years ago by VJ.

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November 24, 2016 at 1:01 am #121019

Rebel
Participant

Hello, I’m always asking myself what’s the point of being good in this world where I see bad people enjoying their life and good people only suffering. I have seen a few genuinely good people who have suffered through their entire life due to unexpected and constant misery. Either it is pain due to illness, loss of Income, Loss of loved one, relationship issues, Emotional trauma, Depression, anxiety etc., or everything combined, the misery knocks the door of kind hearted people. Why? Why is bad winning over good? I know a few people, who have deliberately spoiled others reputation, sabotaged their spirit, used others for their selfishness, brought unbearable agony upon others but they have been blessed with everything they wished for in spite of their remorseless actions. We all have lessons to learn is what I have believed in ( I may be wrong too) then why is life so unfair for good people. I’m at a stage where I’m looking for answers, after personally experiencing some irreparable losses in my life. Hoping you all could shed some light on this. Thank you

November 24, 2016 at 3:58 am #121025

Nina Sakura
Participant

Dear Lav K,

Not necessarily, it’s all relative.

Good people can have both good and bad happen to them. Same for bad people.

Can I say that the good people always have more of the bad than the good? Who knows, can’t really give a logical estimate on this. However it is not necessary that good people will always get what they want by virtue of being good – one needs to be practical and diplomatic too to last in this world with its curveballs and misfortunes. Same goes for bad – they will have their set of problems too in other aspects of their life while they thrive in others.

Thinking about who wins or loses is counter-productive. all I can say is when one focuses too much on what is happening to the bad and less on their own life, then their energy is automatically stuck, their mind less clear and response more distorted as per the situation.

The Gita provides one answer to finding peace despite this entire worldly cycle – Karma Yoga. This means to do ones duties without expectations of good or bad.

Failure, sorrow and disappointment will all hit us all in some form. Being good will not shield us from it but yes, it will put our own conscience at ease. We can be at peace with ourselves by doing what’s right as per our principles.

I know this isn’t much of an answer. I hope the others have further to add.

Regards
Nina

November 24, 2016 at 7:28 am #121030

Peter
Participant

In the natural world there is no such concepts of good, bad, justice… life is.

There is a time and rhythm for all things and at the core of our experiences of life rhythms is the reality that life lives of life, life requires the sacrifice of life. Every breath we take is a sacrifice of life, one form of life for another form. That is life’s awesomeness-it wonder and its fear.

It is I think as we experience the tension that comes about through the confrontation with that reality, sometimes through major life changing experiences but usually the accumulation of 1000 cuts, that we label our experience good and bad.

The question becoming is life, even as it must live off life be good? Can we say yes to life as it is and label it not only good but that it is Love?

In the story of genesis we are confronted with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Note that it is not the knowledge of what is good and what is evil but only the awareness of a difference in our experiences that we might label good or bad. It is the awakening to the problem of opposites.

What is the good and what is the bad? How can something that feels good be bad? How can something I experience as bad be experienced as good by someone else? How is it that what is good one moment becomes bad in the next? How is it that good often arise from our deepest pain, and pain from our deepest good?

I might argue that it is the tension created by the problem of opposites that creates consciousness. (is consciousness a good?) As all the wisdom traditions teach us one of the steps in the art of becoming requires us reconcile the problem of opposites. Good and Bad are not opposites and so do not ‘win’ over the other.

But that answer does not help when you are in pain or witness the pain experienced by others so perhaps not your real question. What is the point of being good?

You must live your truths as you know them to be as you live life within your destiny.

There is no point in being good other than that is who you are. That must be enough in and of itself. Not for some future reward or fear of punishment but because you are being true to your authentic self. Yes you will get it wrong, yes others will hurt you but I truly believe that if you live your truths while being open to learning better and learning better doing better that that matters, and that is good.

I very much recommend the book Fault in our stars‘ by John Green who effectively through the power of story explores the question of the problem of good and evil and what is the point.

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is probably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed.” ― John Green

“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.” ― John Green

That is the key – grateful- grateful for the good and the bad we experience, the experience of noticing that if we push through reveals itself as love.

My favorite song “The Riddle” – Five for Fighting

There was a man back in ’95
Whose heart ran out of summers
But before he died, I asked him

Wait, what’s the sense in life
Come over me, Come over me

He said,

Son why you got to sing that tune
Catch a Dylan song or some eclipse of the moon
Let an angel swing and make you swoon
Then you will see… You will see

Then he said,

Here’s a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There’s a reason for the world
You and I…

Picked up my kid from school today

Did you learn anything cause in the world today
You can’t live in a castle far away
Now talk to me, come talk to me

He said,

Dad I’m big but we’re smaller than small
In the scheme of things, well we’re nothing at all
Still every mother’s child sings a lonely song
So play with me, come play with me

And Hey Dad
Here’s a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There’s a reason for the world
You and I…

I said,

Son for all I’ve told you
When you get right down to the
Reason for the world…
Who am I?

There are secrets that we still have left to find
There have been mysteries from the beginning of time
There are answers we’re not wise enough to see

He said… You looking for a clue I Love You free…

The batter swings and the summer flies
As I look into my angel’s eyes
A song plays on while the moon is high over me
Something comes over me

I guess we’re big and I guess we’re small
If you think about it man you know we got it all
Cause we’re all we got on this bouncing ball
And I love you free
I love you freely

Here’s a riddle for you
Find the Answer
There’s a reason for the world
You and I..

I love you free…

November 24, 2016 at 8:43 am #121036

Peter
Participant

Politically I do think we are heading into a time of a shadow as it seems the lessons we learned through the experience of the horror of past destructive wars was not enough to remain conscious to the reality that we are our bothers keeper and in this together.

“we’re big and I guess we’re small – If you think about it man you know we got it all – Cause we’re all we got on this bouncing ball

November 24, 2016 at 9:13 am #121044

Anonymous
Guest

Dear Lav K:

Reality is that there is no connection between being a good/ bad person and suffering misfortune. When a hurricane hits a village, it does not discriminate between good and bad people. Disease does not discriminate either. When a person in a company steals all the money, good and bad people in that company will suffer.

There is no god-in-the-sky who observes people and takes notes: “this person is good so I will make good things happen to him/ her and protect him/her from bad things; and that person is bad, so I will make bad things happen to him/ her…”

To expect otherwise brings frustration as any kind of thinking that does not fit reality.

anita

December 15, 2016 at 4:23 am #122762

heena
Participant

I don’t know how much you believe in karmic theory, but there are some very logical questions we can ask ourselves like how some people are born so rich, some so poor, some are born to be successful and some born to be doomed. Who decides this. It is decided by our karma only. Our action will definitely result into its equivalent reaction whether its good or bad.

Actually I had this exact same question in my mind since eons. Nobody was able to give me satisfactory answer. But after coming through this karma concept many of my doubts got cleared.

When we see “good people” suffering, we don’t know how much of accumulated bad karma they have and when we see ” bad people” enjoying,they might be enjoying their accumulated good karma and we don’t know at what point in their life they will have to repay their bad karma.

Please note that the terms “good” and “bad” are just words used for explanation. Its just ” As you sow so shall you reap”.

December 15, 2016 at 8:27 am #122776

Peter
Participant

Read an interesting article about justice and the difference between nature’s justice and the justice of mankind.

The laws of justice are manmade tools needed to create stable community while Mother Nature does not concern itself with concepts of the good and the bad or justice. The rain falls on the just and unjust.

Build a house on a side of a mountain that falls into the sea due to an earthquake that kills everyone inside is Life as it is. We might label such an experience as bad or karmic justice but it’s not. The needs of life and nature to endure, for the world to spin, trees to grow, fish to swim will always come before an individual need. Nature is not personal.

But it gets complicated.

Why did the person build the house on a side of an unstable mountain? Karma?

For me Karma as in the filters through which we will experience life

Paul puts it this way “For the good that I desire, I do not do; but the evil that I do not want, this I practice. … I desire to do; but the evil thing that I desire not to do, is what I constantly do.”

The buildup of karma (this life or past lives) enables us or prevents us from experiencing the world in a way we might measure as ‘good and want to experience it. For Paul to overcome this dilemma/karma he will have to do a lot of inner work.

We know but don’t always understand that pain and suffering can give birth to a great good and that a great good can also give birth to pain and suffering. What then is this thing that we measure as the good or bad?

When we step back and see life as it what we label and measurements as the good and the bad disappear. Karma then isn’t a tool of punishment or revenge but a tool of growth and awakening consciousness. Karma is personal.

Karma is personal yet we tend to project it outward because we want justice we want people to be held accountable for what they do but in a way that we can ‘see’. This might actually create “bad karma”

“First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye”

Karma is personal, about the individual and their growth, a individuals becoming (the all is one, the one all). Every path is unique so the measuring of good and bad with regards to karma does not help much. All experiences push towards becoming.

That said your path of becoming requires you to live your truths authentically as you know them to be in communities based on man’s concepts of justice.

At one level labels of good and bad disappear on another level you must act in a world with discernment of the good and the bad is required and struggled with. It is not a paradox.

December 16, 2016 at 2:17 am #122848
VJ
Participant
Hi Rebel,

@heena is absolutely spot on about the karmic philosophy.

Especially in this cycle of time (The Iron Age), settling of karmic accounts between two people, places and nature are happening at a very faster rate. This settling of debt accounts can be in the form of relationships between two people turning sour, divorce rates, intense emotional pain, a child is dead as soon as s/he is born, health issues, loss of job, an incurable disease, bombings, natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanoes, and much much more most of which you have already mentioned.

This “bad” must happen. This bad is destruction. It is the destruction of the old. And only the destruction of the old is going to give way to formation of the new.
For example- By only experiencing a painful relationship, one can get rid of the old unwanted feelings of hurt, grief, sorrow, resentment, bitterness that is deep deep down in our hearts/souls from a very long time since the time the soul has traveled its journey. And only by this way one can cleanse his/her soul. How would a person who is jolly and happy in his life cleanse his soul? He doesn’t need to, because he is already full and complete. Only one who has pain buried deep down is going to experience pain.

Another example – Only after the total destruction of an old house when the land is clear, a new house can be built in its place. And here we are talking about the whole earth – so imagine the intensity of the destruction that has to happen (and is happening).

The formation of a new earth is happening simultaneously along with the demolition of the old.
And we can see this formation by people becoming more aware of the environment, formation of trees, planning for various ways and means for reducing pollution, planting of trees, lots of life healing techniques like EFT, Reiki, Chanting, Mantra meditation, Crystal Healing, Quantum Healing, an introduction to us about ‘The Secret’ Law of Attraction which we never knew earlier, Acupuncture, Acupressure, more an more spiritual masters coming up, teachings about the Present moment, several ancient techniques are coming forward, more of psychotherapy, so many books on Self-Help categories, various Energy Healing modalities, Chakra Healing, plenty of articles on Love yourself, and this very website TinyBuddha which is “healing” millions of people on the planet. (Over 2 million friends and followers as mentioned on this website’s homepage). All of these are soul cleansing techniques.

A new earth where all souls, living beings are in perfect harmony with each other, with the environment, with their own mind, body and soul. A paradise on earth, heaven on earth, Garden of Eden, an ego-less world, The Golden Age is awaiting for all of us, but formed by us.
That was originally the gift of God to mankind. But we with our egos have come down from the Golden Age (then) till the Iron Age (now) and our own egoic acts/deeds are causing us trouble, which is nothing but our own karma.

But the good news is that we are not going to stay stuck in the Iron Age.
This is because Time is cyclic –
Cycle of Months – January to December always follows the same cycle,
Cycle of Days – Saturday to Sunday,
Cycle of the time of the day- Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night and the next day the same again
Cycle of Seasons – Spring, Summer, Autumn (Fall), Winter
Cycle of Life – Birth – Death – Birth – Death
Can you see the cycle? Nothing is changing – everything is following its own cycle.

And so is going to be the Cycle of Earth – The Golden Age – then the Silver Age – the Copper Age – and now the Iron Age.

Be glad that you are part of the formation of this new earth and entering into the Golden Age! Ride the wave and sail smoothly by following any of the above healing modalities.

~VJ
- This reply was modified 8 years ago by VJ.
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