Why does consciousness manifest and allow abuse and violence?

Why does consciousness manifest and allow abuse and violence?

Hello Rupert, 

I am having a nagging question. It appears that ‘we’ as separate entities are not the doers, but only make the story that we are the doers after the experience takes place. All action appears to come from awareness directly. What my intellect is grappling with is this: How do we account for what seem like unthinkable human actions, such as rape, murder, abuse, child molestation and slavery? 

Is it true that these actions have nothing to do with the individual’s mind, but actually come straight from awareness? If that is so, is there any insight for the limited mind to help me to understand why awareness would manifest these actions on the human level? Why do these things take place? 

Warmest regards,
Alex

 

Dear Alex, 

Alex:It appears that ‘we’ as separate entities are not the doers, but only make the story that we are the doers after the experience takes place.

Rupert:If we are not the ‘doers’, how can we be the ‘makers’? The ‘we’ that apparently does and the ‘we’ that apparently makes is the same fictional, non-existent entity.

All action appears to come from awareness directly. 

Yes, from an absolute point of view that is true. However, at a relative level we could also say that some actions come, as it were, directly from awareness and others come via the belief, as it were, in being a separate entity. 

How do we account for what seem like unthinkable human actions, such as rape, murder, abuse, child molestation and slavery?

Very simply: If we think that we are a separate entity, that is, if the thought that we are a separate entity arises and, as a result, seems to obscure the true knowing of our own being, all subsequent thoughts, feelings and actions will come from the inevitable sense of alienation, fear, desire, conflict, and so on, that are inherent in this belief. 

This belief alone makes it possible to imagine an ‘other’, that is, someone who is not our self and, as a result, to treat that imagined one as though what we do to it we do not do to our self. The actions you mention would be inconceivable if the apparent other were known and felt to be our own self. 

The simple Christian doctrine of doing unto others as we would do unto our self is based on this understanding. It is not an instruction to an apparent person. It is an invocation to our deepest understanding that we are all one being, and to live accordingly. This one simple understanding would resolve all psychological conflicts, whether personal, national or international. 

Is it true that these actions have nothing to do with the individual’s mind, but actually come straight from awareness?

Ultimately yes, but that awareness must first have been seemingly veiled by the belief in separation for such an action to take place. That belief takes place in an individual or limited mind (because all mind is, by definition, limited), but there is no entity that owns that mind. Such a mind is one more expression of awareness. 

If that is so, is there any insight for the limited mind to help me to understand why awareness would manifest these actions on the human level? Why do these things take place? 

It is very difficult to answer the ‘Why?’ question satisfactorily on the level on which it is asked, because the ‘Why?’ presumes cause and effect (duality), which, upon investigation is found to be non-existent. In other words, the mind first imagines its own view of reality to be true or real and then asks for the cause of its own version of reality. 

Upon investigation, the mind’s view of reality is found to be erroneous and as a result the ‘Why?’ question loses its meaning. 

With love,
Rupert

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