12 – What Lies Between Good and Evil

My recent post (If You Need a Code of Ethics, You’re Not Awake) seems to rub up against a prevailing belief held by some that Awakening has no effect on behaviour – so a person will basically continue in their unconscious actions, but will simply have ‘detachment from them.’ To quote Leslie Read’s comment:

‘As long as awakened teachers don a human body there is still the potential for all manner of abuse.’

It’s good to have different opinions on this, that of course is how we enquire into the subject. Just to reiterate, my response to this is: If teachers are engaging with ‘Lies and deceptions’ and carrying out ‘all manner of abuse and harm’ then that’s not what I call ‘The Shift’. If a teacher is acting from repressed emotions and impulses from their shadow and inflicting that on those around them (especially those who in their naivety put their trust in them) – do you think that has anything to do with Life Beyond Personality? That sounds to me like being enslaved by Personality. To sanction such action because the person is supposedly awake is not helping anyone.

This subject is a great mirror for enquiring into what Awakening actually is, and what it isn’t.

I came across this quote from G.I. Gurdjieff which eloquently sheds light on this issue:

By attempting to remember ourselves
We find that this is very difficult
Because the whole organism wishes to fall asleep:
The past seeks to steal the present moment.

You will often have heard the terms ‘good’ and ‘evil’,
But what lies between them?
The devil and the angel exists in all of us
But the third force of deep remembering can see through the illusion and the veil is lifted.

So by attempting to remember ourselves
We begin to study our sleep and what keeps us there.
We begin to understand that we have lost something,
Something that children are closer to,
But it is untrained and wanting to grow.