[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

Can anyone help me with the ideas that suffering and the world are illusions? There are no such things as Good and Evil? I want to understand. I have been reading "The Third Jesus" by Deepak Chopra, and I feel like he is speaking a foreign language. I was discussing my difficulties with my family, and my 12 year old said, "Well, if one of my friends gets a little cut, he makes a really big deal of it, but I just go on with my life, so maybe suffering is an illusion." Does he have the right idea? Is it really that we can choose what to make of our suffering (with God's help).

Jesus said to be in the world, but not of it. Is that what is meant by the world being an illusion - that it doesn't offer things of eternal value in many cases?

If there is no such thing as Good and Evil, where does murder fit, for example?

So much misunderstanding is language-related. God is too big to describe perfectly with words!

Thanks for any help! I really am seeking to understand...

[billmc]

AllInTheNameOfProgress, on Aug 15 2008, 07:27 PM, said:

Can anyone help me with the ideas that suffering and the world are illusions? There are no such things as Good and Evil? I want to understand. I have been reading "The Third Jesus" by Deepak Chopra, and I feel like he is speaking a foreign language. I was discussing my difficulties with my family, and my 12 year old said, "Well, if one of my friends gets a little cut, he makes a really big deal of it, but I just go on with my life, so maybe suffering is an illusion." Does he have the right idea? Is it really that we can choose what to make of our suffering (with God's help).

Jesus said to be in the world, but not of it. Is that what is meant by the world being an illusion - that it doesn't offer things of eternal value in many cases?

If there is no such thing as Good and Evil, where does murder fit, for example?

So much misunderstanding is language-related. God is too big to describe perfectly with words!

Thanks for any help! I really am seeking to understand...

I haven't read anything by Deepak Chopra, AITNOP, so my opinion is mainly one of ignorance. But I do believe in a real reality, real suffering, real evil, and real good. Is it possible that our existence is just some high-level mind-game in the psyche of some deity somewhere? Possible...but, IMO, unlikely. I don't think we exist in a "matrix" world where all that we see is illusion imposed upon us by some outside mind or system. I believe our world is quite real.

BTW, the "world" that Jesus mentioned not to be part of is not a reference to this planet, the Earth. It is a reference to "the system" by which culture operates. The "world" of Jesus' day was one of domination and exploitation. Rome had conquered Israel and was milking it for it's resources. Jesus was saying that his followers were not to be part of that domination system, where the poor and the weak were taken advantage of for the sake of the benefit of the rich and the strong.

Domination systems (subjugation, slavery, exclusion) always lead to injustice -- to human suffering. When we don't love one another as we should, the result is always suffering in some form, whether it be to ourselves, those around us, or to our environment.

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

Thank you. I'll have to see how my Deepak Chopra fan friend explains it Friday morning when we meet for coffee.

[JosephM]

AllInTheNameOfProgress, on Aug 15 2008, 08:27 PM, said:

Can anyone help me with the ideas that suffering and the world are illusions? There are no such things as Good and Evil? I want to understand. I have been reading "The Third Jesus" by Deepak Chopra, and I feel like he is speaking a foreign language. I was discussing my difficulties with my family, and my 12 year old said, "Well, if one of my friends gets a little cut, he makes a really big deal of it, but I just go on with my life, so maybe suffering is an illusion." Does he have the right idea? Is it really that we can choose what to make of our suffering (with God's help).

Jesus said to be in the world, but not of it. Is that what is meant by the world being an illusion - that it doesn't offer things of eternal value in many cases?

If there is no such thing as Good and Evil, where does murder fit, for example?

So much misunderstanding is language-related. God is too big to describe perfectly with words!

Thanks for any help! I really am seeking to understand...

Hi AITNOP,

Did you have that meeting with your friend yet?

I am not aware of the author or the book you mention but It seems to me I have an understanding of where someone who says that would be coming from. They have no doubt examined the workings of the mind and found that the terms 'Good' and ''Evil' are highly subjective terms that have changed with times, cultures, and the whims of society and leaders and for the most part depends on the perspective you are looking from. In fact they are meaningless terms without some sort of societal definitions because they are merely arbitrary points along a continuum.

Our mind makes opposites of them just like 'hot and 'cold' yet there is no such thing as 'cold' except as subjectively used for a language convenience. There are only degrees of 'heat' because heat exists and cold does not. Cold is merely a relative term used to denote a low level of heat.

Perhaps this short writing I did under a pen name will explain it better...

http://home.fuse.net...0and%20Evil.htm

Joseph

[soma]

Greetings, Salutations to the divinity within you. Here is my attempt to answer a great question.

All there is, is God, otherwise there is no God. If there is anything that exists which is not God, then there is no God; therefore, God is the source of all things that means evil as well as good. All things and circumstances are generated out of God, the power of the universe (God the Father). The individual minds in God create what we call evil. The root of this evil is not seeing the unifying force, withholding love and condemning others. The opposite is love, a magnet that attracts and unites the best of everything in a greater and greater good. We do not create this expanding wholeness because it is a divine idea, but we can become aware of this divine Reality that has existed since before the beginning of time by opening up and accepting it, when it creates a wonderful new good in our lives.

As we perceive God's pure consciousness pervading all things, we understand more clearly that God has absolute control over all creation, and that each individual is already one with God, inseparable from Him. People are not aware of this because they are immersed in creation and the idea of materiality. We are deceived into thinking that disease (not being at ease, dis-ease) is real, and that the devil and sin are everywhere. Until a higher view is cultivated through prayer and purification of thought, it will certainly appear that the devil can control our lives, but this is a false and temporary view because under God there can’t be a broken harmony in creation.

When our souls are enlightened with God's pure consciousness, we don’t attempt to control others by condemning them or manipulating them with the devil because we understand that it is through love that God governs everybody and all of creation. The personal desire to control others comes by mistakenly believing that man is evil and indicates a distrust of God’s ability to govern His own creation. If we worship God by basing our thoughts and our actions on Him who is the strongest force, then the devil has no power. When we see God as one, it will have a beneficial influence upon our minds, our bodies and all of creation because we will be moved to great clarity and good actions. We will become a clear-seeing soul, when we refuse to tolerate evil.

I feel Jesus is trying to teach us this and we learn this by experiencing God within and then fluctuating back out to materialism. The contrast teaches us and guides us to heaven. Heaven on earth is possible. It is like those 3d stereograms where one can see the 3d picture within a picture sometimes if crossed eyed, but most of the time the mind is caught in the physical image and not the spiritual. Thanks for the question.

[AllInTheNameOfProgress]

Wow, Joseph and Soma!! THANKS for the food for thought. Both your responses have helped immensely.

My friend who recommended the book didn't even remember that part of the book, so she had no answers for me.

Sometimes I think I think too much!
Janet