Hello @son-of-satire ! It's good to meet you!
I fully agree with the majority of your post, and appreciate your effort to provide motivation and comfort in a world where such things are lacking.
I do believe we could have a conversation about the idea of a Yin and Yang 'balance'. This idea is one that has much attraction and I hold a deep respect for it, especially since I used to believe it myself.
However, over time, I've realised that this idea of 'balance' between good and evil begins to shake when we try to actually apply it to the real world.
Lets examine it and follow the logical thread. The balance between good and evil entails that every evil action will be counterbalanced by some sort of good. So, while the world may seem filled with evil, there will always be good things to make up for it.
This sounds good, until you try to apply it to a person. A person is not exempt from this macrocosmic mechanism. We are an extension of it. So if I do 10 good, compassionate and loving deeds, this will put the world out of balance. I'm destabilising the universe. So, by the principle of Yin and Yang, which seeks equilibrium, either I must do 10 evil things, or 10 evil things need to happen to someone else (lets say the people I helped with my 10 good deeds) in order to put things back in order.
To solve this problem, we can try to add the law of Karma. Yet, if we try to follow this to its logical conclusion as well, we will quickly find it doesn't help a lot. Karma says that whatever you put out, you will attract back to yourself times over. It is a cosmic arbiter, of sorts. So, I, by doing 10 good, compassionate, loving things, will not attract the cosmic equilibrium against myself, but actually will get rewarded by having 20 good things come back to me. And the evil deeds will attract double the evil on themselves.
This will actually work against the balance of Yin and Yang, since to reward the good, someone else must do even more good (adding to the imbalance), and to punish the evil, someone else will somehow be forced to do evil to the original culprit (adding to the imbalance).
Thus, in this philosophy of 'balance' we are all endlessly playing out this cycle of inbalance, where we are forced to either reward or punish someone else's Karmic debt; after all Yin and Yang mean that there must be an equal amount of evil to the good.
So 'balance' between good and evil may sound good on the surface but is actually an idea which justifies the existence of evil in general. It would actually be better not to do anything at all, ever, since you would simply disturb the natural balance even more. After all, how would you know what you need to do to restore balance anyway, since we do not see the scale? Perhaps all the little good things that happen outweigh the bad ones and we just do not see it because of our pessimism, which is why evil is on the rise?
Perhaps I'm over-thinking? But then again, this is just an application of the Karmic laws.
Since you referenced the Bible, and I personally believe in it, it tells us that we have all been created with a capacity to choose between doing what is right and doing what is wrong. When people do what is wrong, they corrupt their own image. And just as when a conductor making a wrong movement can cause chaos in an orchestra, our own sin causes a ripple effect if we allow it to multiply. Therefore, children tend to repeat the mistakes of their forefathers, either out of ignorance, or personal choice. Therefore, we are encouraged to struggle against our inclination to encourage and ignore evil but instead to combat it with good, since sin plants seeds of evil, while love and compassion plant seeds of good.
I am sorry for the huge reply..... I know it became way too long... I just find the topic very interesting! ^_^
Thank you for your post, once again!
Most would probably consider you to be overthinking this, but I don't believe there is such a thing is overthinking. It is this sort of scrutiny that leads to be better understandings, so I thank you for sharing.
Perhaps the theory comes undone when you start trying to apply it to singular human beings, and I might add-- singular lifetimes. I don't know if reincarnation is a thing, but I am open to the possibility. So, if one has multiple lives, than the balance can be retained over more than one lifetime.
However, I do not think that this balance need to apply to our individual selves. I feel strongly that, while we do have our own uniqueness and individuality, there is also a part of us that is interconnected to all life on Earth. So, the balance need not be looked for on an individual basis, but on the wholeness of us all.
There is also the matter of subjectivity. How can we measure balance when people have different ideas of what brings pleasure and what brings pain? Looking at it this way, we can find the balance in an event without the need to find a second event. One could take joy from that event, and perhaps several others take a fraction of displeasure which balance out the joy in their totality.
Obviously, we are entering into deeply philosophical areas here, and touching on concepts that we will never be able to validate. But the point of this post is to show that you can always find that balance if you are looking for it hard enough, and it can bring comfort when you do.
Much thanks to you for inviting my mind to exercise itself, and I have no problem with very long comments as long as they're about the subject in the post.
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Thank you for taking the time to reply so thoroughly! Haha XD
I was actually going to mention reincarnation in my 'little' rant but I thought I'd spare the length XD I was going to say that in order to get out of this maddening 'balancing' trap you'd either have to give up the idea of a 'balance' or you need to say that a person has multiple lifetimes through which Karma can do its job. However, multiple lifetime would, inevitably, multiply the problems that start on the individual scale, not minimise them. Yin and Yang thinking, in itself, requires us to not see ourselves as meaningless in the cosmic plan but central, since changes which happen within will multiply and ripple outwards. A crack in the foundation will only grow, regardless of whether you refurbish the building above it, or rebuild it several times over. As long as the foundation is cracked, it will continue to get worse. So, giving a flawed individual sever lifetimes does not minimise the problem but only aggravates and exaggerates it.
As for subjectivity, I completely agree! We cannot see the balance ourselves, which is exactly the question of how could we decide what to do in any given situation? Should we do anything at all? If we do not know the current position of the balance scale then we cannot possibly know the consequences of our actions. We could be bringing balance, or we could be destroying it.
For example, suppose I am rich and I pass a homeless beggar on the street. I happen to be able to give this person enough cash so he could rent a proper home for a while and fix his life. This could go any number of ways, but to simplify, for the sake of conversation, two things could possibly happen: He could actually fix his life, become rich, then remember me and repay me back in full one day. Or, if the universe sees my action as a destruction of the cosmic balance (since this person was born a beggar due to his bad Karma from a previous life, lets say), so, in order to restore this, another beggar sees us, becomes jealous, stabs him and steals all the money. How could I possibly decide what to do in this situation? Should I be charitable, or should I pass him by? My charity, after all, could lead to losses on both sides.
This is why I see the idea of balance as very fickle and emotionally unsatisfying, most of the time. Usually, it's presented as some sort of divine justice, but such a thing does not exist in a Yin and Yang universe seeking balance, where the best possible lifestyle is to retreat to solitude and meditate so that you have as small an impact on the world as possible.
Thank you, again, for taking the time to discuss this with me! ^_^
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