If bad is needed for good to exist, isn't bad then good?

[Erki]

?

[annie]

Can bad really be good? No....don't delude yourself

However...opposites are essential in order to have genuine and accurate knowledge. When we look at others, we can discern them for they are a combination of opposites...light and dark...good or bad.

Without the combination of light and dark or good/bad, a person would be a "compound in one" with the background for he could not be distinguished from the background.

It is in the opposites that we discern knowledge. If all we ever had was the sweet...then we would never know the bitter. And therefore sweetness would have no meaning to us. It is bitter that gives sweetness ddefinition to our senses. Therefore, only through experiencing opposites can we comprehend.

[Erki]

So we need a drop of tar to remember us that honey, in fact, tastes, and is, good (for us)? I thought if we were conscious people, we wouldn't need such reminders. And why would we need one drop of tar and pounds on pounds on end of honey to balance it? Why shouldn't we embrace the tar for what it is?(Ewwwwww! But tar is useful too.)

But this isn't just about honey and tar, is it? Tar is good too, just not for eating. So then what about making love vs. killing people? Now making love sounds good to me. Killing people doesn't. And as far as I am concerned, killing of other people wouldn't make my lovemaking any better. Or could killing other people be considered as a "population control"? Make love, birth new people, go around and kill them. Thank goddess we invented condoms and other artificial birth control measures when we forgot about our own built-in variety.

But my question stays.

I don't mean it so much as bad is good and everything is good, but that everything just is. And is just as it should be. That is then, perfect?

[Dharma]

Originally Posted by Erki

But my question stays.

I don't mean it so much as bad is good and everything is good, but that everything just is. And is just as it should be. That is then, perfect?

Yes, everything just is. Good and bad are a polarity, which is a form of denial. Sweet and bitter would be another example.

What is denied? Knowledge of the third choice in any polarity. (If you don't see yourself as creator of all your experience, stop here)

If I have light and dark, I can say they are opposites. Makes sense, right? As a creator I have made something called light, and something called dark, but there's another creation I don't keep in my consciousness when I'm dealing with light and dark - the relationship of the two, which is the third creation. That third aspect we create and typically forget about right away.

So everything just is as it is, until we attach meaning or relationships between the parts. And there's a status quo of what the "right" relationships are.

Making love = good
killing people = bad

That's all made up, by us, and we forget that. We think it's some divine law or something. Nope, just our choice to align certain things under certain labels and pretend they mean something.

Here's some more:
vegan/meat eater
republicans/democrats
men/women
organic/healthy
trans-fat/not healthy

A polarity doesn't have to be a strict opposite. Just two (or more) things and a relationship, where the creatorship of the relationship has been forgotten.

You can also set up a polarity like this:

my time with my friend/his time with his new GF

Now I give myself nowhere to move if I want to spend time with my friend. If I look at this setup, I have to kill my friend's GF and dump her in a ditch to spend any time with him. So my only choice is to not see him anymore. I don't consciously realize I put the either/or polarity in there and my reality will unfold based on this polarity.

Polarity kills magic and the unknown by placing limitations on my movement.

[Jennihul]

There are things that are inherently judged as bad and good. It's a judgement by a mind, or a society or a conglomeration of human experience...

But events and actions, in and of themselves, are not bad or good. How many people have you heard, like Lance Armstrong, who have said that their cancer was the best thing that ever happened to them, and not only that, given a change to have their lives over would have chosen the same path?

That someone's devistating divorce was the catalyst that led them to discover their true purpose in life?

That a child's untimely death inspired someone, or a group, to take steps to prevent that from every happening again to another child?

I believe that everything happens for a reason, for a greater purpose. I have learned not to judge things as good or bad. In the scheme of things, there is only knowledge, education and experience, all hopefully leading to the elevation of humanity to our next evolutionary level. Even Hitler. Even nuclear weapons. Even sex offenders. Even devistating wars and natural disasters.

I also believe that souls are made up of an eternal energy that gets to choose the kind of life they will lead in their next incarnation on Earth. So someone that picks an easy life, where their heroic meteoric rise to fame and/or fortune and/or glory seems laid out for them, is really no hero.

The heroes in Earth are the souls that accept harsh and horrible lives, for our benefit. For our greater good. For the lessons they patiently teach us about ourselves and our species and our role on this plane. They that choose to be abusers, the abused, the ill, the crippled, the outcasts, the Hitlers, the tyrants, the war mongerers. Sounds counter-intuitive but it's really not. Souls are all here to teach either themselves or humanity lessons that should lead us all to a higher level of consciousness and an eventual return to universal perfection.

It's we-- humanity-- that repeatedly refuses to learn these lessons and therefore makes the need for monster incarnations to exist. We are the bad people. All we have to do is evolve. Not so hard, right?

Jennifer

[wolfgang]

duality is a construct of the mind and ego. We have defined everything as separate stand alone parts when really everything is one. The defining ego does this to make a preference in the construct of separating and thinking you can take just the good and not the bad. It's certainly a judgment of the ego. Supposedly an illusion too - the illusion is that we think good can stand alone but it doesn't. Same with up and down.

Is bad good because of this? No, it's part of what the ego is doing to define duality and it prefers the good.

[Restrikted]

Kind of going off of what Jennihul said, there is no such thing as good or bad, only perspective. Something is considered "good" when their perspective is in line with the general social perspective (like helping the homeless), and something is considered "bad" when their perspective conflicts with the social perspective (like robbing a bank). It's just a matter of who's eyes your looking through on a particular matter.

[Anagogy]

That which you have deemed negative to experience, enriches that which you have deemed positive to experience.

When does food taste the best? When you're starving. When is a cold glass of water the most refreshing? When you are dreadfully thirsty. When does warmth feel the best? When you are freezing cold. When is freedom the most satisfying and the most appreciated? When you've been imprisoned.

The Creator's perfection is maintained and enriched by the dual nature of reality. The illusion of lack, makes the reality of Absolute Actuality even better by providing the possibility for "relief". You couldn't experience relief if tension could not be created. You couldn't experience the joy of illumination and learning if you were incapable of ignorance.

So while some things are positive to experience, and some things negative to experience, the positive things alone are not as positive as the positive plus the negative. All things have a purpose.

[Erki]

Originally Posted by Anagogy

That which you have deemed negative to experience, enriches that which you have deemed positive to experience.

When does food taste the best? When you're starving. When is a cold glass of water the most refreshing? When you are dreadfully thirsty. When does warmth feel the best? When you are freezing cold. When is freedom the most satisfying and the most appreciated? When you've been imprisoned.

For me, personally, food does not taste the best when I'm starving. When I'm very hungry, I don't think about the taste, all I want is just to eat and not be hungry any more. For me, food tastes the best when I'm maybe just slightly hungry, when I'm comfortable enough to savour the food. Quite the same with water, too, although on a bit smaller scale. Warmth feels effing hot when I'm frozen. Aah.


The thing is, perhaps that which we currently classify as negative, is not bad at all. Just part of life's variety -- something we shouldn't resist? Perhaps negative ain't bad after all.

[Anagogy]

Originally Posted by Erki

The thing is, perhaps that which we currently classify as negative, is not bad at all. Just part of life's variety -- something we shouldn't resist? Perhaps negative ain't bad after all.

I didn't mean to imply that "negative" meant "bad" or "evil". All I meant to point out was the binary nature of reality -- how opposites highlight and compliment each other. What is "good" or "bad" is certainly a subjective issue delineated by any given individual. Sunshine is only preferable to Rain when someone has a belief or association which places something undesirable in the experience of rain, and a belief or association which places something desirable in the experience of sunshine. Both are just weather phenomena, and both are valid experiences.

It is our belief system and perspective which make something feel negative or positive. There is a state of mind where everything is just experience and pain feels just as "good" as pleasure. Not that the sensation of pain is gone, but the attatchment to its "negativity" is. For example, physical pain is just a signal letting you know that something deconstructive is happening to your body. The subjective experience of negativity in any form, however, indicates action is occuring that is entropic to intent. Resistance, in other words.

[Groundless]

Well, bad isn't good, good isn't bad, everything just is.

We just are.

I am.

Try for a moment to judge nothing, be neutral. Walk around and look and people being aware of your thoughts, try not to judge at all. Better yet, can you look in a full length mirror with no positive or negative feeling?

Everything is perfectly perfet, everything is as it should be, it is as it is.

[cordis]

An analogy might go something like this!

In this three dimensional world we live in try looking at everything a you would a coin.

For it to be a coin it needs a head (good) and a tail (bad) side and of course then there is the knurled edge which gives it depth.

Neither side has any other quality apart for being "A Part" of the whole and the difference is only experienced after you look at or touch both sides.

When you only see one side it's called perspective, or a limited view.

[ZHereford]

Hey Erki!

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." William Shakespeare (Hamlet)


You have to ask yourself - Is fire good or bad? How about water?

It all depends! You could burn to death, or drown, yet fire and water are necessary. It all boils down (pardon the pun) to the effect it has on you.

[danas]

According to ancient languages, the real meaning of Bad comes from "Self Desire"
If you look at it that way it is not judgemental, its just saying basicly that being totally selfish is "bad".
but is that always "bad"? not neccecarily. People later decided this was something negative, and thus "bad" became a negative word.

[wolfgang]

Have you ever thought about the duality of light/dark. You need the dark to be able to say, this it light. But the thing is dark isn't anything but absence of light. Light makes dark go away, but dark does not make light go away.

Maybe this is how major dualities are with one side being light and desirable.

Pain and suffering is unconsciousness (absence of light) and is bad or undesirable and not needed in the sense of no need to experience it. Peace and joy is consciousness (light) and shines away pain and suffering.

[Frans]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

Pain and suffering is unconsciousness (absence of light) and is bad or undesirable and not needed in the sense of no need to experience it.

Can you explain how you can truly experience joy and pleasure if you never didn't have experienced the opposite (pain and suffering)?

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Frans

Can you explain how you can truly experience joy and pleasure if you never didn't have experienced the opposite (pain and suffering)?

Are you saying in order to have joy, one must experience pain first hand? Maybe you are right - maybe the issue is that everyone on earth already has pain, there's no avoiding it. All I'm saying is pain is not something that must be experienced - we shouldn't be seeking pain out just so we know what joy is. Pain comes easily - as easy as being unconscious. When we don't keep our awareness alive, we get pain, our habits run our lives and life doesn't have,well, life to it - we are asleep and maybe have fleeting happiness but mostly running by habits causes suffering or apathy and indifference.

It's probably enough to have sympathy or empathy for pain in the world. I'm not sure how much actual pain in one's own life is needed to be able to have joy. Joy is a natural state. I think it's possible to find joy regardless of what ever pain or not one has in life. Pain may be there as a seed or something that you know is possible to slip into, but one doesn't have to slip into that. It's like the light and dark thing. You know of dark, but you don't have to sit in the dark some to be in the light. Being in the light makes the dark go away. Being in joy, makes the pain go away - or being conscious makes the unconscious/habitual/redundant you go away.

[NightMyst3]

good posts...got me thinking lol.

[Trezker]

/me brings random ramblings...

Inspired by Terry Pratchett who in his universe claims that everything has an opposite. One example being that Drunk is the ordinary direction of intoxication and sober is simply the absense of intoxication, in the order direction lies being knurd which is the opposite of being drunk and a very very bad experience induced especially by a certain type of coffee.

I'd like to claim that being good is simply the natural state where you are not aligned while evil is when you're actively trying to impose harm on people or whatever you consider evil. What do you think lies in the other direction?

[NightMyst3]

"bad is good" in that it allows the equation of 1 +1 = 2. It is "good" to be able to create the equation, no?

[Jonathan Mead]

All of these statements are true:

Good is bad, bad is good. Good isn't bad, bad isn't good.

The is because, as others have said, duality is due to an association we've assigned to relationships.

I think the supreme "goodness" is the experience of creation. We want <i>it</i>, we want the goodness. That is why we polarize things, in order to experience creation, in order to experience difference.

[wolfgang]

I start to feel that there are duality things and also oneness. Some dualities have two sides, like say, happy/sad where one of those sides is preferable. Then the trick is to recognize that there is a correspondence of that preferable side in oneness - that is similar in some feelings but not as flippy or able to turn to the other side. In other words, happy and sad will flip and you can't stay happy - however there is joy in oneness that is kind of like happy but isn't subjected to having a possibility to flip to any side of a duality. So in a sense there is good/bad in duality but there is Good in oneness. And that good and Good are similar but very different. Now, if that makes any sense to anybody! I hope they could clear that up or restate how they would put it.

[Jonathan Mead]

I think I know what you're trying to say wolfgang. You are saying there is duality in experiences. Happy/sad are dualities. They are polarities. One of these sides is preferrable. This is true, but it's not in the preference of duality itself. In other words, it's not duality that gives rise to this creation.

There is also goodness in oneness, as you said and this is a different good than the good in duality. Definitely different. The difference is in the realization that duality is not a property of reality itself. Reality is not duality, is not good or bad, because reality is not a concept. Duality is a product of a frustration of the mind. It is the mind trying to measure the infinite, which only causes frustration. The feeling of oneness is good. But what we describe as good, or what we think of good is not the same as the feeling. It's just a symbol, we confuse the map for the territory.

[supertom]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

I start to feel that there are duality things and also oneness. Some dualities have two sides, like say, happy/sad where one of those sides is preferable. Then the trick is to recognize that there is a correspondence of that preferable side in oneness - that is similar in some feelings but not as flippy or able to turn to the other side. In other words, happy and sad will flip and you can't stay happy - however there is joy in oneness that is kind of like happy but isn't subjected to having a possibility to flip to any side of a duality. So in a sense there is good/bad in duality but there is Good in oneness. And that good and Good are similar but very different. Now, if that makes any sense to anybody! I hope they could clear that up or restate how they would put it.

yeah I know what you mean its the "higher good" eckhart tolle has a chapter on it in the power of now

[m18pak]

Bad is not the opposite of good, and is not needed in order for good to exist. You are thinking this way because you are looking at it through the duality perspective of the ego.

[JimOfferman]

I think that good and bad are opposite directions and that it is all relative. There are no absolutes.

Blowing a passenger plane out of the sky is very bad, right? But what about blowing a single passenger plane out of the sky to prevent it from crashing into a skyscraper and laying half a city in ruin? Suddenly the guy doing it is somewhat of a hero...

Is saving someone's life good if that person ends up taking the lives of others? What if the others were attempting to take your life? Is it good of you to prevent others from taking your life? Maybe you are a really bad person?

If only this was black and white easy!

[vimoh]

I think bad is good in as much as it reminds us of how important good is actually. The universe is defined by fluctuations. Good can not exist without bad. Bad is important to keep good in focus.

Of course, this is an observer's perspective.

For those who actually do things, bad doesn't exist. People who appear bad to us think they are doing good.

Those who think they are doing bad are always marred with guilt (which is good or bad?).

Gaahhh!!

[Ponce]

I all depends what "good" or "bad" means to you , in order for one to exist there must be the other in order to compared one to the other.

[Spartan]

Bad isn't needed for good to exist. Something is good independent of whether anything is bad. They are merely two adjectives.

[vimoh]

Originally Posted by Spartan

Bad isn't needed for good to exist. Something is good independent of whether anything is bad. They are merely two adjectives.

My point is the same. You put it differently. Say for example... being kind to people is good. If everyone was kind to everyone else, it would be the 'way of the world' and no adjective would be needed to distinguish it from selfish or unkind behaviour.

It is only because people are bad to others that we say being good is good. Similarly, compared to good, bad is bad.