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Kriya Yoga/Advaita Vedanta
healing. I think humor is also very typical of—and, extending it now beyond the guru or swami designation—all humans of good will.
L.M.: Still I am led to think: Well, how much humor would I have if I had been one of the Jewish, or gay, or handicapped people on their way to Auschwitz—and, what about the slavery and inequality African-Americans have experienced—or what if I lived in Northern Ireland, or Bosnia, or Kosovo; or some other dangerous place? The list goes on. In short, why is there evil in the world? We can't just ignore that it exists, while we're on the spiritual journey.
S. SHANK: I don't dismiss that aspect of life. Though I see the totality of life, and I am mindful of both aspects of life. You refer to the condition of those in bondage, and any segment of society, or any individual, that suffers persecution. It's not that I stand-by and laugh, or find that funny at all. That moves me to compassion, that moves me to reflection. And that moves me to asking of my inner self to let me, or show me, how to be an instrument of healing to that individual, or persecuted group. It is true what the preacher Ecclesiastes says: that there is a season for everything. “A time to weep and time to laugh, a time to be born and a time to die”—he goes on in that vein. For me, that is the balance, the recognition, that pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, loss and gain, that victory and defeat, faith and doubt, and hope and despair—all coexist. What we perceive as good and evil are really, as Buddha puts it, interrelative concepts; they are interrelated. Good and evil are both concepts that the human mind has conjured up.
L.M.: With disastrous consequences, at least on the physical, phenomenal level.
S. SHANK: We are giving power to certain phenomena that are neither good or bad in themselves. One brief example that we can certainly relate to is war. You mentioned Northern Ireland. I was traveling in the Irish republic and was advised not to go to the north. There were still skirmishes and attacks going on with shooting in the streets, and innocent little children and women had been killed. Now there is a history to that conflict. But these conflicts are not confined to Ireland. They have been repeated throughout history and in every country. So unless we gain a clear understanding of good and evil, we will
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