John Demartini and Aubrey Marcus: Is There Such a Thing as Evil?

Even Jesus wasn't one-sided. There's a whole lot of text on there that doesn't show him that one-sided state. >> He was neither good nor bad. >> He was neither. All these things that we label good and bad have been labeled good or bad depending on who you're taking sides with. >> I have a really hard time with this. If I went home today and somebody was assaulting my wife, I would forcibly stop >> probably because you would probably 100% certainly. I wouldn't say maybe this is his belief and his >> you're going to react in that setting exactly proportion to your morality at the time. If you see what he's doing is evil, you're going to do what you can to stop him. >> But it is evil >> in your perception. It will be >> is the same as the jihadist. >> Roomie is in his own way is a jihadist in the sense of promoting his ideal. Yes. Because they're trying to do what they think is God as agonist and antagonist. And you're living and dying at this moment. You're killing yourself. >> As if I said death is bad. >> It's not. >> I didn't say that. >> Neither is good. Is life good. >> Neither is life good. >> No. Life has got benefits and drawbacks. Bringing some people into life is their torture. I always say anything you can't say thank you for is your baggage. Anything you say thank you for is your fuel. >> I actually agree with you on that. Thank you. It's not okay to beat a child to a pulp. It's not okay to sexually assault a child. There is something actually fundamental inside of us that is on a driving force towards life, love, freedom, the experience to live this beautiful world. And if somebody is intentionally interfering with that, we have an obligation to try and prevent or stop it. >> It's like a fight to you. It doesn't match your belief system. So, you're ready to fight. >> Your hands are shaking. >> I'm not going to pacify my my my research for any human being on this planet. Nobody. The reality is that there's upsides to that event. There's upsides to the murder of children. >> Yes, there's upsides to it. >> I think we're going to have to stop here John. I came into this podcast with Dr. John D. Martini expecting to have a conversation about how our thoughts can impact our reality and how we can utilize our belief field to actually draw towards us those things that we're more resonant with. But what happened very quickly was something much different. We highlighted a bright point of distinction in our worldviews and this turned into a very intense debate. And I think debate is healthy. I think when people have two different opinions and they stand by those opinions and still allow themselves to have the discussion, something greater emerges. Now, at some point, I didn't think that we could even make it through. It felt like the chasm was so wide that even having the conversation itself wasn't going to be fruitful or actually beneficial for the people listening. But as time went on, I'm more grateful for this conversation because I think it highlights two different worldviews. Is there such a thing as good and evil or is it all the one source without distinction? I believe it's a bit of both. And in this conversation, you'll see two clearly defined points of view. And you'll be able to assess where do I stand in these two different ideas, these two different paradigms of thought and belief, and what can I use in my own life to how I want to guide myself through this wild journey through life itself. So, I hope you guys enjoy this intense and ultimately beautiful conversation with Dr. John D. Martini, if you had one piece of code that you could psychically transmit to every human on the planet, what would that code be? Beyond the outer appearance, there's nothing but love. All else is illusion. >> And that the quality of your life is based on the quality of the questions you ask. And the questions make you conscious of what you've been unconscious of. So you can if asking wise questions become fully conscious of this love. >> What's the first question? >> Whatever you perceive in the world around you is a reprojection of you. So whatever you see there, where do you do it in your own life? And how does it serve? M now this brings up the idea for me that what happens when somebody through their own agency through their own projection their own will their own intent interferes with your own projection of what you're actually experiencing in your life like some predation of some sort >> to yourself. Well, no. Somebody else comes and interferes with you in your life, you know. So, that seems to be also a factor in the universe, right? That there's people on the way. >> It's all on the way. >> I I it's whatever I perceive in others is me. So, if I perceive somebody that's a predator, they're there to make me realize that they're representing a part of me that I haven't owned and loved and appreciated. and they're giving me a chance now to go and do that. So, whatever we perceive in them is just if we're resenting them, it's because it's reminding us of some part of ourselves that we haven't appreciated that we're somehow feeling guilty or shame about and they're bringing us that ability to go and discover that, find out how it served after all and find out how they're serving us as our teacher, not our not our obstacle. So, the predator is really um the prey turned inside out inside our own psyche. H I think this is a I mean that's a strong mindset to have. I think as a working mindset hypothesis that is a super helpful thing to have. But somebody could just ball up their fists, be on some drugs and go punch you in the head. And is that something that you believe that you attracted into your life or is that just part of everybody operating from a place of agency? Anytime you're perceiving and somehow impulsively seeking a pole, the opposite pole will be there for you. There's no separation. As Heraclitus described, the unity of opposites is always present. And if you see a pole and you're addicted and infatuated with one pole, the other pole is going to be something you resent and dislike and label. If you can see both sides simultaneous and see that there's a unity of opposites, you realize that that's there to teach us to not be attracted to one or repelled to the other. Be able to see the whole at the same time. >> The unity of opposites. The synthesis and synchronicity of complimentary opposites is what I describe love to be. It's part of love too. There's the law of aristic escalation shows that whatever we seek and we believe in the equal and opposite is always there to balance it in the universe and in the world to make sure we don't get proud about our perceptions and we get humbled by the other to make sure that we keep ourselves authentic. >> Is this related to the hermetic principle of rhythm that there's going to be this kind of sine wave that >> they're simultaneous? >> Yeah, >> they're simultaneous. I've taken probably 150,000 people through a simple question. Uh they let's say somebody does a particular act that they perceive to be terrible. Um that they have been indoctrinated by some moral hypocrisy that that's a bad thing. And I go okay go to that moment. Let's look at where it is, when it is, what it is, who it was from. And at that moment um how did it serve you? And they go well didn't. And I go but how did it? because you're assuming if you're seeing only one side that that's a projection of your you're you're putting a box on that that action. So when they go and they look and they discover there was it catalyzed a reflection. It catalyzed a humbleness. It catalyzed uh independency. It made them less disempowered. It it gave them catalyst of some form. I always say any area of your life you're not empowered in you'll be overpowered by somebody to help you become empowered in that area. And when they stop and they find the other side, it subsides as being something terrible and it becomes now something fuel, some opportunity to grow from. So the challenges in life are necessary to make sure that we have precocious independence. And the oversup supportive nature that we try to addict ourselves to one side is what keeps us juvenile dependent. And so we get caught sometimes in our amydala seeking a one-sided world instead of embracing the two sides that life always offers. And if they we see them separate as Willham want in 1897 described sequential contrast and simultaneous contrast. Sequential contrast is we see a positive and then later we see the negative like we're infatuated with somebody and later we discover their downsides or we see somebody we think is terrible and then later we discover wow my life changed at that moment. Why wait for the wisdom of the ages with the aging process? Why not just ask the right questions and see that it's there now? see both sides simultaneously and become poised and present and purposeful. >> See things on the way. >> Yep. I mean, I I fully understand and appreciate and receive the deep wisdom that is being transmitted here, but I'm I have a kind of a cautionary feeling that this is a in some ways akin to a type of fundamentalism where people believed when there was a calamity that it was their sins that brought upon that calamity. Like, I didn't please God, so God sent the flood. or I didn't please. >> No, there's no there's no displeasing or pleasing on this. It's just an event. >> We we make events positive or negative. >> In parts of the world that we in the Middle East, uh older men and younger girls are married for centuries, for at least 1500 years. >> Uh in in America, that's you go to jail for it. So in their culture, it's a different culture. So if you have a international or global view, you don't react to either of those poles. You don't see one because of your localization uh as good and the other bad, you see it from a perspective that is now understanding these are pairs of opposites and there's a unit of opposites in the world. And for every ideologue that promotes one, there's an ideologue that promotes the other to counterbalance it to keep the body and the the you might say the soul of the world, the anomi in equilibrium. M so I don't I don't like to uh negate something because of my lack of seeing the hole. I'd rather go and dig deeper and find it. But I don't label it with a it's bad or good. I just say it's an event. Now how do we use it? And in consequentialism, nobody knows the consequence of an action. We can assume it's positive or negative because of our training. But if we look over time, the central limit theorem shows that the bell curve distribution of positive and negative outcomes will eventually surface. So if we take a narrow shortterm view, we'll see positive or negative. If we take a long-term view, we will see that it's just inevitable uh growth process of learning. I mean, sometimes people in their 50s realize the things that they thought were terrible in their childhood, they now go, "Thank you. Why wait 30, 40, 50 years to to do it? Why not look now and find it? >> Mhm. What is the how do you view this in in light of the idea of moral relativism with whereas if it's culturally appropriate like we could say like well you know there used to be slavery why not have slavery now? It's like whatever whatever you think there is but >> internal slavery >> but there there is and there's also you know some forced physical slavery still unfortunately in our world but this feels like a violation of value itself like actually perennial perennial values you know these evolving and changing values like we actually know in our body that certain things don't feel right certain things are wrong and I feel that there's an imperative to stand when we see something that's wrong. >> Well, if we study I just wrote a textbook on morality this last year again and uh the evolution of morality is an evolution of the brain. The brain's amigula has the amigdula which is a subcortical nuclei assigns veency to events that are stimuli that are evoked from the outside world. And we label it either prey or predator, good or bad, attraction, repulsion, impulse, instinct. and we label those things and they're not um but our p perceptions and then we go through and we we think okay that's a that's a terrific thing. A guy meets a girl and he thinks oh my god that's that's amazing and then over the next few weeks or months he discovers what that she's got things he didn't see. He was blind by that infatuation initially. And so the amiga fooled him because it needs to accelerate its misperceptions and false positives in order to capture the the prey or it fools them into an escaping a predator. But then what happens is the person that you infatuate with eventually you discover some of the downsides and find out now I know both sides of the person and I start to love this person. I was infatuated confusing that with love now I'm discovering love for who what it really is. And the same thing that same person can now because they didn't match the fantasy you can then be angry at them and now they're part of your nightmare and then you eventually discover there's some benefits in the part that the side you don't like about the person eventually realize that those two sides where you're in complete awarenesses and that there's there's a beautiful bouquet of opportunities sitting in both sides the unity of opposites. So morality starts out with the amygdala and eventually through the singulate cortex it goes up into the medoprunnal cortex where it sees things objectively and it sees it neutally and doesn't see it and so for in in absolute morality which is the most primitive form of morality. It eventually goes into what is called a relativism and a situational ethics which is more objective. And that what that does is allows us to stop and not just immediately react but see things as they are which has both sides because we with our incomplete awareness label things only to find out that that label was our incompleteness. and Michael Montaine traveled all over the world trying to find a universal and morally ascended uh value system only to discover that in time and space none of them ever were ascended. So life and death and all these things that we label good and bad throughout history have been there and have been labeled good or bad depending on who you're taking sides with. uh a jihadist who is believing very strongly in uh eliminating anything that's not his belief is doing what he thinks is good in Afghanistan uh where somebody in a western world would think he's doing something evil and Eictodus says um that any human being will not do anything unless they believe there's more advantage and disadvantage in their value system at that time and so they're going to do what they think is good and somebody else may think it's bad But that means that which is true to the jihadist, his belief is his belief and the other person's got a different belief. I'm trying to take a perspective that how do we find both sides in these things? Because if not, we take a side and the more we take a side, the more we create an oppide. The side meaning I'm right and you're wrong. You need to stop this. This is dangerous. Eventually, the more we try to do that, the more we create the very thing we're trying to eliminate. So we either anything we try to avoid we create running into and keep doing it again. So I'm more of a asking the question what are the downsides to what they think is up to help them like a dialectic instead of a debate. A dialectic. What's the downside to the person who's a jihadist? So they can become aware and listen to the person that sees the downside and what is the upside to the person that sees it as evil. so they can both learn how to love and appreciate each other and communicate and have a way of communi --- . That's not a if for that to for that to be a perspective then why do we even have laws? Why do we even Why do we feel why does why does like you could take all kinds of different individuals and you could expose them to this image and they'd be like horrified by this, right? Right? Because it's it lives anthroonttologically. It lives in our body. We actually have value built in. >> Let let me let me add something here. I've had the opportunity to work with thousands of people that have been through these traumas and these terrible things. And as long as you have that idea that it's all bad or it's all good and it's black and white, they're trapped the rest of their life because now they're a victim of that. I'm I'm at teaching people how to be a master of their destiny, not stay victims of history. When I show them how to find the blessings out of it and the upsides to that and be able to see the things, they're let free. The guy right now is out of jail. He's not a pedophile anymore. We've dissolved the issue. He hasn't had any issues because we found out what the real reason was and we changed his life. We also helped him appreciate what his mother was doing because he had an overprotective person in the family. Whenever you have overprotective people in the family, you get a perpetrator that's aggressive. when he starts to when you understand the psychology that's driving both of these polls, you take out the morality on this and you start understanding why do people do what they do to just label it bad or good is not going to get you anywhere except keeping them victims. But if they go in and find out how it comes out on the other side, they can sit down and get on with their life and look back at that and say thank you. I always say anything you can't say thank you for is your baggage. Anything you say thank you for is your fuel. I actually agree with you on that. It's on a personal basis. >> But then that would be then we're going to basically say, well, you know, it's like the theodysy, you know, how do we explain the the so-called evil in relationship to God? Um, maybe it's a human invention. Maybe we made that as evil because we haven't seen the blessing of something. Maybe we made something good because we haven't seen the downsides. I'm more in that perspective because I've worked with thousands of people who think they've had terrible events. helped them see the other side of it. Actually go to the people and be grateful for those individuals, open their heart and have that tear of gratitude for what's happened in their life and use it to do something amazing with their life. >> Well, what happens when that ends up in a fatality? Someone >> someone murders a child like like they don't have the opportunity. They don't have you haven't gotten to work with the murdered child. >> I have not the murdered child, but the the family that just left. >> That's what I'm talking about. like the murdered child doesn't have a chance to be grateful for murder. >> I don't I don't know what's going on in the psychology of the murdered child. I just because I didn't get to work with a murdered child, but I do know I get to work with the family and I get to watch the dynamics in the family and how it shifts and watch the upsides to that event because to say it's just an evil event and there's no benefits to it is is very narrowed. The reality is that there's upsides to that event. I worked for a lady after the the big event. >> There's upsides to the murder of children. Yes, there's upsides to it. >> I think I think we're going to have to stop here, John. >> Well, you're too black and white, I guess, for me to be able to share. >> I mean, I look, I >> I can I share my story? You can turn it off. I don't care. I'm not here attached to it. Yeah. >> I'm just going to tell you that I went to the thing with the Timothy McBay thing that was blowing up in there and I met with a family that had the little girl, the little blonde girl that was killed in the bombing. Do you remember that? >> Mhm. >> Okay. I met with the family. and I talked to the whole family. She said, and this is her quote, "One of the greatest things that ever happened in my life is that bombing." That's what she said. This is the mother who lost the child. And there's a picture of the restaurant with a girl there with a blonde blonde uh girl there. She now has two children, one that looks almost identical. She has a new relationship with a new man. She's her business is booming. Her life is unfolded. She's now contributing. The daughter is contributing in a way from the story. And she looked at it and she says, "If that hadn't happened, I would not be where I am today. Would not have I was with a alcoholic husband that was beating me and my daughter. Uh my my life was on Skidro almost. And that event changed my life and it blessed me with a a new husband, new children, new things like that." So I just go, okay, she has this perspective that this has been a great turning point in her life. We don't want to rob people of that. We don't want to rob people. >> But the little blonde girl was robbed of her life. >> Well, I I don't know what was going on in the psyche of that because I'm going to sh I'm going to share a story, another story. Then >> there's a lady named Peterson, which is actually the family comes from Austin. her her well I can't reveal too much here but her family all have doctors as their everybody in the family has to be a doctor family there's doctor three generations of doctors so the pressure on the family it had to be doctors in the process of doing that uh and they all had to be males so they had a daughter and they didn't want a daughter they wanted all ma males the mother had this fantasy that I have to have males and I don't want a daughter so the daughter was rejected by the family by the mother particularly. The daughter decide to try to be homosexual and play out the male role to try to be part of the family. She ends up going and becoming the doctor to try to be part of the family. No matter what, the mother would rejected her. Rejected her, rejected her. She ends up going and even having an affair with the same man that her mother dated prior to getting married and having a boy, a baby boy with that person to try to bring a male into the family to be part of the family. She tried everything her mother told her, "You don't exist. You're no longer in our family. Please leave us." Well, that night she called a friend of mine and she was suicidal. She was thinking about taking her life. So she calls and that lady calls me. Try to reach Connie. Do whatever you can to reach her. I think she's she's gonna make commit suicide. No matter what I did, no answer. No answer. No answer. No answer. The following morning she's in uh Colleen, Texas, I believe. And in Colleen, Texas, she's in a little Denny's for breakfast in the morning. And there's some gang members near that. and a drive by gang member shooting shoots in and she's the one killed in the in the shooting. Now, you could say, well, that's that's just a random event. Maybe or maybe not. Maybe she was ready to just go and maybe that's part of the the liberation. What happened is the baby boy that she had got sent to the mother and the mother raised the boy and she got what she wanted. She wanted to leave. She never got to be part of the family. I don't know if if we want to play God and act like we know what's right and wrong. Well, that's pretty that's anthropomorphic and very human. >> We're not playing God. We are participating in God. >> And it and if it's God, where is God not? It's in everything. It's in everything. That's what Einstein was trying to say. And and even Moshe uh Mammonites of the Jewish tradition had the idea that there's there's we go through and we lock things into the black and white. And there may not be that we we may not see the purpose of why things are happening originally. And we if we stop and narrow it down because of our own experiences and our own local belief system, we've just narrowed it. I mean, divinity is not local to a particular culture or a particular time in a particular space. It's omnipresent and it includes everything. And to try to say it's not inclusive here because it doesn't match our belief is very very narrow-minded for a human being to do. It's wiser to go and open our hearts to to see a bigger picture and find the order in things. A Heraclitus who influenced massive numbers of philosophers and thinkers and religious people, Christianity, Judaism and Muslims, the three big ones. His idea was there was a hidden order and apparent reason and and even Pho who was studying Christianity and and called Jesus the the the logos take from Heraclitus and Heracitis said that inside the apparent chaos there's a hidden order. We choose not to see it. Our job is to discover it. When we do, we're graced and we're no longer fighting with the universe with our idea what's going to happen is if there's a one-sided world out there. There isn't a one-sided world. >> I think that it's both our obligation to discover it and also participate in it. That's the difference. So, like I went to I went to when I was 15, I went to a dungeon of the Inquisition and I saw all of these torture devices. It was horrific. These torture devices, I would say 80% of them had to do with torturing genitals. So, I don't know numbers are somewhere in the in the many millions of different people who were tortured for years with the most horrific sadistic >> motive. What was the motive for them to torture me? >> That doesn't matter. Torturing an individual, torturing an individual is actually fundamentally wrong. like taking someone's genitals and putting spikes through them or stretching them until they until they all their bones break repeatedly slowly over time. There is no justification for that. It's unjustified. >> Can I can I give a justification for it? >> You can, but I won't believe it. >> Well, you may not believe it, but that's maybe that the limit on your belief. >> No, I mean, >> let let me just give you a belief. If you saw if some of that actually happened, if you saw somebody if you saw No, I wouldn't vomit. If you saw somebody about to blow up with a nuclear bomb, I'm going to use situational ethics because it's hypothetical like you did. You take >> this is not hypothetical. I went to the dungeon. This actually happened. >> Okay. But you gave me an earlier one that was hypothetical. So let's let's >> let's let's go to >> and then I quickly moved on to actual real world examples like this. >> Let's take somebody that's about to do a nuclear uh bombing. >> Yeah. >> Okay. and you've just now captured people who know all about it and the only way to get information out of him is torture. That's >> this is now a hypothetical example because that's not what was happening. >> But this happens in this happens in Cuba. This happens in America every single day. >> People use torture in order to extract information to save lives. >> That's not what the >> situational ethics but may not. But what you didn't answer the question what is the what were the reasons why they were torturing him? Were they believing something different? Were they rigid about their beliefs? Were they stuck and they were making people evil? Why were they torturing him? >> So, what I what I would respond is is that there's a field of value. There's actually a field of value. And sometimes if you make one value absolute like thou shalt not kill, I don't agree with that. I believe that there is a time to kill. >> History is the Old Testament God. 24,970 deaths in the first in the Old Testament. >> Yeah. And my father and father and father sure it is. Of course. And father Shauna Lair in his book setting God free puts God on trial for crimes against humanity. >> Yeah. >> That and then ultimately comes to conclusion that that was a projection of our own idea. So I'm not trying >> all these are projections of human limitations. That's where we have a fundamental disagreement that I believe that there is fundamental value and there is fundamental right and wrong. >> You you can you have two different views. You got the relativist and absolutist. The absolutist really narrows their mind and says that's good and that's bad and that's it and don't bug me. Don't try to change my opinion. The relativist says but what about this situation and what about this situation? >> No, there's a middle path though. There's a middle path. >> The middle path is a relativist. >> No, it's not. There's No, it's not. It's then it's that there's there is situation does play a part. >> Aristotle's golden mean and the golden virtue was the middle path. The Buddhist middle path equinimity was the middle path of Christianity. That is the middle path. It's the synthesis of opposites and the synthesis of opposites. Life and death built into destroy. Your body right now has mitosis and apoptosis. >> It has oxidation and reduction. >> It has dehydrogenous, hydrogen. It has pairs of opposites. says agonist and antagonist and you're living and dying at this moment. Every single day you're living and dying. Part of you is dying right this minute. You're killing yourself with pre-programmed genetic codes to make sure you die. And your cells are dying and remodeling and re-establishing with neuroplasticity, bioplasticity, myoplasticity. You're killing yourself. >> As if I said death is bad. >> It's not. >> I didn't say that. >> Neither is good is life good. There's >> neither is life good. >> No. Life has got benefits and drawbacks. Bringing some people into life is their torture. You have a you have a mother. When a mother bears a child, she has two sides. The one that's publicly acceptable and the other one that's not. One she goes, "Oh my god, my baby's born. I'm so excited. I'm so happy. I got my baby thing." There's another part going, "Oh my god, what am I getting myself into? What's going to happen to my physical body? What's going to happen to my career? What's going to happen? Is this guy going to leave me?" There is torture and ecstasy in that moment. And the same when somebody dies. Grandma died. Oh, I'm so sorry. Finally, because she's been tortured and she's dragging out and she's taken and she's burning herself and burning others. Other people are some are relieved. She's finally going. There's both sides to it. And if we take one side and label one life is good and death is bad. That's very narrow, very narrow, very unaware that your body has got build and destroy in society. Build and destroy. >> I didn't say death is bad. I just said I just said life in general is good. If there is if there was somebody about to push a button that would detonate all the nuclear bombs in the whole world and the earth was going to cease to have life. >> Well, I don't I don't think that even if you launched them all, it would still have life. >> Okay. So, let's come up with another example here because you're using hypotheticals. I'm going to use a hypothetical. This is why I think life is good. I think God actually desires for there to be an ever deepening complexity of life. >> You know God's thoughts. You just made that. That's that's a bit of a self-righteous projection onto God. You know God's will. >> Why is there life then? >> If God when somebody says they know God's will, Baz Lurman in the book there's a movie that's come out called Oh my God. I was in and Baz Lurman said anybody that's saying what God's will is God is always a mystery. However, if you look at what has happened, life has been increasing in complexity and in increasing in diversity >> at the expense of extinction. >> Yes. >> At the what? >> Extinction origination always balance and evolution. You can see that very easily. --- same thing. So the first thing I do with people that have been raped is I go in and help them find out what are the components, where do they have done them in their life. That calms down some of the judgment on it in the first place. So instead of being a victim, they're now looking at it with a little bit more rationality. Then I go in there. Let's take each one. What was the gain and the benefit that came out of that moment? And I did that in front of 600 people for a lady that was stabbed 18 times and left on a street with a chain to a piece of cement to be run over by trucks. In about an hour and a half, she was in a state of gratitude. She shifted her perspective. She actually closed her eyes and saw the individual that did it. She was freed from the anger and resentment. She lost 45 to 50 lbs of weight. She changed her hair. She was now able to date people again. She started her own radio show in Washington DC. Her life changed because I asked questions that she never got asked because she was trapped and that was evil and I'm now trapped for the rest of my life in that thing. I made her look at where she did everything that he had done in her own form. Uh she in her moan metaphorically even stabbed people in the back that were close friends in her perspective. She found out what was the upsides to it. It helped her get out of a relationship she didn't want to be in. It helped her get out of a city she didn't want to live in. There's a whole lot of things that came out of it that she was very blessed by. When she got through, she actually closed her eyes, saw the individual that experienced this from. She had tears in her eyes. She said, "Thank you." And that's something that most people don't comprehend. And most people are real caught in their little moral trips and they're basically victims of history their whole life. instead of looking at a possibility that there may be an alternative way of looking at life. >> So I think that what you went through with her was a very beautiful thing. >> Well, I've done that on 1300. >> I don't I don't deny that. >> And that's why you won't convince me that you can't find blessings in it. >> I'm not trying to convince you that. >> So then it's not evil until you choose to make it stay stay evil. It's just an event. >> The last of the great human freedoms is the ability to choose our attitude towards any given circumstance. >> William James state that. Yeah. Victor Franco. >> Victor Franco logo therapy. >> Yep. So fundamentally like we whatever happens to us, we can choose to make that a blessing. I agree with you. However, why are we going to label it good or bad then? >> Then >> why not just see both sides? >> Because >> why not see both sides after what we do after it happens is different than actually doing something to prevent that from happening. But if you're if you're saying that she are you saying that this person who was stabbed that she attracted it into her life because of because she had stabbed people >> I can't prove or disprove that. That's none none of that is pertinent. That's that's a that's like trying to get a why that happened. I don't know that. All I know is what we've got. She was she was stabbed. All we have is when it's presented to me that's all I got. Now she's sitting there in a suicidal mode. She's taking drugs. She's gained weight. She's protecting herself from relationships. She can't keep a job down. She's doing uh alcohol and drugs. That's what I'm presented with. When she finished, she was in a state of grace. She saw a hidden order to it. She was very thankful. She moved forward. She ended up writing a book. She went on and made her own radio show. She ended up losing weight, cleaning up her looks. I mean, she looked completely different. And it was man now. So is that a terrible event or was that an event that she perceived as terrible and for 13 or 14 years? No. 18 years she was in misery over it and then in an hour and a half she changed it and turned on and did something amazing in life. So is that event the cause of all this pain and suffering or is it a perception of that event and how she decided to see it? That's where we have agency. That's agency. the ability to transform the perception >> and allow whatever is out there to be used for something amazing instead of sitting there and labeling it good or bad in the first place. >> So if you saw that person stabbing her 18 times, tying her to the cinder block ready to get run over, you would say, "Ah, this might be a blessing." >> I don't know yet. I can't label it good and evil. I don't know yet. >> So there's >> all I know is that I look if I go and if I go and say that that I don't know what's in that guy's mind. I don't know how he's been raised. I don't know what he's been through. I don't know how he's perceiving. I don't know what his values are. I don't know those things. So to if if we were in his moccasins and we were walking his path, we might have the same behavior. We don't know. I don't know that. If you know, I've seen people that have that have grown up where they have uh they're beaten by their dad and they're they're like that and they grow up thinking, you know, I would I just want to stay away from all violence. And then they end up marrying three women in a row that are violent like their dads to try to learn the lesson that they're trying to separate one side from the other. And so they go from one pole to the other as a dissociation and a kind of a a freeze response and create a fantasy land out there and they get addicted to the fantasy land instead of honoring the order of what's there. I'm just a guy that's basically in stopping because if I see black and white and I see good and evil and I start there, I can't help them. I am stuck with them. I'm right there. My compassion is one wounded person buying into the wounds of another person and staying stuck with them in a sympathy which keeps them juvenilely dependent, not grow. And they stay stuck. I've seen it in women's battered shelters places that I've gone and spoken in. They stay there and the the government's funding the darn thing and it's keeping that as a business and those people are just staying stuck. I go in there and I help them see the other side. They're set free. They go out and get jobs. They go out there and value themselves again. >> I'm not a victim mindset apologist. I don't believe that we should in our going to give it a title called a victim. Why are we going to label it as an evil and a thing? Why not just label it as an event? An event. And let's find both sides. Certain events should be stopped. Well, you believe you know that. >> I do know that. >> Well, okay. Then you're authority on that. >> Well, somebody somebody torturing another individual. >> No matter how much you try to stop that, you have not stopped it. No one has. No one stops it. >> You can stop it locally if it's happening. Like Christopher Katan in that train, he stopped multiple people from being stabbed to death. >> Yes, >> he's a hero. Look, there are there are policemen out there trying to stop that every single day. And there's >> and if there weren't, there would be more crazy [ __ ] happening >> probably. But but the the as you have one the hero, you also have the villain. And you get rid of one villain, you now give an opportunity for other villains to come in. You don't get rid of those two sides of nature. Whatever collective society represses, selective society expresses. That's been demonstrated by Nietze and many philosophers and Machaveveli and Castiglleion. So whatever we condemn in society and try to repress, it doesn't go away. It concentrates in another place in an individual. Now the question is, is this repression in this group over here causing that person to be the one that's outleting it? If so, pointing our finger at them is really very shallow. Let me let me explain something in a family time. You are you have a brother or sister? >> Yeah, several. >> Okay. Well, there's someone in your family that's playing out the opposite pole of you. There's somebody out there in the family dynam because family dynamics, the summation of all family dynamics cancel each other in value systems. So, whatever you think is good, there's somebody who's going to play the opposite to you. And the more you're morally right, the more there's going to be going to be situational or the more you're directed and clear in agency, the more they just go with the flow. There'll be pairs of opposite that family and you're smiling because you know there's truth in. >> No, it's [ __ ] That's not true. Like I know so many families where that's just not true. >> Well, okay. >> I mean, like you can't say that in every single family you're going to have the two opposite poles expressed. That's crazy. In the family, you know, every single family >> in genetic expression, the family dynamic has pairs of opposites. >> I don't My wife and my wife has one sister. >> They're both lovely, sweet. I know them deeply. >> But they're both lovely to somebody. >> No, they're actually objectively lovely. >> Okay. But in a family dynamic, you're not giving me the whole family. You're giving me the two sisters. >> Okay. So, okay. Okay. So, then you're saying like in the broader >> summation, the summation of the whole family are complimentary opposites that equal love. >> And so, that mechanism is not just in a micro world in the sense of a family. It's global. So, every single thing out there that somebody believes in and has a value on, there's somebody with an opposite set of values. It's a complete spectrum of values. But it has to it has to equal out in a single family >> equal across the planet. This has been shown by Michael maybe maybe across maybe across the co across the cosmos. >> I actually believe in across the cosmos. We started but to imagine that the cosmos has to be reflected in a single family. Why can't one one whole family be one pole and one other whole family be the opposite pole and then that creates each other and they'll marry each other? >> No, they won't. They won't. They don't. Um my I assure you there's a law of similars and differences. The law of similars and differences. When you infatuate with somebody, you see more similarities and differences. When you resent somebody, you see more differences. Similarities. So you're attracted to the similarities because of that. So you're attracted to it. But you attract the opposite because the person has both sides. So you're going to get both sides. The the nice, the mean, the kind, the cruel, the positive, the negative, the peace and war. So to say that there's not a pair of opposites and families is just not seeing the obvious because it is. It may not be in the two sisters. They may have their brother that's playing the opposite or a father that's playing the opposite, but there's a pair of opposites in that family. The same thing occurs on social structure. That's why you have a balance of peace and war in the global peace index. People think they're going to go out and create world peace. It's a complete delusion and fantasy. Peace and war has been on the balance and is staying balance. And every year they document it. 99.7% of the population in the world is being monitored by 23 parameters on every country showing that these things maintain balance. And if you look at the borders of European borders for the last uh 1,000 years, there hasn't been one year that hasn't had war going on in that in those countries. So peace and war is >> I don't I don't think that's accurate actually. I think if we look this up I think if we look this up right now >> global peace index look it up. >> Okay. Historically speaking, has there been >> there's peace and war? >> More or less war as time >> Well, no, hold on a minute. If you ask different people, they're going to take a side. If you >> I'm asking AI. >> No, but ask the global peace index, which is monitoring the 23 parameters that they base it on by scholars today. It has 83 countries, it's more peace, and 81 countries, it's more war. Next time it goes 82, 81, 83, it fluctuates. >> Historically speaking, the long-term trend in war and violence shows a substantial decline over thousands of years, though with important nuances depending on the time frame and metric. >> Yes, but that's based on just military war. That's not based on what their parameters are. We have banking wars, economic wars, relationship wars. There's conflicts. >> Then the global peace index is talking about banking wars. It's talking about all forms of conflict and peace that go on in the world and it fluctuates based on different areas. Military wars go up and down. There's cycles to them. There are military wars that go up and down. >> No, they've been historically declining over thousands of years. >> Pull up European borders 1,000 years. >> All right. I don't I don't even know what question. got an image of the European borders and they're fluctuating year by year by year and there's not one year that doesn't have a conflict in a war and a new where the borders of Poland and Russia and all these things are all constantly constantly moving. Every time there's a movement there's a war though to say that there's not war going on at all times is just ludicrous. >> I didn't say that there's not war. I said that there's a decline in >> there isn't a decline. There's there we have I I've spoke I'm about to speak to the United Nations in Bangkok on this very topic because they've asked me to present them information. So let's inside your life you have moments of calm and moments of turmoil. >> Fact. >> Fact. In moments with your wife, you have moments of calm and moments of turmoil. >> Fact. >> Great. When you have your children, you have moments of peace, moments of war, moments of calm, moments of turmoil with your children. Sometimes they're crying, sometimes they're smiling, sometimes they're peaceful in the bed, sometimes they're crying, screaming, and yelling at each other. >> Don't know that yet, but I will soon. >> Oh, well, we haven't got kids yet. No. >> Well, you will discover that. I promise you. >> Mhm. >> When you discover that now, when you get with your family, do you have a brothers and sisters and they have kids and their family, guess what? You'll find moments of calm, moments of turmoil. and the good families have a disproportionate ratio of moments of love, calm, peace like like throughout the like >> that's not what love is. Love is not calm and peace. Love is a synthesis of opposites because the per you your wife unless you can want to deny it. You have times when you like your wife and times when you don't like your wife at times some of her behaviors. That's the fact of life. And if to say you don't have that is >> well like is different than love. to like and dislike together make up love. You're going to like things she does, you're gonna dislike she does. So, by that saying, by that what you're saying is that the substrate of life itself is love. >> Yes, >> I agree with you. >> Yes, >> I agree with you. >> And so, and the destru Christ, behold, I make all things new and we see the world as well. >> Right. Fantastic. But build and destroy and the transformation which is a conservation law is unviolatable. You don't break that law that's going on constantly. Build and destroy. Build and destroy. Build and destroy. >> I think I think the difference that I have fundamentally is is that I actually agree on this cosmic order of these different forces. But I agree that locally we can actually adjust a local I think there can be like there's this incredible community in Brazil. It's called the source community, >> right? >> They are so unbelievably loving in that community now. Somewhere over --- clearly wasn't showed that whatever somebody's doing in that moment with their perceptions and their content and their past experiences, they're making a decision based on what they think is going to give them an advantage over disadvantage in that moment. And that may not be fully consciously agently aware because most of our responses are unconscious. Most Very few people actually have a conscious awareness. 200 milliseconds after they did the act, they come up with a [ __ ] reason why they did it. That's not conscious awareness. That's an automaton reacting and coming back and backdating the information saying that's why they did it. Most people are reacting unconsciously. Most most behavior. When the Zoroastrians were moving across and encountering different cultures and tribes, one of the things that they saw was that one of the rituals being performed where they were boiling children in vats of oil. And they came through and they said, "Hey, there's a different way that you can do this. You can just burn some sticks in the fire and then you don't have to boil any more children." To me, that is a clear evolution of morality and value. I don't think we should regress back to, well, if you want to boil children and >> Well, I'm not interested in boiling children. I have no desire to boil a child. >> No. And and but I'm But the difference is I have a desire to stop people from boiling children. >> Well, that may be so because that maybe you got a wound in your childhood that basically >> No, it's not because I have a wound. It's because boiling children. >> Nobody does something without a motive. There's a void somewhere in there. you wouldn't be having that cuz you would you would go on to something else. >> If you're if you're focused on stopping boiling children and there's something >> I see somebody boiling a child, I'm going to [ __ ] stop it. If I see somebody putting a cat in a microwave and about to push start, I'm going to [ __ ] stop it. >> I would probably too, but at the same time, >> and it's not because of some trauma or some pattern. It's because there's because there's value that lives inside of me. It's actually intrinsic to the cosmos. I am participating in. >> But then you're saying that somehow they're not intrinsic. The person is boiling is not >> they're able they're able to there's actual there are forces that are actually looking to separate us. Father Sea Olair says evil is a cosmic conspiracy to separate you from >> well that's dissociation. That's just dissociation. If you dissociate, anytime you put evil out there and good out there and give a an anthropomorphic to make a devil and a anthropomorphic to make a savior, you just dissociated yourself from all of you. That's you. That's all you. That's not out there. There's no good and bad people out there. They're just people. >> Yeah, but there's the people who are there's the cat in the microwave and then there's the child in the boiling question. Why is somebody wanting to put in the cat in the microwave? That's what I'd want to know. Why? Why are they motivated to do that? Why is that an expression of anger? Is that a expression of how they are dealing with things? >> It could be trauma or it could be that there's or it could be that there's polarity all the way up and all the way down that there's a one source love and then that splits into polarity and then the polarity splits into >> splitting the polarities is a mental construct. The mental construct is the awareness of the polarities. So we we may add we may find out see in causality the universal law of causality is very murky because we don't know what causes are. You know we say well so and so did this but why did they do that? Well because we could say their mother and father were this way and that's why they did it. Oh we could because their mother and father was that way. We could go and play murky games all the way back to the original sin. It's all murky. The question is how do we >> why would we go back to the original sin? That's a nonsense. That's what some people do with causalities >> in order to justify why something's good or evil. >> I don't know. I I can't guarantee you that I'm absolutely certain and I can make the moral decision that that's an evil thing if I can find out the other side of that equation. I may be able to just transform their lives. And if you're not talking about what the the act the interference with another person's agency and the creation of fatal levels of extended pain, which is what I'm talking about, which would be absolute evil. If someone is slowly taking a cheese grater and grading off someone's skin and getting pleasure out of that situation, knowing that they're here to destroy life because life is beautiful, >> hold on. that if that individual is doing that in order to find and torture somebody to get information that could save a billion lives, >> you're creating a different hypothetical. >> I know, but I'm saying so in that setting that you described, it would appear to be evil in your mind, but that doesn't mean that that act in every situation is >> what what in Okay, let's say it's a three-year-old. What What special information about nuclear codes does this three-year-old have? >> Well, you're making again hypothetical. I don't know. I haven't seen anybody uh attack some three-year-old because >> What do you mean? There's there's all kinds of cases >> attacking a three-year-old for nuclear codes. That's not probable, >> right? Some people have tortured children. >> Yes. >> Tortured them. >> Yes. >> That's evil. >> Well, it's torture. And the fact is it's >> it's not torture. It's a specific case of torture. >> He's doing it. this person is doing an act that is perceived with more pain than pleasure, more negative than positive in somebody's perspective. If I take that child, and I've done it, God knows how many times. If I take that child, >> if you're lucky enough that the child survives, >> if the Well, if it's not, I get to work with the family. But >> but what about the child? >> I don't know. Can you prove that his death is is absolute evil? I don't know. If it opens up a doorway of opportunity for the family, it may be a gift. I've seen that actually happen. I I saw I'll give a real case. Dallas, Texas, uh a family calls and said, "We just had my son get run over and he's dead and um we're distraught. Can we come see you?" And I said, "I'm coming to Dallas tomorrow. We'll meet after my speech. We'll meet." The mother stays out in the car in the garage. She can't. She's too emotional. The son and the the father come in there. And we asked him a question. what is the upside to this situation that your son just got killed? And they said, "Well, how can there be an upside?" Well, if you choose only to see the downside, there'll never be an upside. You'll you'll have to discover it over time, but you could discover it now. What's the upside? And they stopped. They reflected. And he said, "Without a doubt, it's brought our family absolutely like I've never seen it this close in the last since this happened." Great. What else? My son was sitting on the fence in his career about what he wanted to do and we've made a decision that we're going to open up a sausage manufacturing company in the name of my son and our family is this is a family business we're going to do as a result of this event. Great. And we're going to honor my son as this because this was his dream. We're going to carry it out. Great. What's another benefit there? My wife has been overly protective of the son and now she realizes that this this trauma has happened like that. She realizes she's been set free because she's been tortured in sleepless nights dealing with the son. What's another benefit? Finally, we got enough benefits where they're calm. They're not distraught for a moment. Right at that moment, the mother comes out of the garage and she comes in and she comes and hugs the husband and she says, "It's all going to work out now." I said, 'What what did what what what did realization I just saw what we're going to do and I feel that that's the gift in the long run for everyone involved. And so she saw it from a different perspective. And so I look at it and I go, "Yes, he was killed." Am I going to say that that's evil? Nope. Am I going to say that that's a a perception of loss in the family? Okay, temporarily. But in the same moment there's a unification and blessings that come out of that. To not focus on that and just make it absolutely bad or wrong or whatever to me is very very shallow. It's much wiser to go and find out how the other side of the equation is and balance the equation and get reasoned again. Get out of the emotional labels and generalizations and distortions and highly emotive states which causes illness and get back into reason. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it very greatly in one of his quotes. He says, "We we cry foolishly with people that are in traumas like that instead of hitting him with rough electric shocks and getting in touch with reason." Again, I really believe that that re regulate because that family built that manufactured company. That picture of her son is on that front of that company. His dream is sitting there manifested in that company as a family. It unified the family. Is it evil? I don't know. I don't know those answers. You may you may think you know. You may read a book and tell you it is. >> That's an accident. The book >> it's not an accident. And unless you choose to make it an accident have meaning and purpose as Victor Frankle says. >> Of course. But but not but you're you're you're mixing up you're trying to ascribe to me that I would call that evil that he got run over. >> No, I'm just saying that the the the idea of death and and >> say that the idea of death was evil either. >> It's not. It's just an event. >> No, but that I I agree. and the person that ran them over they if they if they did it intentionally is that there's what they call upper motor neuron intention and lower motor known reaction one is violated in morality is stronger because you think you have an intention on it but if we go back to causality why would somebody do that what's the what's their experience that led to that is that the cause of why that happened is the cause of those people it's murky >> I don't want to go there I'd rather just go in there and find out okay it happened now let's let's transform it into something useful now because otherwise we're going to be trapped and we're going to just label it. We're going to blame. I've not seen blame or credit with the devil or Jesus give people their empowerment. >> Mhm. >> I do believe that uh using the wisdom of the great teachings of Christianity and some of the things that were taught in there, not all of them because there's texts that have been deleted. I believe that some of that has use, but I don't believe that that's you. You don't want to disempower yourself by thinking somebody out there is going to take care of your problems and somebody over there is causing your problems. If you go into credit and blame and not take on accountability and see the order of life, I think you're missing out and you're staying in your amiga and not getting your executive function, not using your reason. >> Well, I think uh actually uh we did end up going the time that we had allotted. And I first of all, I want to say that I was not attacking you at any point. Well, >> I was I thought that I was challenging. you want to get me off the show. >> I was I was debating you and I have I have very strong beliefs and I appreciate that you have your very strong beliefs. Um I am not swayed from my beliefs and nor are you swayed from your beliefs and nor and that's okay and that's beautiful. >> Yeah. I have no idea if you'll put this on the air. It doesn't matter. >> And as far as I'm concerned I've had I've had a blast chatting with you. >> For sure. For sure. This is this is my this is my fun. And and ultimately I'd love that to be a conversation that where you know we we connect and we look at the show and say like hey do we want to put this out >> your show >> but also I have the I have respect for you and and if if this feels if this feels good to both of us we'll put it out >> edit what you can put in there and take out the rest I don't get attached I've done [ __ ] thousands of these things but I just want to let you know that I I'll still consider this I'm not going to play a game or anything. I'll I'll be collaborative in this process. I if it will serve that's just respect and dignity. >> I'm not attached. If it will serve your audience to put some of that out there, do it. >> If you don't feel it will appreciate that. >> Do not feel any need to satisfy my need. >> I ascribe that as noble. >> I It's not noble. It's just >> I know you won't. I know you won't. I know you won't. I ascribe that to you. >> This is your show. I'm a guest on your show. >> And I think that's noble that you take. >> I'm not going to >> I know you won't accept it. I'm not just saying >> I'm not going to I'm not going to pacify my my my research for any human being on this planet. Nobody. >> I talked to I I had the Daly Lama about cry one time and I had him in debate and I got him and he was caught in his little compassion. I told him, "You're a theocracist and you basically destroyed your country. You're not even allowed in your country anymore. Wake up. You didn't have any military there to keep yourself from being defense. You didn't empower yourself financially." And in all law, almost every area, you were disempowered. >> Yes. And but what is a military for if it's all good anyway? >> Well, if you don't empower yourself in military, you're going to be taken over, buddy. >> But what does that matter? >> Well, it doesn't in the old picture. But if at the same time, you're going to be if you are willing to express your own individuality, you're going to require a mastery of all seven areas of your life. Any area of your life you don't master, you're going to be over m overpowered. If >> you don't empower yourself intellectually, be told what to think. Don't empower yourself mentally or in business, you'll be told what to do. If you don't empower yourself financially, you'll be told what you're worth. Don't empower yourself in relationship, you'll be honeydew crap around the house. You don't empower yourself socially, you'll be taught misinformation dogma. You don't empower yourself physically, you be told what drugs to take and organs to remove. If you don't f do it spiritually, you'll be subordinating to some anthropomorphic geocentric aistolian platonic prescratic western view of religion. And that is just a small little piece of the bigger picture of the cosmos. >> I agree. And I believe that empowerment of the self is good. >> I'm I'm all for that. But that requires nice and mean. And even our debates, I like this. This is my favorite. This is one of my favorite uh dualities here. This is great. >> Well, thank you very much. >> I I don't get to do that every time. Mo most of the time they're all, >> you know, >> polite, you know, >> that's not where it's at. It's make people think, make people question, make people ask questions and stir it up and get them in debate. You'll get there's more views there. >> Yeah, indeed. Well, I appreciate you. No, thanks. I gave you a hug. All right, let's go. >> The devil meeting. >> And who knows which is which. I'm I'm both. So am I, actually. >> Thanks for tuning into this video. Make sure you hit subscribe, follow me, Aubrey Marcus, check out the Aubrey Marcus podcast available everywhere, and leave a comment. Let me know if this video resonated or what else you would like to hear from me in the future. Thank you so much.