Does Good And Evil Exist?

Can good exist without evil? Can you have love without hate? Sadhguru addresses a seeker's question about whether these qualities are absolute.

Transcript

I'm trying to equate this to like polarity.

I mean we have light and dark,

We have hot and cold.

Do we have an evil and a not evil if you will or a good and bad?

See,

Good and bad is not in terms of your belief or your idea.

Anything that sustains and enhances life is what life should be looking for.

See,

Don't look at yourself as a person,

Don't look at yourself as a man,

Don't look at yourself as an American,

Don't look at yourself from any identity.

You just look at yourself as a piece of life which is the reality,

Isn't it?

You're just a piece of life.

So what is life looking for?

Always seeking how to enhance it,

Isn't it?

If somebody because of his ideas or his nonsense is going against this basic happening of life and enhancement of life,

We generally term it negative or maybe we can call it bad or evil.

But it's just a word.

Fundamentally you're going against your own life.

That is the negativity.

So in that context yes,

But not as a morality because moralities keep changing.

From society to society it's different.

From generation to generation it's different,

Isn't it?

Isn't it so?

Is there an opposite of love?

An opposite of love?

Yes.

Is there something opposed to love?

Generally we are thinking love,

Hate are two opposite things.

But it is not essentially so.

They're just the flip side of the coin,

You know,

Two sides of the coin.

See you can't hate somebody that you have nothing to do with.

You're in love with somebody and it turns negative for some reason.

That's when real hate,

Isn't it?

So is hate opposite to love?

In a way it is,

But fundamentally it is not.

In a basic way it is not,

On the surface it is.

I would say attachment is more against love than hate.

What about indifference?

You would always connect love and attachment.

Love and attachment have nothing to do with each other.

Hate and attachment more connected.

Because if it falls this way it becomes love,

If it happens if it falls that way it becomes hate.

Attachment,

See the moment attachment enters your life,

Anxiety comes.

Once anxiety comes,

Fear follows.

Once fear comes,

Madness will follow.

Now your child went to school,

Supposed to come back at five o'clock.

Six,

Not come back,

Anxiety.

Seven,

Not come back,

Madness.

Eight,

Not come back,

Gone,

Totally insane,

Isn't it?

So suddenly you cannot become mad.

It is just that it's always there,

It just needs a situation to expose you,

That's all.

It needs a little extreme situation to expose you,

It's always there with you.

The moment you enter the attachment,

You have entered into madness.

But right now you are always thinking love and attachment.

The nature of love,

If you want to use an analogy,

Love is like a flower,

You know.

If you hold it in your hand,

You have to walk carefully.

You can't do like this,

It'll just fall apart in your hands.

You have to walk carefully with it.

But attachment is not like that,

It is concretized.

It is like a plastic flower.

Plastic is never flower.

You may make it look like that,

You may spray perfumes on it,

But it's not flower.

Flower is that which flowers,

Isn't it?

Plastic is not flower.

So if you keep flowers in your house,

You have to watch it ten times a day.

It's a nuisance actually,

But it's life.

If you buy plastic flowers,

Five years guarantee.

You don't have to look at it.

It's always there.

If your children are being very naughty,

You can pull it out of the vase and whack them with it.

Guests are coming,

You can put it back.

It just serves all purposes,

Multipurpose,

It's guaranteed,

It's convenient,

It's cheaper.

In every way it makes sense.

But it's not life.

That's the big difference.

That is the… that is the phenomenal difference,

Isn't it?

It's everything,

But it's not life.

Right now that's not… that's what is happening to your logical minds.

In the name of your ideas,

In the name of your principles,

In the name of your moralities,

In the name of your belief systems,

You have everything.

But life is not enhanced.

Life is hugely reduced.

Everything else is there.

What is the point?

This whole thing is about life,

Isn't it?

Yes?

This is not about your car,

This is not about your bloody bank balance,

This is not about your wife or your children or anything,

This is about life,

Isn't it?

All these damn things you brought into your life to enhance your life,

Isn't it so?

Yes?

Your relationships,

Your money,

Your property,

Your conveniences,

Your gadgets,

You brought it into your life to enhance your life.

They are of no consequence by themselves.

So when you go logically after some time,

You forget that it's about life.

All the other things you will have,

You will have all the frills,

No skirt.

That's a bad way to dress,

Isn't it?

Reviews

Thank you for clarifying that the opposite to love is attachment...as Rebecca stated I too am trying to declutter my living space and simplify my life. Less is more...more time to live and breathe!
Thank you for another light hearted, inspiring talk!
🙏🌅Namaste

Thank you for your inspiring words as always

I learned something here that I suspected was true which is that love and attachment are opposite because attachment leads to fear.

I have listened to and received deeper personal understanding and insight from Sadhguru for a long time. This is one of the few tracks that I am downloading. (I don't download many from any teacher anymore.) Not only did his wonderful (and highly amusing, yet completely accurate except for omitting the need for dusting) analogy of love to different types of flowers make total sense, but the discourse at the end of the talk regarding how we bring things into our lives to enhance life - they have no value in and of themselves - hit me over the head with insight.

I have been working on decluttering my home and life, but as I have previously been living with a sense of scarcity rather than abundance (one of my current areas of meditative practice to adjust), I have had difficulty letting go of things. You know, "just in case I need this later" thinking. This was passed down to me through generations, though the furthest back I recognize personally was my great-grandmother (Oma) who, with my great-grandfather (Opa) brought my grandmother to the USA when Grandma was six years old. With little money, and arriving in the USA towards the start of the Great Depression with a family to raise, Oma became a hoarder of sorts out of necessity.

My grandmother and her son, my father, have all had trouble letting go of things throughout their lives, and as eldest, I learned to always be prepared from various youth activities plus the examples I saw within my family. But times have changed. Now this no longers serves a purpose, and these things merely take up my time and energy to maintain - if that happens at all. They do not, as Sadhguru says, "enhance life." At the time they arrived, perhaps they did, but no longer.

Though this talk was more about love and if there is an opposite of love, I found that the connection of attachment (as the opposite of love) deeply resonant and this understanding will help me progress more effectively in my journey to declutter, to detach myself from physical possessions, to detach myself from family-rooted learned behaviors and attitudes that have permitted or even encouraged the acquisition of "stuff." Little of the "stuff" around me enhances my life at this point. It actually sucks life away with the effort and attention required to maintain it, and it causes friction within my own family. Less truly is more.

My deepest gratitude to Sadhguru for enabling me to recognize and understand that attachment truly is the other side of the coin as love. I see the light in you. 🤲🏻❤️🤲🏻

Love this! Thank you.

Always such a lighthearted being💖
🙏Namaste. Thank you 💕