2009-12-15 10:08:00
Audience: "Audience: Well, from my observation, good is able to grow from evil in many cases, and I have a personal observation that I could offer here to help illustrate that. I used to drive my kids to an outlying town for music lessons. It took about 30 minutes to get there and we would take a back road that drove past a landfill. Then right next to the landfill area was an operation that produced compost, and we always hated passing that because of the stench. It really had a horrible smell, this composting factory. It had giant piles in various states of disintegration, and the hugest piles were, like, the wreckage of trees and there were wooden pallets and all kinds of jagged, huge things piled up in these piles. The next pile would be a little more broken down and it had all these piles that would descend to this point where it was -- actually, the smelliest was when it was broken down into the smallest pile. It was this deep, dark, rich compost that really stunk. It all came from this great wreckage. And I thought about how we hated the smell of that compost, and I thought in my mind, 'Well, what's a contrasting smell?' And I thought of roses. Then it hit me that from this great and horrible wreckage and all of this stink, people put it in the ground and they grow roses and they smell wonderful. The best smell I can think of is that of a rose."
JJ: Matter of fact, creation could not take place without both good and evil, without both positive and negative. They both have to be there, but what we want is for the progression to dominate. Within the atom itself you have the negative electrons balanced off by the dominating positive force of the protons in the middle of the atom. The protons dominate, we know, because they hold the electrons within their orbit. The electrons do not hold the protons, but it's the protons that hold the electrons in their orbit. But without both of them interplaying, there is no atom at all. Without the interplay of the manure and the sunshine and everything, you don't have the roses. But with the interplay of the positive and negative forces, you have the roses -- which is the dominating good -- prevailing there. Then the roses crumble and they don't smell so good after a while, but then more roses come up later. So because the roses always come up eventually, it is a symbol of the good dominating.
Audience: "There are two points I would like to bring out here. One is, what I notice is that a lot of the so-called evil is being reflected when they are sowing disunity and division. They are not looking at the overall situation. And the other thing that I would like to bring out here is that we should be very careful about good and evil because that was used during the Crusades and religious wars. When they are in the ego mind, you have these two pointing at each other as evil and both of them are supposed to be good."
JJ: Okay. That's a good point. So in other words, what he's pointing out is that the Crusades was a fight over good and evil, but here they define good as, "If you're not on my side, you're evil. If you're on my side, you're good." That's not the definition. The question is, is your side moving forward in evolution or not? And if it is moving forward in evolution, then it's a step backward to try to force somebody else to move forward with you, because that doesn't work either.
Audience: "You gave us intelligence as a seed thought for understanding the reason good dominates, but here we know that intelligence is applied for both sides. As I see it."
JJ: But see, intelligence learns from its mistakes. And because of that....
Audience: "It has to be together with intention, because if your intention is to evolve and be better and towards good for the whole."
JJ: But see, even the people on the dark side think they're on the right side. When you have two people fighting a war, generally both of them think their side is the dominating good, but one side will always be the one that moves forward. We look at World War II, and on hindsight it's really obvious that the Allies were the ones to move forward and Hitler was moving backwards. But when the people were back there living in that time just before World War 2, a lot of people couldn't see it. A lot of people thought that Hitler was a pretty nice guy -- even Joseph Kennedy, John Kennedy's dad. He thought Hitler was somebody we could work with. He thought he was a misunderstood character. Quite as few people thought this way. They can't see the picture of what's good and evil -- what moves us forward and what's backward -- until everything is over. Especially with war, because wars bring out such impassioned emotion in people that people can't see the forest for the trees.
Now, Isaiah makes an interesting statement. He says, "People take good for evil and evil for good, light for darkness and darkness for light. There are none that doeth good, no, not one." Isaiah was complaining about the people in his age. The people see good and they call it evil; they see evil and they call it good. They see light and they call it darkness and vice versa. Poor old Isaiah was going around teaching and he couldn't find one person who could recognize the difference between good and evil. But in this regard, what does the scripture say on that? It says, "When you partake of the knowledge of the Tree of Good and Evil, you shall be as gods, for you shall have the power to discern good from evil." That's the power of God, to be able to discern what is evil and what is good. That's interesting when you think about it. In other words, the difference between a regular guy and a person who is manifesting the God within is the ability to discern what moves us forward and what doesn't.
Now, what intelligence does is, even when it makes the bad choices that pull us backward, it eventually learns -- the guy eventually learns that it's wrong, that it just doesn't work. Then he discards that and makes another choice, and that may take him backward too. But eventually, he makes a choice that pushes him forward. Leonardo da Vinci makes a stroke: "Ah! I finally got the smile the way I want." And he doesn't erase it this time; he keeps it. Now that he's got it the way he wants, he keeps it. This is another reason good dominates; when the good is discovered -- when that is discovered which moves us forward -- we keep it.
Audience: "What is good to one person is not good to another. It seems like perception -- it seems like an ego thing."
JJ: Now, you're talking about likes and dislikes there. See, what you like is not necessarily good. What you dislike is not necessarily evil. Likes and dislikes vary, but what is forward in progression is fairly absolute. If you move forward in spirit, your vibration will increase. That's an absolute.
Audience: "But it's not always pleasant to do that. You personality doesn't always like it."
JJ: Right. Your personality will rebel against it. But when your vibration towards spirit increases -- this is like measuring something scientifically. If something gets hotter, the speed of the vibration of the molecules increases. So if something is getting hotter, it can be absolutely measured. If something gets colder, it can be absolutely measured. As we progress toward spirit, our spiritual vibration gets stronger, and that's an absolute. A lot of people say there are no absolutes, but there are absolutes. But as far as likes and dislikes, there are no absolutes there. Some people like to be whipped. (laughter) Handcuffed to the bed and taken advantage of when they're making love. That type of thing, you know. People like all kinds of weird stuff.
Audience: Laughter.
Audience: "I just heard all this laughter coming through the back and I wanted to find out where it was coming from."
JJ: That's because Bryan got whipped last night.
Audience: Laughter.
Bryan: I was only trying to receive her love."
Audience: Laughter. Inaudible reply and more laughter.
Audience: "Bryan, show me your back."
Audience: Laughter.
Wayne: "The statement that there are no absolutes is, in itself, an absolute statement."
JJ: Yeah. That's a good point, Wayne.
Audience: "What is good and evil is not subjective. It's not what you feel. What is good and evil is an objective standard based on who and what you are. If you are a son of God, that identifies what you are. That says what is good and evil for you. It's purely objective."
JJ: Yeah.
Audience: "Under our discussion here of the difference between good and evil, then was God evil in telling Eve not to eat of the apple?"
JJ: Well, it depends on what his objective was. If his objective was, according to Mormon theology, that God knew she was going to eat of it anyway and that he had to give her that choice so that they could grow, so that they could move forward-- if it was something that did actually move them forward -- forward through falling, so to speak-- because you have to fall before you can rise up and appreciate being up.
Audience: "She's the one that made the choice. Adam kind of follows."
JJ: Yeah. Adam just went along, didn't want to lose his...
Audience: "Yes, dear" (laughter).
Audience: "You know what my grandson said when I had just explained the story of Adam and Eve, he got really angry and upset and he said, "Well, why didn't Adam just kill him? Get rid of him?" (referring to the serpent?)"
Audience: Laughter.
JJ: Okay, let's get back to our friend who wrote us this letter.
Audience: "That's exactly what I was thinking about. I think he is at a point where he's having trouble discerning light from dark, and then you don't exactly know which way you are really making progress. I think he wants to, but he is not sure if the way he -- there are so many contradictions and so many illusions that he's like what Isaiah says. He wants to be sure he is doing the right thing that is making progress. Now, I don't think he knows at this point."
JJ: Right. So it's interesting that a person progresses on the path of selfishness, which appears to be going backward, but he learns that selfishness is not the way, because when he is selfish, he keeps reaching dead end after dead end and not obtaining any lasting happiness from it. Because there is no lasting happiness and he reaches all the dead ends -- then he eventually turns around and says, "Well, what else is there? I've got to look another direction." Like Edison: "This didn't work and this didn't work. I've got to look another direction." Then he finds the direction that works, and no longer is he on the path of selfishness.
It's the same thing with every direction. We have to find out everything that doesn't work until we find out what does work. And then when we find what does work, our intelligence makes the decision "I'm going to stay with this now. I'm going to incorporate this into my philosophy." So he incorporates the good, and this causes good to dominate over evil in the long run.
Now, with our friend here, he seems somewhat depressed because, it sounds like, he's reached a couple dead ends. He's searching for knowledge, the meaning of existence, why he's here, if there's any purpose for being here, and he keeps reaching dead ends. What he needs to do is keep on keeping on, so to speak. If you realize that good always dominates over evil, then eventually progress will be made. Eventually you will find out what doesn't work, and then you will find out what does work and you will choose that because you are being interested in your self-interest. And because you are interested in what's good for you as well as everybody else, you will choose the good.
When you realize this, you will never get completely discouraged. You may get down a little bit, but you'll never get completely discouraged. If you incorporate into your philosophy that good dominates over evil and you have faith in that, you will always pick yourself up no matter how low you get and you'll move onward.
Everybody in their life reaches a low point now and then, but I've always personally believed in the dominance of good, and that has helped me to pick myself up many times and then just move forward. Because if you have faith that by moving forward you eventually are going to triumph, then the only thing to do is to get up and move forward to the best of your ability -- and follow what? (audience murmurs) Follow the highest you know. The highest you know may not be right, but if the highest you know isn't right, you will find out that it isn't right and then you will have a new highest you know, and it may be right this time. Sooner or later you will get to the one that's right. But follow the highest you know and don't have a guilty conscience about it if it turns out to not work. Just keep on with the highest you know and good will dominate.
Copyright © 2009 by J.J. Dewey, All Rights Reserved