Evil and Good

We hear a lot of rhetoric about the Axis of Evil these days. In general, most of the public is aware that the coining of the term itself and the whole emphasis on it is nothing but a political stunt to justify pre-emptive imperialistic actions. However the subject of good and evil is itself is worth discussing.

In modern day to day life we have come to an almost conclusive theory that good and evil are 2 different entities or semantically speaking nouns that describe people. Often we hear leaders pronounce that these are the "good" people. These are the "bad" people. And why blame the leaders? - they simply voice our deep-seated notions anyway. We love to label people - especially other than ourselves!

I wonder how we got caught into this trap in our evolution. Maybe it comes from the roots of most religions - religions often talk of the "God" and the "satan". And most people simplistically assume this to mean a lifelong crusade of classifying people into the above 2 categories. My belief is that religions were created by visionary people to introduce some simple tools, guidelines and ways of living to have a productive, full life. The visionaries may (or may not) have reached a higher level of consciousness and knowledge where they saw the world and existence differently but since this could not be explained to the common people with, at best, a casual interest in anything besides their own life, the visionaries created this imagery that is easy to follow. Some of it may also be part of a marketing effort - to provide something that appeals to the people to help the concepts flourish.

But what is good and evil anyway? Aren't these the 2 coins of the same coin? Think of them as adjectives rather than nouns. The simple yet subtle reality is that the same person is "good" in one context and "evil" in another. The "evil" is inseparable from the "good". Like a shadow. We don't need to embark on a lifelong crusade to go look for "evil" outside (like some enlightened Presidents!). We simply need to look inside ourselves and weed out the "evil" that is lurking inside. That is the ultimate victory. That should be our aim.

For this reason I believe that Hinduism (and its descendant religions Jainism and Buddhism) is the most democratic, sophisticated and evolved religion in the world. There are tons of reasons why I think so but for now just focus on the greeting "Namaste" - which loosely translates to "I salute the 'good' in you". What a profound concept! It not only explains succinctly what I have been rambling about but also provides an easy way to include it in your day to day life.