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Good and Evil

Our Tendency to Commit Evil

October 26, 2021

Human beings are not intrinsically evil, but there's also a tendency in us to create suffering through our greed, anger, ignorance, and moral lapses. To free ourselves of suffering, the Lord Gautama Buddha offered us his Noble Eightfold Path, namely, right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

Real Happiness

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – June 21, 2021

Sri Mata says: “Real happiness in life comes from the mental capacity to adapt to any situation." So with science. It's how we learn to adapt to our environment, like Covid-19, that we best survive. Sadly, this is also true with corruption and evil. Many are just so inured that they also learn how to become evil. As always, the world remains the same, "the axis of evil".

Let's have a series of thought experiment...

Learning to comply with vaccinations, medical protocols, and border requirements will ensure us safe of coronavirus. But you're free to do so or not. Whatever your decision is, observe yourself daily.

Any changes in your bodily, mental, and spiritual constitution? Are the changes for better or worse? Then, realign yourself. This is environmental adaptation par excellence.

How about non-Covid-19 situations?

Let's Reflect on this in Solitude and Silence ...

Adaptation to our surrounding means aligning with ever changing conditions. Life is a stream, endlessly creating and annihilating as well as constructing and demolishing patterns and norms of behavior. Life is going with the flow.

A statement of fact: The world is an axis of good and evil, mostly evil though. How we go about balancing these two inevitable cosmic elements is a world-wide challenge.

Yet, we can easily transcend both good and evil. The problem is that we are already entangled with either or both of them. Worse, we allow ourselves to be entangled by them, magnetized by their glamour and seduction or beguiled by their whimsical and devilish intentions.

What a confusing yet awesome world. Because if we're unable to adapt to it, we can always escape from its deadly pangs by going out of its box, without necessarily leaving half of ourselves inside the same box. What we may see as dangers inside, we see from the outside vantage point of view diverse possibilities of how to resolve it avoid them.

True evil people destroy the lives of many other innocent living beings (humans, animals of all kinds and plants). I have first hand experience of this. Nothing stops them.

What on earth will happen to such evil beings in future?

Which is better, unity or disunity?

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – June 18, 2021

If we assume that unity and disunity are opposites, then, my answer is both. We need both to establish order and harmony. This is what happened the moment after creation.

After so much chaos and confusion, disunity and unity, creation and annihilation, construction and deconstruction after the Big Bang, there emerged perfect harmony, peace, and union, manifested in the awesome structures in the heavens above, looking like splintered milk but adorned with colorful solar systems and galaxies that dance to the music played by an Invisible Pied Piper.

That was after billion years of chaos, bombardments of meteorites, volcanic eruptions, tsunàmis, nuclear explosions, unity, multiplicity, division, and diversity. We will establish a New World and New Earth as awesome and grandiose as creation amidst the ruins and destructions, actions and reactions, life and death caused by the pandemics.

We can apply Hegel's concept of dialectics as well as Marx and Engels dialectical materialism, namely: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Synthesis is the dissolution of thesis and antithesis and is supposed to be a betterment and an improvement of the opposites.

But the problem is that the better tomorrow promised by Marx in his Communist Manifesto remains elusive to this day. And I wonder if it will really come for the next millennia.

The other alternative is to consider the two elements not as opposites, but as complementary to each other. Cooperation rather than competition. Teamwork rather than rugged individualism. Interdependence rather than reductionist independence.

From this perspective, we can have unity and disunity, creation and annihilation, construction and deconstruction. It does not matter. But we need an acceptable and workable model for this.

But this is something that today's world ideologies cannot offer. Divide-and-rule remains the rule. It's today's game of life. The rich aren't too comfortable for us--weak and poor--uniting with each other and rising up against them. It could be too much chaos and confusion.

I think the only remaining way for us to do this is to offer an alternative model that would not dissolve the thesis-antithesis of Karl Marx, but rather include them in the entire cosmic landscape on which the foundation of the New World and New Earth would be established.

We have the resources, talents, and skills to do this. It's only a matter of starting it. We just have to lay down some ground rules first on how we can work together harmoniously.

General Ground Rules: Points for Discussion

Democracy as the Overall Architectural Model. This means democratic participation by the people in the following:

(1) All fields of societal endeavors, be it political, economic, social, cultural, religious, or ecological;

(2) All processes of decision-making from project ideation, project formulation, project implementation, project monitoring, and project evaluation;

(3) All levels of society from the national down to the village leve.

Specific Program Areas of Democratic Participation

Only titles of subheadings are given here, namely:

(1) Political Democracy

(2) Economic Democracy

(3) Social Democracy

(4) Cultural Democracy

(5) Religious Freedom and Democracy

(6) Ecological Democracy

(7) Foreign Affairs

Then, let's test-pilot this in a small village, the poorest of the poor community. Or, one can fast track this and be more ambitious, by applying it to a country.

The Challenge:

Nobody is interested. Nobody cares.

Nevertheless, I prepared a blueprint laying down everything to the last detail, ready for implementation anytime. Even the cost of the project codenamed ALGAE is ready for a closed-door review by the Project Sponsor. Pledges submitted. Keep them coming. Let's go global this time.

The Lord Creates Both Evil and Peace

Paul J. Dejillas, Ph.D. – June 16, 2021

The potentiality to create evil is in all of us. As the Lord says: "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things" (Isaiah 45:7). But evil can only penetrate us if we entertain it in our mind. If we do so, then, we really become evil and curse are we before the Lord. Evil has no existence of its own. It exists only in the mind. Think of no evil and there can be no evil. Simple but challenging.

If we subscribe to the above views, then, it follows that there's no devil personified by Satan or the fallen angel Lucifer. These are man-made interpretations handed down to us from the external world by I don't know who now.

If the other person causes or tempts you to commit evil, then, he or she is the devil, the demon, the Satan, the Lucifer personified. Just smile because we know that he or she is not. He or she might not only be aware of what it's doing.

Only let the temptation pass your mind just as the clouds pass and go to nowhere to be seen no more. For the moment you allow the devilish temptation to occupy a space in your mind, even for just a minute, it will produce offspring and legions of them at the speed of light. Then, you'll be congregated by clouds of darkness, ganging you up to join their legion.

These evil thoughts pressure you to commit evil acts, again and again and again, ad infinitum. Then, you become addicted to evil deeds, without you ever realizing it. And evil deeds multiply in several strains, deadlier and more powerful than the original. You are then possessed by not only one but a herd of evil that can weaken and deaden all your immune systems instantly.

Don't rely on others to exorcise you. They can help, but it's only you who can exorcise yourself by immediately shoving evil thoughts cold turkey, declaring a cease and desist order never again to go near you within a distance of one or so kilometer radius.

Besides, it's a challenge to look for somebody out there who have not succumbed to evil thoughts and ways. Anyway, as they say, even dirty brooms can clean a house. But why use these antiquated brooms when there are light-speed vacuum cleaners that can be tapped as blowers. That blower is you.

You can be the possessed, the victim (unwilling perhaps), but you're also the exorcist.

What is Evil? According to Philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, there are three forms of evil in the world: moral, physical, and metaphysical.

Catholics have their elaborate definition of what constitutes evil. So with other religious denominations and indigenous beliefs around the world. Even atheists, scientists, theologians, and poets have their own understanding too.

It will take us years or a lifetime to study all of them and come up with a common denominator of what is really meant by evil.

I'd rather establish my own definition based on my knowledge and experience. If others think my definition of evil is also evil, then, the evil is in their mind, not in me.

If you have your own definition of what evil is, then, stick to it and never mind others. Have faith. Trust yourself. Believe in your Self.

And keep your definition of evil to yourself, least you might sow evil in other people's minds.

The Art and Science of Corruption

March 4, 2021

"My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back, I see a pattern." ~ Benoît B. Mandelbrot

Yes, I see a pattern outside my own little world, and the pattern is reflected in our society, especially in the areas of corruption and morality. Let me dwell on this issue in detail.

The economic elite and government officials work together. Politicians appoint committees that allocate projects that maybe related to infrastructure, irrigation dams, electrification, education, health, military, etc., promising that they will donate their salaries or pork barrel to a non-governmental organization (NGO).

They over bill these projects and give back some of the budget to the politicians and the NGO. All must support and vote for the project. It’s not a question of affiliation. Political affiliations, ideological platforms, religious considerations (with a few exceptions) are the least of the problem.

There's no left, center, or right political spectrum. For they can all be bought. Those who don’t dance with the music are expelled, intimidated, or bribed. They will ultimately toe the line. For they are all scumbags. No scumbag betrays another scumbag. They profit from each other and money rules.

Whoever is in charge must keep the wheel turning. It’s a pattern. And it is this well-oiled machinery that has elected every single president. We didn’t elect our president and leaders; the machinery does. We were being manipulated by them. It's a necessary consequence of their unending story to subjugate us.

It’s a self-perpetuating system and the mechanism is in everything. Parking attendants fake IDs to get into places, cheat parking meters, bribing the police officers who are at the same time protecting them.

The mechanism is insured; there is check and balance. Parking attendants are imposed quotas to appease higher police officers. Everybody wins and the perks of corruption increase over time at the expense of the citizenry.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The pattern of corruption is in the system and mechanism. No matter who the leaders are, what the political party is reigning, what ideology and belief is dominant, they all are bullet-proof. Nobody dares even mention their names.

And what can they do break this culture of corruption? Nothing. No politician can convict a fellow politician. No CEO of a corporate bank is able to stand as witness against a politician accused of vote buying, embezzlement, and racketeering.

The few economic elite bankers have the politicians in their pockets. Besides they can always invoke the bank secrecy law, which has the same status as the seal of confession in the Catholic Church. And this wheel of misfortune, exploitation, and injustices keeps on turning on indefinitely.

But the mechanism has no soul. The poor only struggle to survive, while the rich are laughing at them, intent of keeping them ignorant of what is really happening around. They grind them to their barest essence, extracting whatever juicy substances left in them.

The court of last resort is no help either. What if the Supreme Court is politicized? What if majority of the justices are presidential appointees? What if the prosecutor general is as crook as they are?

Can we go to the police, the enforcer of justice and have them arrested and put to jail, but only to post bail in a matter of seconds? They’re all the same. They conspire and are in cahoots with each other.

But is not the President the highest ruler of the land, the Chief Executive of the Armed Forces, Chief Executive of the Military, Chief Executive of the Navy, Chief Executive of Police and all are under him or her?

If we give up or simply remain silent, our leaders will bring us down. Let’s relentlessly put pressure on them until somebody spills the beans. How? By exposing everything. By invoking transparency.

Let’s keep on expressing our views. After all, we are living in a democracy and freedom of speech is one of its most fundamental form of expression. If projects are not good for the majority, they’re no good. They must be exposed.

And corruption is getting out of hand. Corruption happening in one country don't just stay there. They get exported immediately into other countries and the effect can be far more deadly and devastating than the cause.

Corruption has become worse than the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic can be eventually cured and prevented. Corruption can't. It has been with us through the ages. It has become systemic, a global pandemic.

It runs through the entire gamut of our political, religious, and NGO operations from the national level down to the county, regional, provincial, city, town, and village levels as well as in every processes of decision-making and project implementation.

I have this sinking feeling that this pattern of corruption going on in our society will get worse before it gets arrested, if at all.

Good luck to all of us.

The Tree of Good and Evil

July 19, 2016

In the Sumerian account, there were four trees in the Garden of Eden, namely: Life or Immortality; Good and Evil; Justice; and Peace. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit (apple) of the Tree of Good and Evil, the Gods said: “The man has now become like one of us, making himself judge of good and evil. Let him not stretch out his hand to take and eat from the Tree of Life as well, and living forever (Gen. 3:22). For eating the fruits of the Tree of Life would make Adam and Eve (humanity) immortal.