Wisdom Roads

SR No.: 001810
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Lorrence G Muller
Publisher: Continumm New York
Publication Year: 2000
Total Pages: 188
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Religion, & Dhyan
File Size: 11 MB

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Swami SHANKARANANDA
continue to be emotionally biased. We must understand that good and evil are relative concepts—as seen from the Vedantic viewpoint. Vedanta says that good and evil exist so long as man believes in them. That which we call evil comes out of what hurts us. And that which gives us pleasure creates the concept of the good, or what is good. In the case of war, the people who attack us are described as the enemy, and being the enemy you are evil. Though in that scenario, in a war between two nations, who is not the enemy?
L.M.: There's always an enemy for each side.
S. SHANK: So both sides are at enmity with each other, and thus there is the idea of the enemy existing outside of us.
L.M.: What about the good life—and the good death? Meditation and the atmosphere of meditation we attempt to cultivate throughout the day will hopefully provide us with a clear understanding. And provide us with the chance to be partners with God in bringing the kingdom of heaven on earth. Then too we would study war no more.
S. SHANK: Meditation is very important, it is something that offers a cure or solution—that offers a tangible, viable, and powerful way for every human being to move beyond all relative concepts, such as good and evil. Now what all meditators have discovered through the ages is that they cannot get beyond the mind without meditation. This implies that there is something intrinsically wrong with the mind; that we have to overcome the mind to be at peace, or to be free. Not everyone, however, is in agreement with that perspective; and I am one of those people who isn't. That is because I recognize that the mind is like a mirror. So if you do not keep the mirror free of dust, what you perceive will be distorted.
L.M.: The mental mirror will be.
S. SHANK: When you accept your perceptions on the basis of this distorted image in the mirror as reality, you are left with judgment-one which is based on appearances, as perceived through a dusty lens. Our human experiences get interpreted in the fragmented and impure light of that dusty mirror. Man perceives the world with a dusty mirror. Saint Paul says in Corinthians:
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