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ยป Home ยป Finding Guidance

Morality of Wisdom: There is No Such Thing as Good or Bad

by Mateo Sol ยท Updated: Feb 18, 2023 ยท 54 Comments

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All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ~ Edmund Burke

Intuitively I’ve always felt that there was something wrong with the popular quote above.ย  In fact, the deeper I’ve ventured into exploring myself the more I’ve come to dislike the concepts of “good” and “bad”.

In my life I have come across countless thieves, a few psychopaths and rapists, and a murderer, but in my conversations with them I concluded that none of these people had ever actually set themselves out to do “evil” for the sake of evil.ย  Instead, they were all acting out of what they felt and could justify as goodness, whether that was as self-preservation, pleasure, or something else.

Morality as a Collective Guideline

Little evil would be done in the world if evil never could be done in the name of good. ~ Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Morality is a collective attempt to create a ‘system’ or structure of what is “good” and what is “bad” – it’s a way we can rationalize arguing with life itself.ย  Morality makes it easier for us to look at reality and say, “this shouldn’t be!” and believe that we are right.


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However, the truth is that there is no general morality, but rather, morality is relative from culture to culture.

For example, what is moral in an Italian restaurant is immoral in a vegan one.ย  What is moral in Australia is immoral in some Arabic countries.ย  Not only that, but what we call “bad” now can also become “good” at any point in time.ย  For example, killing other people is normally immoral.ย  But when wartime begins, we suddenly rationalize that killing is not only OK, but the more “enemies” you kill, the more respectable you become.

Morality serves to justify whatever we collectively consider an ideal: in this case self-preservation and protection of our “ideals”.ย  What we fail to realize is that on the other side ofย  war, the enemies also consider themselves to be the ‘good’ guys protecting their ideals, beliefs and ways of life.

Most of the people around us will agree with us on what’s moral and what is not, but the people around us can change as easily as a trip to the “ghetto” areas of our city.ย  In that case, good and bad is simply what is popular at the time.

You may be wondering “Surely there are some acts that are unquestionably immoral?ย  Crimes against children perhaps?”ย  Our emotions and personal values are always the determiners of our moral assessments, and these two factors are entirely different from person to person.ย  In fact, within the same person ideas of morality can change throughout our lives.ย  For instance, what I thought of as “bad” many years ago now I consider to be “good”.ย  So although there are some acts that are unquestionably immoral for the majority of us in this moment in time, it still comes down to popularity and cannot serve as an “absolute” rule.

How can there be a sturdy moral “baseline” from which we all make the same measurements, when man himself is so volatile in his perceptions of reality?ย  A static idea of good and evil can only be accepted by a man who is static, stagnant in self-growth, and has a static permanent aim and a permanent understanding.

For such an unchanging person, belief systems are created.


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Religion as a Morality

For many people in the world there is a very absolute and definite baseline for morality and that is Religion.

The same morality as the one mentioned above applies here as well: what the most popular opinion around you is, is generally what you consider to be moral, and anyone who believes in a different faith or has other ideas is considered to be wrong, or along a “bad” path and is in need of saving (think of The Great Inquisition for example).ย  There are roughly 4,200 religions in the world so you better choose carefully!

The problem with identifying yourself with anything other than your own experience is that it is difficult to talk about these subjects without creating friction.ย  Whenever there is a great emotional investment in any element of life, analyzing it is a difficult and confronting experience because our very basis for life and existence is being examined.

Personally, I was raised Catholic and still hold a few of their teachings to be full of insight and wisdom.ย  However to live a life of spiritual truth I’m willing to go to great depths and be ruthless in my exploration of what I hold to be true and untrue, and analysis contributes to either reaffirming my belief that I am on the best path, or helps to open my eyes to new perceptions.

At its core morality – religious or otherwise – is basically judgment of other people.ย  Morality establishes the idea that there is an objective way to assess another person based on the values they hold.ย  This makes morality a tool for the devaluation of other people, to estrange, divide and dehumanize someone in the name of the state, the religion or as a species at large.ย  Once we’ve morally assessed someone, any form of disdain, or even cruelty, can be rationalized (wars, prisoner interrogation tactics, social alienation, etc.)

And yet the underlying premise behind all the great prophets’ teachings is that of non-judgment, love, respect for others, forgiveness, charity, and tolerance.ย  How can that be?ย  At some point in time, the original message behind most of these prophet’s words was lost or misinterpreted.

The word “sin” for example came to mean “against the rules” and deserving of punishment, when in fact, as mentioned in a previous article on karma, “sin” actually means in the original biblical Hebrew language: “to miss the mark“.

Sinning was to make a stupid mistake, a transgression against ourselves – it didn’t have anything to do with being a bad person.ย  If the only reason we avoid killing someone is that we don’t want to go to Hell, then maybe Hell would be the best place for us.

So, how can we avoid making mistakes that harm ourselves and others in the process?

The Highest Morality

Intelligence is not enough to live a wise and sensitive life.

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Some of the most famous serial killers and dictators were highly intelligent people, for example, but failed to feel any sense of compassion or sympathy for their victims.

So, why do people suffer, and why do people feel pain at the hands of these people if there is no “evil” in the world?

The answer?ย  Because these “evil” people lack sensitivity of soul.ย  They lack wisdom.

Intelligence and knowledge are tools that help us process and play with the ideas of the fragmented reality that our minds create.ย  Wisdom, on the other hand, is the sensor that experiences a direct connection to it, it is the sentient perceiver of our existence, the pathway straight to the heart.

These misguided and unwise people are incapable of cultivating peace and harmony in their lives, so instead they act on whatever provides a fleeting sense of fulfillment: money, power, gratification.ย  To them these feelings are “good”; they provide security and a false sense of fulfillment, and so they are willing to do anything to anyone to continue feeling these things.

This, to me, is the message our major religions were trying to teach: there are wise ways to live and unwise ways to live.ย  Many people can argue that without a ‘moral code’ the world would go to hell, and it’s true to some degree.ย  There are fear-focused and love-focused courses of action as incentives in life, and our purpose is to grow in wisdom to the point where we can realize the benefits of being kind to others, and the drawbacks of being unkind.

As I’ve previously mentioned, Karma is not an external force that balances the world, but is rather an internal one where we create our own Hell.ย  We attract into our life the same energy we put out into it.

“Good” could be said to be conscious, loving and wise behavior while “Evil” could be considered egotistical, fearful and unconscious behavior.ย  These words work as metaphors for personal growth, as measurements for the quality of life you’re attracting.ย  For example, anything which helps you ‘awaken’ to this wisdom, to experience yourself, to become more authentic and experience something higher than yourself is “good”, while anything that hinders this is “evil”.

The wiser people will realize that “evil” behavior will attract many problems into their lives – such things as enemies, low self-esteem, paranoia, addictions, attachments, persistent dissatisfaction and suffering, world-weariness and cynicism to name a few.

Essentially, those people who do “good” in life aren’t perfectly saintly beings, but are people who realize, if only intuitively, that doing good benefits them, that being compassionate results in less suffering for themselves and produces a deeper sense of fulfillment and connection to others.

If we keep all of this in mind, we realize that people who misbehave due to lack of wisdom aren’t deserving of our judgment, but are in fact letting us know that they are the ones who are in most need of compassion, forgiveness and support.ย  These are the people who have never truly tasted peace or love in their lives, only glimpses of gratification, and therefore act in ways that harm others, and in the process harm themselves.

***

The cultivation of wisdom often comes to those who are willing to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time in order to attain it.ย  To develop our wisdom is to create a conscience.

Morality and wisdom are quite different things.ย  One person’s morality can contradict another person’s morality, but one person’s wisdom can never contradict another person’s wisdom (although many confuse their beliefs with wisdom).

Morality is created and sourced from collective beliefs, and prevents the individual from feeling any true freedom.ย  To become authentic, to be a true individual, we require a thirst for freedom, freedom from the unwise, from psychological traumas, from self-pity, from self-preserving fearful ideas, from primitive instinctual behavior, and from dogmatic beliefs, ideals and values that have been taught to us throughout our entire lives.


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About Mateo Sol

Mateo Sol is a spiritual educator, guide, entrepreneur, and co-founder of one of the most influential and widely read spiritual websites on the internet. Born into a family with a history of drug addiction and mental illness, he was taught about the plight of the human condition from a young age. His mission is to help others experience freedom, wholeness, and peace in all stages of life. [Read More]

(54) Comments

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  1. Douglas Buzby says

    January 23, 2015 at 2:27 am

    I am glad you relocated the Facebook Twitter etc, links! :)

    Reply
  2. EMac61 says

    November 26, 2014 at 4:00 am

    Whether something is good or bad is largely determined by the way and the environment in which we were raised. Some people never look further than that and consider everything what happens in that context as “normal” The following two quotes describe how I think about that.

    โ€œGood or bad is a matter of perspective. I met an immortal hunami
    once, a man called William Shakespeare, who wrote that there is nothing
    either good or bad, but thinking.. makes it so.โ€
    ~Michael Scott

    โ€œNormal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.โ€
    ~Charles Addams

    My personal ‘quote’ is : What is believed is true… until believed no more.

    Reply
    • Mateo says

      November 29, 2014 at 6:37 pm

      “What is believed is true… until believed no more.” As long as what we believe to be true does not affect anyone else in our life, I see that personal motto as beautiful :).

      Reply
  3. Jana says

    November 11, 2014 at 9:36 am

    I was about to write that I agree with you, but that would be just an opinion. What I really mean is that I know you are right, I came to this realization several years ago.
    As you say “One personโ€™s morality can contradict another personโ€™s morality, but one personโ€™s wisdom can never contradict another personโ€™s wisdom.”
    I wanted to confirm, although I know you know. It’s more like a conscious feeling than conscious thinking, knowing when something is true.
    Yesterday I was watching a movie, and there was this catholic priest explaining some “rules” of morality to children. And I realized in that moment that what he was saying at that moment, what his religion is saying, is in esence true (he was talking about self-control, fighting with our hearts, etc. – pretty much he was saying that we must struggle with ourselves in order to grow) the way a religion approaches development of these truths in people is wrong. It has to come from within, you can not enforce it. It is not enough to intelectually comprehend this.
    I enjoy your writings and you are very wise, so I want to ask the same question here. If someone is reading this, and maybe even intelectually agreeing (although you can already see that people struggle when thinking about innocent victims, and it is very hard to see beyond that), can they really comprehend just by knowledge? Do we need to experience an emotion (in this case to see through the eyes of the “evil” one) to fully become wise in a knowledge, or you think that a lot of inner work can come from mostly mental world?

    Reply
    • Mateo says

      November 11, 2014 at 4:19 pm

      Hola Jana,

      I’m happy to see my views resonate with your own experiences so well.

      In my understanding most of us get too consumed in the whole mental knowledge cultivation that we lose touch with that being within us that ‘feels’ if something is conscious right or not as you put it, our souls.

      Some of the most intellectual and ‘knowledgeable’ men write great reference books, but they lack that emotional essence, that feeling to captivate their readers for example. Mental understanding that something is right or wrong is not enough, we must feel it in our very core which is why belief systems have failed so miserably, because they so easily contradict each other as there is no conscious ‘feeling’ involved.

      That is a strong reason why we are putting a strong emphasis in LonerWolf to encourage soulful development (through soul ages: https://lonerwolf.com/old-souls/ and other Involution methods).

      Thank you for raising such interesting questions that I hope other readers also decide to share their own views with :).

      Reply
      • Jana says

        November 12, 2014 at 1:25 am

        Thanks for the reply.

        Reply
  4. Daisy says

    November 09, 2014 at 6:45 am

    Your article is simply a copout. Power over others is not ‘unfortunate’ or ‘pleasurable’ and therefore excusable. i take a moral stand based on my values. Without morality there is anarchy – no thanks. Morality will change over time and with increased awareness and evolution of awareness. Is Patriarchy moral? I rest my case.

    Reply
    • Mateo says

      November 09, 2014 at 6:20 pm

      Hola Daisy,

      “Without morality there is anarchy” that is exactly the fearful beliefs that lead to dogmatic ideologies clinging for the safety of a universal morality we can all embrace.

      I never mentioned that power over others is ‘excusable’ but that these people who seek power over others, due to a lack of sensitivity of wisdom, feel the pleasure that comes with power outbalances whatever little feelings of guilt they experience from imposing themselves onto others.

      For the past few thousand years religions have been trying to impose this ‘absolutist’ idea that there is a clear cut good and a clear cut evil. Where exactly has that taken us? Countless wars and atrocities because each person interprets the ‘values’ that are taught to them in different ways.

      Wisdom is not open to interpretation, the more sensitive you are emotionally, the less harm you can cause. There is no question of interpretation involved.

      Reply
  5. Lupe says

    November 09, 2014 at 4:37 am

    Excellent insights. What I found mostly interesting is your thoughts on morality,in that what is deemed universally “good” or “evil”,or moral or morally unacceptable is based on the most popular beliefs at the time. I have to admit that this really blew my mind!! I also liked how you broke down the actions of a person lacking wisdom (the serial killer/dictator example) and it got me thinking how society favours harsh punishment (current prison system all over the world) over rehabilitation (teaching these people emphatic values). I’ll admit that if a person is for example convicted of rape,I’ll be hoping they get life behind bars just like most people,feeling (a very important keyword) that they’d deserved it. Once again a very intriguing read!!

    Reply
    • Mateo says

      November 09, 2014 at 6:27 pm

      Hola Lupe,

      I think my intrigue with the whole “good” and “bad” notions started from a young age where I felt that the values I was being taught and harshly imposed lacked something deeper, that the world was not as black and white as people made it out.

      For me it was an eye opener as well, to liberate myself from such a conception of the world truly allowed to understand what “compassion” actually was. It’s impossible to be compassion with a rapist when you label him as “evil”. But if you realize that he just lacks wisdom, that there is also hope some day he might gain that wisdom, it is much easier to be compassionate and forgiving with the rest of humanity.

      Thank you once more for your kind words :)

      Reply
  6. googly says

    November 08, 2014 at 4:23 pm

    A big part of true freedom and peace is no fear of harm from other ppl,there can never be peace in fear,indeed then you could say wats good is wat helps people to live in peace and wats bad is wat makes ppl suffer,my definitions and I dnt think any ‘good’ person wuld disagree, nice articles, peace

    Reply
    • Mateo says

      November 08, 2014 at 7:10 pm

      Living in peace is just one of many other benefits that can be attained to those who pursue to develop wisdom, so in the end living a life of wisdom is the key.

      Reply
  7. doodly says

    November 08, 2014 at 4:08 pm

    Ask the victims of rapists and crimes who arent mosochists and the familys of victims of homicides and various types of abuses and from there you will find the correct definition of morality,like u said in war killing is praised but there shuld be no war,guess im just a person who sees how the problem can so easily be eradicated,its just a shame evil is in power at the moment,cant agree more about wisdom,people suffer due to bad karma and they dnt have the wisdom to see why however making other ppl suffer aswell because you do is evil

    Reply
    • Mateo says

      November 08, 2014 at 7:10 pm

      Hola Doodly,

      I don’t claim that these crimes are not unfortunate, but the emotional anguish all these victims feel towards the event does not make the event “evil”, it simply makes it that; unfortunate.

      Using labels like “good” and “bad” attach an emotional value to a circumstance that would otherwise just be an event that occurred that we find terrible to accept.

      Reply
      • doodly says

        November 23, 2014 at 8:51 am

        So wat ure saying is the events arent ‘evil’ but ‘unfortunate’. id say thats just a different word for the same thing when speaking in this context, words have synonyms galore.

        Reply
        • Mateo says

          November 24, 2014 at 8:00 am

          Hola Doodly,

          It may superficially appear like a difference of semantics but it is not. “Evil” has a very heavy emotional association with it, being a good person or a bad person is equivalent to either going to heaven for eternity or going to hell.

          “Unfortunate” is still a form of judgement, but it has a lot less emotional baggage. Events in life are in fact just events, they are neither positive or negative, they are things that happen. As human beings with emotions and expectations, we label them with our judgement but we are creating a duality that does no exist from an existential point of view, just a subjectively human one.

          Reply
  8. Robert says

    November 08, 2014 at 5:36 am

    ISIS

    Reply
    • Mateo says

      November 08, 2014 at 7:10 pm

      ISIS are a perfect example of yet another group of people who share a “morality” of what they think and feel is right and what they think and feel is wrong, labeling them as “evil” or “bad” would be misguided.

      They are simply unwise, unwise to the consequences of their actions and unwise to exploring their beliefs and going beyond the dogmatic ideas they value.

      Reply
  9. dewdroppings says

    November 08, 2014 at 3:46 am

    To take a cue from the religious pic you used for this article I only went to confession once- in a Greek orthodox church- and it was a complete disaster. They had given me a list of sins beforehand and I noticed that one of them was Yoga! The priest was an ex classmate of mine and too pious with 5 uncles who had joined the priesthood before him. A family business. He was very impatient and nearly had an apoplectic fit at the mention of the word abortion. I have not been for this ritual since, However there IS evil in the world however relative. To quote a memorable but somewhat pessimistic unknown person; whatever u do there will always be a balance of good and evil in the world!

    Reply
    • Mateo says

      November 08, 2014 at 7:10 pm

      Hola Dewdroppings,

      That’s an amusing anecdote :).

      I think catholicism is realizing they are falling behind and losing a significant sum of followers so now they’re incorporating scientific discoveries like evolution, so I wouldn’t be surprised if soon we see the Pope doing Yoga before the sermons.

      “Evil” will exist only as a word people using to load it with an emotional reaction towards a circumstance, person or event they feel is unfortunate or unfair in the laws they’ve created and imposed as expectations on existence.

      Reply
  10. Iqbal Halim says

    November 07, 2014 at 10:35 pm

    I sometimes had a thought like you explained, Mr.Sol. What if “Good” and “Bad” things are relative, depend on the circumstances. Culture and religion give a big impacts to us so we believe and stick with it.
    A good thing is not always a good one in people’s eyes, and vice versa.
    This article has given me a new perspective to live this life.
    So insightful!

    Reply
    • Mateo says

      November 08, 2014 at 7:10 pm

      Hola Iqbal,

      I am happy to hear you’ve ventured down similar lines of questioning in your own life.

      That’s is exactly it, the more you learn about different cultures and different rituals throughout history the more you realize how superficial this “morality” we believe in is. The civilizations that sacrificed virgin young girls to please the “God’s” and many of these sacrifice victims would feel honored to be the offering! That’s the fragility of the mind and what we consider our ‘morals’.

      Thank you for sharing your own experience :)

      Reply
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