Shakespeare

One of Shakespeare's quotes most often repeated by existential thinkers is "There is nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so." It leads me to a concept of Joel Goldsmith which is complicated and sometimes threatening to religious concepts that are chiseled in stone.

There is a danger in quoting a philosopher or trying to paraphrase his teaching in a sentence or two. If it was that easy the philosopher would NOT have have been compelled to write volumes on the subject. Goldsmith published almost a hundred books explaining his concepts. Ultimately it is impossible to express complicated feelings of spirituality in words of any kind. The highest feelings we have toward life exists outside the vibrational frequency of sound or the symbolic scrawl of language.

Goldsmith says that we miss the true meaning of the allegory of the Garden of Eden and the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" if we do not read it very carefully. It is assumed that Eden was a world of good and eating the apple from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" was the introduction of evil into that world. If this were the case it would need only to be called "the tree of the knowledge of evil". But if words are specific it definitely states knowledge of good as well.

Eating the apple was a symbol of the introduction of duality into our thinking. It was the introduction of division when there had been only one before. Eden was one, the apple was the introduction of two different concepts, good and evil. It would be easier to think of it as the "tree of the knowledge of judgement." After symbolically eating the apple, Adam and Eve knew they were naked. They judged that covering certain parts of their body were good and not doing that was evil. The tree introduced the concept of good and evil but more importantly it introduced the idea of judgment to label.

The concept of good can be as dangerous as the concept of evil if it creates a division of the one. If we are good and "they" are evil then we are right in eliminating "them". The only way to avoid the pit falls of good and evil is to stop thinking in terms of duality. What is, is. What is not, is not, and any other label you add, good, evil, helpful, harmful, religious or sinful creates a duality. Duality is a threat to the One no matter what form it takes.

"There is nothing good nor bad but thinking makes it so." - Shakespeare. Sometimes theater can get it right. Support the Arts.... suggestion: "Jay Johnson: The Two and Only" opens tonight at the Colony Theatre, Burbank, CA.

As you were,
Jay