Question6.com: We, The People are NOT HAPPY
14 - The Good and the bad
Our notion of Good and Bad may have to change
Have you ever heard of the Toxoplasma.gondii?
Humans, cats, and mice have a common bacteria called Toxoplasma.gondii, and these bacteria have a problem. The T. gondii in the mouse must infect a cat before it can reproduce. You could not make sex life more difficult. The bacteria have a solution. They make the mouse seduced by the smell of the cat. You may think that this is a dirty trick, but it works
Mother Nature may have a different opinion. Her goal is that everybody can find his place in the world. She sacrifices a few mice to create a place for the Toxoplasma gondii. If, someday, the mouse becomes an endangered species, the cats will go hungry. Mother Nature, in her infinite wisdom, will protect the mouse and restore the balance between cats, mice, and the T gondii. For the Toxoplasma. gondii is a lifesaver. For the cat, it is an easy source of food. We would not blame the mice for having mixed feelings about the whole thing.
Toxoplasma.gondii can also be found in humans. “Toxoplasma infection is classically associated with the frequency of schizophrenia, suicide attempts or “road rage". How can we be sure that the main reason the Homo sapiens survived 300 000 years is not that Nature kept a balance between us and our environment? We may have been the cause of the death of innocent animals, and some humans may have been sacrificed for the survival of some animal species.
We may have to reconsider what we call Good and Bad.
Some questions come to mind.
How can the T. gondii know that they need a cat to reproduce?
What do bacteria know about smell?
How can the tiny bacteria know what a cat is?
Can the Toxoplasma. gondii think?
Who decides what on planet earth?
Nature also keeps a balance between animals and plants.
The African koudous eat acacias. During a drought, they consume acacias to the point that the trees may not survive. Mother Nature’s solution is to make the acacias produce more tannin than the liver of the koudous can process. The plant kills the animal. The decision does not come from the acacias and their knowledge of the limits of the koudous’ liver. There must be a mastermind somewhere in the immaterial world controlling everything.
This is way above our head.
Could the life of human beings also be governed by something we can’t even imagine? The main decisions about life are not made at the human level. Our notions of good and bad may not always be applicable.
What happens when we grow up?
Something important happens when the child is 2 or 3 years old and starts saying “I”. He is now conscious of being a separate human being. He has an individual ego. He divides the world into two: What is inside his skin and what is outside. Before this separation, he was part of the world, and the world was in him. He is now going to spend the rest of his life trying to escape his isolation. His first love may give him the illusion that he can escape his solitude. That can make the first broken heart even more painful.
The "Bad" can help understand the ‘Good’.
When you break a cookie into pieces you get the pieces and the link between them. We focus on the pieces because they have a shape, a color, a taste. They belong to our material world. This is a known territory. We discard the links between the pieces.
How does science fit into the picture?
Science starts with analysis. It divides the world into little pieces. Science often overlooks the connections that transcend the material world. You cannot leave science alone. It must be associated with some consciousness. Consider all the killing machines that science has developed. Scientific thinking should be guided by non-physical intuitions. “Knowledge without consciousness is the ruin of the soul,” said Rabelais.
Let’s see what happens when the human species gets broken into little groups. Each group fights for what they perceive to be their own survival. They forget that they all belong to the same species.
The “bad” appears when we focus on the parts and ignore the links between them. A country may start a war with another country. A religion may fight another religion. They have forgotten what unites them. It would require a higher level of awareness.
This leads to the general idea that Good and Bad result from different levels of consciousness. At a higher level of consciousness, we all belong to the same world. We are united through our souls. We have escaped the isolation of our bodies.
At a lower level of consciousness, we lose the general view and can only see the many separate pieces. We sink back down to the material world.
Instead of looking for “Good” and “Bad” outside us,
we may have to look inside ourselves for a higher level of consciousness.