Good & Bad, Karma

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Shakespeare

"Out beyond the ideas of right-doing or wrong-doing there is a field - I'll meet you there." --Jelaluddin Rumi

Life is Like a mirror

Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it. - Ernest Holmes

The world is like a mirror; frown at it, and it frowns at you. Smile at it and it smiles to.- Herbert Samuels.

The world is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are. If you are loving, if you are friendly, if you are helpful, the world will prove loving and friendly to you, The world is what you are. - Thomas Dreier

SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI

What is right and wrong?

There is no standard by which to judge something to be right and another to be wrong. Opinions differ according to the nature of the individual and according to the surroundings. They are again ideas and nothing more. Do not worry about them but get rid of thoughts instead. If you always remain in the right, then right will prevail in the world.

Q. Will not right conduct be enough to secure salvation?

A. Salvation for whom? Who wants salvation? And what is right conduct? What is conduct? And what is right and what is wrong?

Only when the reality is known can the truth about right and wrong be known.

The best course is to find out who wants this salvation. Tracing this 'who' or ego to its original source is right conduct for everyone.

Intention - Motives

...whatever is done lovingly, with righteous purity and with peace of mind, is good action. Everything that is done with a stain of desire and with agitation filling the mind is classified as bad action.

Means to an End?

Do not perform any good action [karma] through a bad means, thinking 'It is sufficient if it bears good fruit.' Because if the means is bad, even a good action will turn out to be bad one. Therefore, even the means of doing actions should be pure.

p212 Be as You Are - The Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi.

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Nothing happens to any man which is not formed by nature to bear - Marcus Aurelius

Dr. Wayne Dyer writes that "all of our behavior results from the
thoughts that preceded it...so the thing to work on is not your
behavior but the thing that caused your behavior, your
thoughts."

Thus, those who say they would have right without its correlate, wrong; or good government without its correlate, misrule, do not apprehend the great principles of the universe, nor the nature of all creation. - Chuang Tzu

When the Great Tao is lost, we have "goodness" and "righteousness." When wisdom" and "sagacity" arise we have great hypocrites - Lao Tzu

When everyone knows beauty as beautiful, there is already ugliness;
When everyone knows goodness as goodness, there is already evil.
"To be" and "not to be" arise mutually - Lao Tzu

Virtues

The sage has no mind of his own. He is aware of the needs of others - Lao

The greatest virtue between heaven and earth is to live - I Ching

To recognize what is beyond your ability to change, and to be content with this as your destiny - that is truly a sign of virtue. Chuang Tzu

Patience is the companion of wisdom. Saint Augustine

"Patience and persistence can bring down the tallest trees."

Morality as taught by way of rules is extremely powerful and valuable in the development of practice. It must be remembered first that it, like all the techniques in meditation, is merely a tool to enable one to eventually get to that place of unselfishness where morality and wisdom flow naturally. In the West, there's a myth that freedom means free expression - that to follow all desires wherever they take one is true freedom. In fact, as one observes the mind, one sees that following desires, attractions, repulsions is not at all freedom, but is a kind of bondage. A mind filled with desires and grasping inevitably entails great suffering. Freedom is not to be gained through the ability to perform certain external actions. True freedom is an inward state of being. Once it is attained, no situation in the world can bind one or limit one's freedom. It is in this context that we must understand moral precepts and moral rules.

Jack Kornfield, Living Dharma

"..because a man who has some ideas about how to live naturally becomes hard. He has to carry his character around himself. That character is like an armor; his protection, his security; his whole life is invested in that character. And he always reacts to situation through the character. If you ask him a question his answer is ready made."

"This is the sign of a hard person - he is dull stupid, mechanical. He may be a good computer, but he is not a man. You do something and he reacts in a well established way. His reaction is predictable; he is a robot."

"The real man acts spontaneously. If you ask him a question, your question gets a response, not a reaction. He opens his heart to your question, exposes himself to your question, responds to it..."

Osho

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