Ep.072 Good and Bad, Right and Wrong: Offensive Words or Spiritually Meaningful? Plus bonus content not in Live Show: Spirituality w Mark Zaretti

Episode transcript:

Hello, this is Mark from The Way Back, and This is episode 72, which was recorded live on the 14th of August, 2025.

[00:00:12] This is one of those episodes that I think really is helpful to people, no matter what stage you’re at in your spiritual journey, whether you’ve been doing this for years or you’re just starting out. We’re tackling the topic of good and bad, right and wrong, and it will make a lot of sense. But I truly believe that this is a good episode. Now, about 20 minutes in, I’m going to mention a particular pattern that people use to kind of get their own way. Maybe you’ve encountered that.

[00:00:42] But I allude to the fact that in the live show I say something like, you know, I’ll talk about how this is used by people that are manipulative. But sadly, I never got round to that in the live show. Kind of run out of time and the moment passed. But as a bonus to you for listening to this podcast, then after the closing credits, so listen all the way to the end, after the closing credits, I’ll talk about that particular facet of this behavioral pattern. And it will, I believe, be of value to you, whether you are someone that’s on the receiving end, or perhaps it’s something you slip into occasionally. If we can spot these patterns in ourselves and in others, then we can make choices. And it’s through choices that we can become more spiritual. So without any further ado, join me in enjoying episode 72. It’s a good one.

[00:01:37] Good evening. This is Mark from the way back, and this is discussing spirituality, the live show. And we’ve got a very busy show tonight, all on one topic. And this kind of came about more from a natural, organic conversation than someone sending in a question. But all will be revealed. But we are basically talking about, as the picture shows us, we are talking about wrong, right, good and bad, and ignore the fact it says episode 52. This is episode 72, and today’s date is the 14th of August, 2025.

[00:02:16] And I’ve said this before, but I used to watch Tomorrow’s World and I thought by now we’d have flying cars and hoverboards and things like that, but we don’t, not yet, anyway.

[00:02:26] So we know what we’re talking about.

[00:02:30] I think this is really going to be useful no matter where someone is at in their journey. And I’m going to kind of show you how we’re going to unpack this topic, because first of all, I’m going to kind of explain the Conversation I had. It’s the kind of conversation that any one of us could have and probably have had. And interestingly, we may well have been on both sides of the conversation.

[00:02:57] All will be revealed and then as I refer to the games we play and really all, again, all will become clear. But it’s about how we even tie ourselves up in knots without even realizing it.

[00:03:11] Then we’re going to get on to the conscious versus unconscious. And as ever, this is all from a spiritual perspective.

[00:03:19] And then the second half is good, bad, wrong, right, and how finally we look at how this actually plays out in our everyday life and across our entire life span that we’re here for. Again, from a spiritual point of view, but very nuts and bolts down to earth practical understanding so that we can do something with this because, you know, it’s great if we learn something. It’s even better if we can apply it. And you know, this is a making sense of life every episode kind of thing, but also making life easier, better and more empowering us to be able to pursue spirituality in everyday life as well.

[00:04:02] So I was out walking my dog. There’s me.

[00:04:06] And I say this every week. But if you’re listening again, don’t worry. The artwork, where relevant, will be in the write up notes.

[00:04:14] So we’ve got me on the right smiley face and then my friend on the left another smiley face. And my friend says, which is great. Comes up to me and says, I watched your new Time with Books show. I thought it was really good, nice and relaxed.

[00:04:30] And then there was a pause.

[00:04:32] Are you open to feedback? Now this is verbatim as best as I can remember it. So we did, you know, the conversation was probably a little bit longer, but this is how I remember it.

[00:04:45] Are you open to feedback or would you like feedback? Something like that. And I said, yes, of course.

[00:04:52] And obviously I thank them for their kind words about the new show.

[00:04:59] And so then they explained.

[00:05:03] Now, Mark, that’s kind of how it said some of the language like good, bad, wrong and right comes off as a bit Catholic. And I found it difficult.

[00:05:14] They actually struggled.

[00:05:16] Their kind of phraseology is they struggled with those words because it reminded them of being Catholic as a youngster and all that that entailed.

[00:05:27] So I’ve simmered it down to the salient points there, but that’s basically what they said.

[00:05:33] And obviously I had the benefit of the context of how they were saying it and the tonality and everything.

[00:05:39] And I’ll pause at this point.

[00:05:43] I am grateful to that person for Having the forthright, the courage, the chutzpah, however you want to put it to say to someone, would you like feedback now? So there’s no criticism. And I’m also stoked that they watched the first episode of the new live show, which is on Sundays, and found it nice and of some benefit as well, which is the whole point.

[00:06:10] So this isn’t about picking holes. And I said before we even got to this conversation that we’ve probably all been in this conversation on both sides and we might not have even realized it. So what. The purpose of what I’m revealing to you next through this exercise is to help us spot a pattern that we might well have.

[00:06:34] So not just about are other people showing this, but are we doing this? Because if we are, it’s holding us back. And if we can spot it in ourselves, we can break free from it.

[00:06:47] So I don’t think anyone has ever, you know, gone through life and not done some form of this.

[00:06:54] So this is actually not about what the person, other person said. It’s about putting ourselves in their shoes and saying, oh, have I ever done this? And if I have, it’s a useful thing to be able to go, well, do I want to carry on operating in that way? Because maybe there’s a better way, a more spiritual way.

[00:07:13] So I, I go back to the conversation. So they. So this person says some of the language, like good, bad, wrong, right, Comes off as a bit Catholic. And I found it difficult.

[00:07:23] Thank you for having the courage to tell me that.

[00:07:26] So I said, okay, thanks. Thanks for telling me.

[00:07:29] And as I was hearing them, my intuition or my more spiritual side on the inside said, h, interesting.

[00:07:39] And I didn’t react.

[00:07:41] My, my part of me wanted to make them feel better, you know, something I had done had made them feel uncomfortable.

[00:07:50] We’ll get to that.

[00:07:52] But I thought, no, interesting.

[00:07:54] And pretty much knew that this would probably become an episode in, in one of these live shows. So here it is.

[00:08:01] Now let’s have a, a more bird’s eye view of the whole exchange from, from in a number of different ways. So let’s remove all the context, forget about the live show and things like that. What actually was the exchange. So there’s me having done that in the live show or in some way presenting some information. So here is some information.

[00:08:26] And there’s the receiver of the information, the other person saying, the language you have used reminds me of a particular belief system which I have negative associations with.

[00:08:37] So that’s actually what was going on there.

[00:08:41] Simplifying it even further.

[00:08:43] I spoke some words and that other person fed back or said, I like the meaning, but the words you used make me feel upset because of my previous experiences.

[00:08:59] So the implied meaning, because they gave feedback. So they’re saying I’m telling you this, which is an implied so that you can do something about it. So the implied meaning, and I’m not saying they said this, I’m simply saying that this is what you can imply from what they said is I said blah, blah, whatever, it doesn’t matter what I said.

[00:09:23] The implied meaning of their response is the you need to change your choice of language because I feel uncomfortable due to how I perceive those words. So that was the implied meaning. Which is why I kind of went interesting because I got that at the time.

[00:09:40] You need to change your choice of language because I feel uncomfortable due to how I perceive those words. Now if I pick out the key salient points, you, you need to change because I feel uncomfortable.

[00:09:58] That is the games that we play.

[00:10:02] Now if you look at it from a total like, you know, beyond personality, total neutral, I was going to say God’s eye view, but you know, from a real place of abstract neutrality, what’s going on from a spiritual point of view.

[00:10:21] So one party presented positive information, the other party, this is the process that they went through. And I put it as if they were talking themselves through the process.

[00:10:33] I’m reacting negatively as I choose to give attention to habitual past associations with those words.

[00:10:40] Hence I am not fully present to receive the actual information from you. Instead I am creating negative emotional states within myself based on the past which I do not take responsibility for. So I must blame my environment brackets you so I don’t. And then, and then it goes on. So I don’t need to change, I need my environment to change to avoid me triggering myself to make more negative emotions.

[00:11:12] There’s a lot to unpack in that. So I will read it again and I’ll break it down a little bit more. So I’m reacting negatively as I choose to give attention to habitual past associations with those words.

[00:11:28] So with the trigger words for that person, you know, good, bad, right, Wrong, they’re giving attention to those words and are reacting so reacting negatively because making yourself feel bad is a bad is a negative reaction.

[00:11:47] So I’m reacting negatively because I have given attention to my association, my negative association with those words based on my habit of having made an association that was negative over many, many repetitions with that word. In other words, this is all to do with the past.

[00:12:06] And because it’s to do with the past, I am not fully present in the present moment.

[00:12:13] So I can’t. This is what they’re saying.

[00:12:16] So because I’m focusing on my past associations with these words, I can’t be present and therefore I can’t actually get the information you’re conveying because I’m distracted by my negative emotional reaction triggered by nothing to do with you or your intention, but triggered by how I perceive those words based on habit.

[00:12:39] So instead of actually getting the information, I am creating negative emotional states. So I’m not. I’m dropping out of the. The intellectual capacity to. To understand and comprehend because I’m going into the lower emotional states.

[00:12:54] And note the emphasis on creating. I am creating. No one else is creating it. The creator person that is speaking the words isn’t creating it. It’s the person who is dwelling on the negative associations that is creating their own misery or bad feelings or fear or whatever it is. So I’m. So this person is saying I’m creating negative emotional states within myself based on the past because it’s all about associations which have already been formed and they’re not taking responsibility for it. So they. And this is really key, actually, this is quite a common theme and thing that you’ll see in people.

[00:13:35] You know, it’s becoming very evident in this time that because they don’t want to take or don’t realize they’re responsible for it, then it must be someone else’s fault.

[00:13:45] So it must be the fault of the person who’s saying the words that they’re reacting to rather than themselves. That’s the logic.

[00:13:52] So there’s no response taking responsibility for the fact that they are creating their own negative emotions.

[00:13:59] Instead, it must be outside of them. And therefore it’s the person talking to them and the whole environment. And that’s why you get people who’ve got, say, a very strong belief in something that’s not necessarily truth and that will be really relevant later.

[00:14:15] So, and then they say everyone must agree with me because if they don’t, I will be upset. And how I feel negative emotions is more important than the truth. And. And I’m not responsible because they can’t take responsibility for the. How they feel. So they need the whole world to accommodate and validate their delusion.

[00:14:36] So a lot of you have probably seen this in recent times. So it’s the same. It’s the same kind of thing, but subtler.

[00:14:43] And lovely person, by the way, really fond of this person. So there’s no criticism of the person. But if I don’t think they even realize this is the pattern that’s going on. So it might help them to know because then they have choice to break the pattern. But basically, if they, if they or we cannot take responsibility for how we feel by realizing we did that to ourselves because we were dwelling in the past rather than being present in the moment during the exchange, then it must be the environment’s fault. And that means the person in front of you.

[00:15:16] And then there’s this implied because it was transmitted to another person as I am giving feedback instead of it being feedback to yourself that you’ve done this yourself and therefore you need to take responsibility. It’s projected outwards to the environment because the environment is now to blame. And so the feedback is given to the environment, basically saying, I’m not going to change, you have to change. Because I don’t want to feel hurty, upset.

[00:15:46] So to prevent me from being triggered to hurt, to cause these emotions in myself, the environment must now change.

[00:15:56] And that’s basically what that last line is. So I don’t need to change. I need my environment to change to avoid me triggering myself to make more negative emotions in myself.

[00:16:07] So that. That’s actually quite powerful to understand all of that.

[00:16:14] And again, no, there’s no criticism because I’ll be the first to put my hands and say I’ve probably done it. I’ve probably been there and gone down that same kind of flawed logic. And it’s not even logic, it’s just the games that we play. That’s why near the start, you know, if I go back to the intro, how we’re going to describe this so the conversation and then breaking it down, this is the games that we play now. I’m not going to try and guess why that person responded and went down that particular route.

[00:16:50] I don’t think they thought about it. And that’s why I’m saying it’s kind of like games we play almost in the background.

[00:16:57] But it’s a good defense mechanism because it means we don’t have to change. It means I like something, but I didn’t like all of it. It’s triggered me, I’m reacting. I now need you to change so that I don’t have that trigger again, because if you change, I don’t need to look at myself and deal with this problem because the problem won’t be triggered again, at least by you. And then I can use the same strategy with the next person and the next person and eventually Everyone in my environment knows to change how they talk around me.

[00:17:32] That’s where this is going.

[00:17:34] But what that really means is now everyone is limited out of fear of upsetting me.

[00:17:43] So this pattern, we’ll get onto it later, but is used by people that can be used by people that are manipulative.

[00:17:54] And again, it’s worth knowing these things because if you’re in the receiving end or you’re doing it, then knowing it gives us choice. And that’s what we’re aiming for here, is choice, you know, to change.

[00:18:09] So there’s a couple of things that it made me reflect on.

[00:18:14] And the first one is, are these words really Catholic? Is it a unique thing to Catholicism, or is it just that that’s where that particular person has experienced those particular words?

[00:18:26] And also, it really does seem to be about choice. And I’ve said the word choice multiple times already.

[00:18:31] So let’s have a look at this.

[00:18:33] So this is a. I did a very quick look, and I’m no theologian.

[00:18:39] I’m not claiming any kind of domain knowledge in Buddhism, Catholicism, English language or legal law language, but this is what I found just looking into it earlier today.

[00:18:51] So the words we’ve got across the top are good, bad, right and wrong. So in Catholicism, the words they use to represent these concepts would be good would be good, bad becomes evil, right becomes righteousness, or righteous and wrong becomes sin.

[00:19:08] Now, they. They may well also use the words wrong and right and bad, but generally their concepts are of good, evil, righteousness and sin in Buddhism. And the reason why I’ve gone for Buddhism is Buddhism is kind of about as far away as you can get in terms of something that seems like a religion.

[00:19:28] And this was brought up in a religious context, so I wanted to compare it to something slightly different.

[00:19:34] So Buddhism, by the way, in case you don’t know, Buddhism, kind of doesn’t really recognize God. It kind of says that there is no moral guiding principle or anything like that, and it’s all about your own personal journey.

[00:19:47] But they do have concepts of good and bad. So the concept of good in Buddhism is called kusala, which means skillful or beneficial, and akusala, which means unskillful or harmful.

[00:20:02] So that’s how they kind of use the con, their concepts of good and bad, but it’s still good and bad.

[00:20:07] Because the word good, for example, this is good for the job, meaning skillful.

[00:20:13] This is good for you, meaning beneficial, bad.

[00:20:16] You know, this is a bad fit for the role. So an unskilled worker is a Bad fit for a skilled position, for example, and this is bad for you, meaning harmful. So it’s the same concepts, they’ve just got obviously from different cultures, different words meaning the same thing. Buddhism doesn’t really have right and wrong.

[00:20:38] They get to it in a roundabout way by saying that after many, many years of self development, then you will have your own moral compass.

[00:20:47] So one of the distinctions, and it’s kind of off topic, but I’ll bring it up here, is that Catholicism and Christianity and things like that basically say that there is one absolute thing everywhere, which is the Creator God, the source, however you want to call it, and that there is an absolute goodness and therefore there is an absolute moral imperative that we can learn about. It’s kind of like in our nature to know right from wrong, good from bad, etc.

[00:21:14] Buddhism says no, there’s no such thing as God really. It’s all about self. It’s kind of a hedonistic approach really.

[00:21:20] And it says it’s down to you to decide what is right and wrong. So they still actually acknowledge it, but it’s part of the journey of evolving as a Buddhist to get to that point where you are self referential in your moral code. Okay, dictionary definitions, just so that we’re thoroughly. Good is described as being positive or desirable in nature, not bad or poor, serving the desired purpose or end suitable.

[00:21:49] Bad is described as something that is below standard or expectations as of ethics or decency.

[00:21:57] Right is conforming with or conformable to justice, law or morality. And it’s that last one, morality, that kind of hints towards the religious meaning of right.

[00:22:10] And also it means in accordance with fact, reason or truth.

[00:22:15] Okay, I mentioned truth earlier, really important.

[00:22:20] So right means in accordance with truth, not opinion, truth.

[00:22:29] So since truth can be absolute, you know, then right can be something that is certain, that’s kind of where that’s going.

[00:22:40] And then if we just finish the definitions, then wrong in dictionary definition is not in conformity with fact or truth. So disagreeing with the truth would be wrong, incorrect or erroneous, contrary to conscience, morality or law, unfair or unjust. Now if we think about recent times where you know, well, let’s touch a hot topic.

[00:23:06] Is there more than two genders, male and female? Can a boy be a unicorn or a cat? You know, can. Can a person identify as an animal or an inanimate object or a non binary solar seed or something?

[00:23:21] So there’s ideas and opinions, but if something goes against fact or truth, then it is wrong according to the dictionary definition. I’m not saying what’s right or wrong, I’m simply giving examples. Okay, so let’s get to the last bit, which is in legal and law, then in legal and law speak, they actually avoid good and bad because it’s not about a qualitative judgment. They’re only interested in law, in is something right or wrong.

[00:23:56] So the concepts of right or wrong do exist in law. And in law, right means an abstract, in an abstract sense, justice, ethical correctness, or the harmony with rules of law or the principles of morals.

[00:24:10] Now that could also apply to the law of nature, for example, and wrong, a violation by one individual of another individual’s legal rights. Now it’s interesting in legal speak legalese that wrongdoing in this definition, and there probably are other definitions like to harm the environment, to harm property and stuff like that, but they’re really referring to it’s wrong if you have infringed on another person’s rights. Okay?

[00:24:42] And that’s legally speak.

[00:24:45] So what can we conclude from this is that clearly the concepts of good and bad exist in Christianity, Catholicism, Buddhism, in natural language, but not found in law, oddly enough. And right and wrong exist in Catholicism, Christianity, not so much in Buddhism, but in the dictionary, in everyday language and in legal and law. So if we were to go back to the original premise that it sounds a bit Catholic, you could also say, well, it sounds a bit like, you know, words in a dictionary. Or you could say it sounds like legalese, it sounds like Christianity, it sounds like advanced Buddhism. And the same with the words good and bad, you could say, yeah, it is found in Catholicism, but it’s also found in Buddhism. It’s also found in the dictionary, but it’s not found in legalese.

[00:25:44] So just to kind of put the idea that certain words belong solely to a particular belief system, it goes right back to the principle that I think I said years ago, that could it be that God and Jesus, for example, do not belong to religion?

[00:26:01] You know, what came first, God or religion? So what came first, good and bad or Catholicism?

[00:26:10] So does the word good or the word bad or right or wrong belong to Catholicism? Or is it, could it be, and I know I’ve got some personal experience of this, could it be that how those words are used in Catholicism creates negative associations?

[00:26:27] And is that therefore a problem of the words or the approach used by a particular belief system?

[00:26:34] And you could keep going with that and say, well, do they have an agenda, like to instill fear or. And is there a reason, could it be to do with control for example, that that’s quite a reasonable kind of line of thinking. But that’s not the purpose of tonight’s show.

[00:26:50] What we’ve done so far is we’ve taken a surface conversation and revealed the subsurface what’s going on. But it also is a useful thing because it’s brought up these words. It’s brought up the words right, wrong, good, bad, and provided us with an opportunity to ask a more spiritual question.

[00:27:14] And before we get to that, I want to share what’s in the chat, because Rachel B. Jones has said something. So as a childhood Catholic, I remember words and stories from the Bible and good and evil being used to control through guilt. Gaslighting, too Shudder.

[00:27:32] But again, is it those words or is it the associations that have been created? And so thank you for your candor, Rachel B. Jones, for sharing that. And, you know, I’ve mentioned in this show and others that I was brought up Catholic, so I can identify with what you’re saying.

[00:27:56] Do we have to.

[00:27:59] I guess the question is, do we therefore have to censor what we say so that we don’t risk offending or not offending, but upsetting someone because of their sensibilities, because of a childhood traumatic thing?

[00:28:16] Or do we just put truth first and use the right words to convey truth?

[00:28:26] And I think that leads us on nicely to the fact of, well, do these words actually have a place in a spiritual discussion? So let’s do a quick refresher reminder of stuff that we’ve covered in previous episodes that I think is relevant to this particular episode.

[00:28:46] So we are not responsible for things outside of our control. For example, that person I was chatting to in the park was not responsible for the words I used. But equally, I.

[00:28:58] We’re not responsible for their reaction to my words.

[00:29:03] We are responsible for how we choose to react, and that includes our emotions. So that person who got upset or felt uncomfortable, which is still basically an emotion at the sound of certain words, chose that response. They might not understand that they chose that response, but they are responsible for it.

[00:29:28] So, and this is why I said they might not realize they chose that response. But basically, how we react is either unconsciously, and by that, I mean if we are coming from ego, fear, habit, or influence. And I’ll just put a side note. If talking about influence, a person can be influenced by not themselves. So the idea in certain cultures of djinns or demonic possession or things like that, there can be influences on a person that could make them react in a negative way, but it’s normally Quite a weak effect. And I’ve. I’ve done an entire live show on. On that side of things. So I’ll just put a link to that. And I believe it’s episode 53, but we’ll. We’ll confirm. So look for a link that says things that influence you.

[00:30:21] Okay, but that’s not. Of the four, that’s not the ones to pay attention to what we’re really talking about. Unconscious reaction comes from ego, fear, or habit almost always results in a negative response when you. When we react to things unconsciously. And it’s not ever really a situation where we’re exercising our free will, which is a very special quality that we have as humans. So when we’re reacting unconsciously, we’re kind of asleep. We’re not really demonstrating free will.

[00:30:53] And it’s more than likely going to create a bit of a negative response because that tends to be what happens. But if we react consciously, then we are exercising, or we have the opportunity to exercise our free will because we are conscious in the moment.

[00:31:10] So that was a quick reminder, and I’ll put that slide up on the notes.

[00:31:16] So now let’s put our spiritual hats on, because here we are, it’s Thursday, and it’s a spiritual live show. And I’ve got some of you. Hopefully you recognize the sign behind me. We’ve got the truth sign.

[00:31:33] I managed to find a way to bring it into this temporary studio. I’m refitting my office, and so it makes sense just to keep things rolling in here for continuity.

[00:31:45] So we’ve got the true sign behind us. So metaphorically speaking, behind everything that we do is truth.

[00:31:53] And to seek the truth. You’ve heard me say many times, if you know what I’m going to say, feel free to say it along. But to seek the truth is to seek God. And I’m not talking religion, I’m not talking Catholic, I’m not talking Buddhism. I’m talking the absolute, whatever it is, that one, one thing everywhere before time, outside of our understanding, the cause of everything.

[00:32:23] So let us put our spiritual hats on because that’s kind of what spirituality is all about.

[00:32:28] So unconscious versus conscious, what does Mark really mean?

[00:32:36] So when we’re unconscious, the brain is running the show.

[00:32:42] When we’re unconscious, we are dominated by habit and ego.

[00:32:46] We’re focused in the past or the future. But note, that means we’re not really focused in the present.

[00:32:54] We’re not receptive to higher guidance. When we’re unconscious, we’re unlikely to make good choices. There’s that word good choices are more than likely habitual when we are unconscious.

[00:33:09] And if you remember the previous slide, then I said that when you’re unconscious, you’re coming from habit, ego or fear. So hence why it’s likely that choices are habitual.

[00:33:20] Free will is not employed and there is no chance of spiritual growth when we are unconscious.

[00:33:30] Not only that, but the unconscious reaction or the unconscious state is more than likely going to exacerbate problem states. So let me, let me explain. If you’ve got anxiety or make you more anxious, you will spiral. If you’re unconsciously reacting to things.

[00:33:47] If you’re depressed, it will make you more depressed. If you’ve got an addiction, it will feed the addiction. Unconscious means that there’s no opportunity to interrupt a bad pattern. Okay? So it’s going to exacerbate problem states because they will just roll because they are the habit.

[00:34:10] And you’re likely to react to something emotionally if you’re reacting unconsciously. So in other words, you’ll get that cascade of trigger emotional response. And by the way, I haven’t put it on the slide here, but most emotional responses, most emotions aren’t good.

[00:34:28] I mean people like. So joy, joy is not an emotion. Joy is an energy. It’s a state. Okay.

[00:34:38] All the other good ones are normally based on gratification or short term meeting a desire.

[00:34:46] So you’re happy because of something, but happiness is one foot on the ladder, which means the other foot’s off the ladder. And the fact that there’s a ladder means you can go up and down. So happiness quite often is a bit of a roller coaster. Which is why people that seek emotional gratification, I. E. I want to be happy, will never really be happy because it’ll be short lived and then you’ll have the downs. Because if you set your camp in emotions, you’re setting your, putting your tent up, you know, in a puddle. Basically it’s water, it’s motions, it’s moving all the time, it’s, it’s not stable.

[00:35:22] And so yeah, if you’re unconscious, you’re likely to react emotionally. And fear is a big motivator when you’re unconscious.

[00:35:30] So I’ve kind of just expanded on the previous slide.

[00:35:34] But if you recognize yourself doing any of these, like acting out of a habit, ego, or you’re over focused on the past or the future. So anxiety is future focus and depression is past focus. Generally speaking, that’s one of the ways of understanding it.

[00:35:52] If you don’t feel like you get receiving any Guidance.

[00:35:56] If you’re always making the same mistakes, you don’t feel you have any choice. I’m just paraphrasing things in a way that we can relate to.

[00:36:05] Problem states keep getting worse. You just get stuck in them and spiral.

[00:36:11] You keep getting emotional or you’re scared. You’ve got fear, right? Guess what? They’re all clues that you’re unconsciously reacting to things, and you’re basically on autopilot and the plane is pointing down, you know?

[00:36:25] So the good news is you have the capacity to be conscious in your reactions. So what’s that like? Well, when you’re conscious, the heart is running the show, not the brain.

[00:36:36] Instead of being dominated by a habit and ego, you are receptive to your spirit and intuition. So you start to be more intuitive. You. I’m not saying you hear your spirit or anything like that, but basically, you get your. You’re actually acting according to the guidance you’re getting instead of just not.

[00:36:54] You become focused more in the present, okay?

[00:36:58] That’s really important.

[00:37:01] You’re receptive to higher guidance.

[00:37:04] You’re likely to make good choices because they come from higher guidance. There’s that word again. Good choices are based on. Choices are more likely to be. To be based on wisdom. And if I remember, I’ll explain a bit more about where wisdom really comes from.

[00:37:20] You are certainly, if you are conscious, you are able to exercise free will, and there is a big chance of spiritual growth.

[00:37:28] And if you are consciously reacting to something, then you have a chance to diffuse problem states. Like, you find yourself getting angry or upset. You can nip it in the bud, okay. And you’re likely to be neutral and not react rather than react emotionally.

[00:37:50] And the last one is, if you’re conscious, then fear normally is not really present. Fear always. So the seat of fear is ego. We’ve talked about this in other episodes. So you can do a search on the website for fear, and you’ll find articles and episodes and podcasts where I talk about that.

[00:38:10] So when we’re not. When we are conscious and present in the moment, then there’s less chance of fear because we’re not really engaging with ego.

[00:38:20] And that’s the whole point. So the unconscious side fundamentally. I’ll put a box on the screen with ego on it. Because the unconscious side is fundamentally feeding and led by and driven by, by ego, whereas the conscious side is. You are in state. And I talk about this a lot with the people I teach. And in other episodes, we talk about being spiritually in state. And that’s why I’ve shown it in the heart there. Because when you’re coming from your heart, when the heart is running the show, then you’re in state, you’re present, you’re neutral, you’re less reactive, you’re able to employ wisdom, receive guidance, etc. All those good things come from being conscious.

[00:39:05] You could say, well, what came first? Because you can have the intention and be more in state and then become more conscious. As in, I don’t mean a consciousness, I mean conscious present.

[00:39:17] Okay, so it’s ego versus state.

[00:39:21] And you can put the word spiritual in there. So ego versus spiritual state.

[00:39:28] Which brings us on to the actual words bad, good, right and wrong. Okay, but just have a, have a think about what we just shared. I’m actually going to put that back up on the screen and just look down that list on the right hand side.

[00:39:48] These are the clues that you are getting it right. You’re coming from your heart, you feel receptive, you’re having intuitions, you’re in the present, you’re making good choices.

[00:40:01] You can sense there’s wisdom behind what you do.

[00:40:04] You feel empowered, you actually feel like you’re growing.

[00:40:11] You’re not falling into problem states, you’re resolving problem states.

[00:40:15] You’re gliding through life with a certain grace and neutrality. And even though there are triggers, you’re not reacting and there’s an absence of fear. So there’s all these things that help us to putting them out on this page, like this means that we can actually help gauge, well, am I being in my ego? And look, I get it, guys, no one wants to acknowledge that they’re in ego. And if someone says, oh, you’re in your ego, you take it quite badly. Why do we take it badly? Because we are in our ego. There’s the irony. If we weren’t in our ego, then we just shrug it off.

[00:40:53] So if we do find ourselves reacting to the suggestion, and by the way, this, this even means right now because, you know, are you conscious as you’re listening to this live show, as you’re listening again to the podcast, or are you unconscious?

[00:41:13] So the suggestion that if you’re kind of sensing all those negative things and these negative states and you’re reacting and stuff fundamentally is rooted in ego. If that triggers you, then it’s also a clue.

[00:41:25] And we’ve all been there, okay? No one’s, there’s no judgment here. We’re all in this together to learn together, to grow together, to make the world a better place together.

[00:41:37] So this is a Safe place where we can have these kind of conversations. And you know, no one’s pointing fingers has it occurred that maybe I’m able to talk about these things because I’ve had to fight these battles in myself as well.

[00:41:51] So no one’s saying that if you can recognize the negative stuff that you’re in the wrong. It’s just now if you can recognize the negative stuff that you sometimes fall into, you can do something about it because you’ve got more understanding. So this is an empowering conversation.

[00:42:10] But yeah, unconscious ego, conscious in state.

[00:42:15] So going to the words, the words that were the trigger for a problem. Wrong, right, bad, good, you know, sounds a bit Catholic to me.

[00:42:27] Well, whatever your thoughts are of religions, they might accidentally get stuff right sometimes as well.

[00:42:35] That was kind of a joke. But talking of religion, before we press on, I’m just going to read out what Rachel B. Jones said in response to what we said. It was a useful experience though. It’s easier to hear the motivation behind words, so maybe helped with discernment. I listen as much to the words as the energy, intention behind them.

[00:42:59] Yeah. And in order to listen to the intention behind the words and the energy of the person and things like that, then you need to be in state and be present.

[00:43:10] And so it’s kind of what you’re saying is a good example of how you can put it into practice and say, okay, look, I had bad experience with these words, but now I’m more mature spiritually. I can listen to someone and when they use these words, I’m more interested in what their energy and intention is and less interested in falling into my own self sabotaging patterns. So that’s really good, good to hear.

[00:43:37] And now it’s time to look at wrong, right, bad, good, and understand these things because they can actually be really helpful.

[00:43:51] So another reminder. That’s kind of an episode of reminders here.

[00:43:57] So spirit, we still got our spiritual hats on. That’s the purpose of this show.

[00:44:03] Spirituality is your desire for God the source. I’m making just short, short reminder statements here. Okay.

[00:44:12] It is not intellectual. It is love based and thus heart, not head.

[00:44:17] Referring to spirituality, the more you love God, the more spiritual desire you have. And that is spiritual growth.

[00:44:28] And I know there may be people out there who go, no, no, no, no. Where’s the mention of meditation and advanced states?

[00:44:34] Well, please remember I’ve been on those journeys and I’ve guided many other people across those journeys. And I sit here as someone that seeks the truth and after many, many years of doing that side of things. I can tell you now that that statement I just made is true.

[00:44:53] I don’t need. I don’t ask you to believe me. I want you to find out for yourself. But I must. I’m reminding us of things that we’ve gone over many times in many different episodes.

[00:45:05] That the more you love God, the more spiritual desire you have. And that is spiritual growth.

[00:45:12] Free will means you can choose between listening to your head or your heart. And remember two points above, spirituality is not intellectual. It is a love based and thus heart, not head. Okay?

[00:45:25] And also some of you have heard these things before or maybe it’s the first time you’re hearing these things and maybe some of them may trigger.

[00:45:33] And you know, that’s. I guess part of the exercise today is to go, can I hear these things without being triggered? Even if I don’t agree, can I just be neutral?

[00:45:43] Maybe there’s something that I don’t yet understand, or maybe I’m going to see things differently. But that will only happen through neutrality because that creates a space to allow things in rather than butting up against our beliefs and our past. So remember, it’s like, do you want to be present or in the past?

[00:46:04] So you can only choose your reaction and it is only in the present moment. So if you’re not being present, then you can’t choose your reaction and you simply react habitually.

[00:46:17] So if you listen to your heart when making a choice, you will become more good.

[00:46:23] Follow the logic.

[00:46:25] So spirituality is love based, thus the heart.

[00:46:33] And then free will means you can listen to your head or your heart.

[00:46:38] And if you listen to your heart, you become more good.

[00:46:42] Okay?

[00:46:44] And spirituality is desire for God.

[00:46:47] Now, the greatest goodness is God. The source of all that is good is God.

[00:46:52] That’s something that you maybe heard me say elsewhere. So the greatest goodness is God. And remember, we’re not talking bearded guy on a cloud or man in a man with a trident shooting lightning bolts.

[00:47:07] We’re not talking about biblical characters.

[00:47:12] You know, certainly Old Testament, what we’re referring to here. I want to always simmer it down to the most fundamental simple principle.

[00:47:20] So if you took everything away, went back to the point before the big Bang, before anything existed, before we, we existed before rumble live shows existed. If you took it right back to there is nothing, just one thing everywhere, or there is no movement, perfectly still, then that which was before all of that, the cause of it all, that’s what we’re referring to. Just keep it really, really simple.

[00:47:48] The greatest goodness Is God the source of all that is good?

[00:47:53] Now, your spirit is a gift from God and is how you know what is good.

[00:47:59] And that’s why I said, when we’re conscious, we’re receptive to higher guidance. And therefore there is a chance for growth.

[00:48:07] Because if you’re receptive to higher guidance, you’re receptive to your spirit, which is a gift from God, and that is how you know what is good. So if you’re not receptive to your spirit, you don’t have access to or you’re not receiving the spiritual compass of what is good.

[00:48:25] The more you listen to your heart, brackets spirit, the more aligned with God you become.

[00:48:33] So I could just read the brackets words and say, the more you listen to your spirit, the more aligned with good you become, or the more good you become.

[00:48:42] If you listen to your head, you may become less good, brackets bad.

[00:48:48] When you have listened to your heart, your soul remembers the experience and that is soul growth.

[00:48:54] So again, following all these points, if your spirit guides you in what is good, and you listen to your spirit, which means you listen to your heart and you acted accordingly, then your soul remembers the experience of you acting in alignment with goodness, guided by your spirit. And the memory of the experience contributes to your soul’s growth because it has now experienced it.

[00:49:22] And your past soul experience or experiences is the quality of character you now have. So if you think about all the amazing qualities of character that you might may see in people, I’ve put a few there, but that’s by no means definitive. So we’ve got courage, resilience and wisdom. For example, I told you I’d mention wisdom.

[00:49:43] Then they. The people that have these, or if you see recognizing yourself the more they have, it’s because they’ve had past experiences of these things, because they’ve listened to their spirit in the past and done what was good as guided by their spirit, which was a gift from God. So you could say as guided by God.

[00:50:05] And they now have the character of wisdom and resilience and courage to draw upon because of their soul growth in those regions.

[00:50:16] So that’s kind of a reminder of a lot of the stuff that we’ve touched on in other episodes and kind of just making sure we’re all up to speed at this point.

[00:50:25] Because I wanted to share this picture with you and this really is going to explain good and bad, right and wrong. But I’m just going to very quickly. Apologies for the loud, clicky keyboard, go back to this picture because I think when we talk about good and bad, right and wrong. This is the picture, maybe one way of people understanding it, that, you know, the guy’s trying to walk in a good direction. So he got good off in front of him, and that means he’s turned his back on bad. So bad is behind him, but then there’s right and wrong, and he’s stuck in the middle. Which way do I go? You know, because he.

[00:51:08] There isn’t necessarily the word good written on the floor in front of you. So this is the dilemma of human existence, is I’m trying to move towards good and move away from bad. And. But, you know, every choice, it’s like, do I go left or right?

[00:51:22] What’s the right thing to do? No pun intended, you know?

[00:51:27] And so that, I think, is very hard to understand. And it’s not actually a good representation of how things truly are from a spiritual point of view. So I’ve drawn a simple graph on the X axis along the bottom. From left to right. We have time.

[00:51:44] So you could look at that as just an hour, or you could look at it as the. The left hand point is.

[00:51:53] The left hand point is, you know, start of your life, and the right hand point is the end of your life. So I’ve got my little pointer on the screen. So we’re talking about this line across the bottom. So that’s the span of time either just in within an hour or your entire lifetime. And then the Y axis going up the page, we’ve got the word vibration.

[00:52:15] And said that in a meeting once. And one of my friends, I just looked him because I knew he was thinking of singing Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys. And sure enough, he was. But I can hear it in my head right now.

[00:52:28] I promise I won’t sing. No. So we’ve got vibration going up here.

[00:52:34] And what that indicates is that the bottom would be low vibration, the top would be high vibration. And I’ve kept it vague because I think intuitively I’m more interested in you coloring that in with your understanding of what that means, that higher vibration is good, and lower vibration is not so good or not so desirable. So the goal is to be higher vibration. I think intuitively we can all understand that.

[00:53:00] So, wrong button. So here we are, we’re on this graph about halfway along time and about halfway up vibration. So let’s just say that’s where we are now.

[00:53:11] And good, whatever good means, means that we’re moving up in vibration.

[00:53:19] Whereas bad, whatever bad means, means we’re moving down in vibration.

[00:53:25] So if we drop in vibration you can say you have become more bad, you have become less good. If we rise in vibration, you could say you have become more good and you have become less bad.

[00:53:39] So now we’ve got a sense of how good and bad relate. And it’s not so much that good is a path before us, it’s simply that whatever we do might raise us up or might drop us down.

[00:53:53] So if we do stuff that has a good outcome, then we. Then you could say you’ve done good because the end result is you have raised up. Now remember, this is across time.

[00:54:07] Okay, so I’ve drawn a wobbly line on the graph and that’s showing that we started life on the left hand side at a certain vibrational level down here.

[00:54:19] And over time we’ve climbed up, sometimes we’ve dropped down a little bit here and then there was a big spike there. So that was maybe a really quite challenging time when we had to draw on courage and make a lot of good choices for the greater good.

[00:54:33] But what’s this? Then we dropped down again. So maybe after the event we went into ego and got a big, big, big for our boots or something. But then we realized the mistake and we put it right and we write raised back up in vibration and we had a bit of a dip, maybe that was a difficult time that we didn’t handle so well, etc. So throughout life we’ve got these peaks and troughs, but the overall trajectory of this person has been that they are much higher vibration now than they were when they came into life.

[00:55:08] Now remember I said spirituality is your love of God and God is the cause of all that is good. So such a person who is rising in vibration throughout the trajectory of their life might not even realize that they’re spiritual. But at some level they want to be more good. And good means raising vibration. And if you, metaphorically, if you kept on raising your vibration until you transcended vibration, and that would be beyond all vibration is another way of saying God. So, or the state of God or the quality of God.

[00:55:51] Obviously God can’t really be defined in that sense, but you get the idea. Good is in the direction of God. So someone that is moving into more goodness all the time throughout life is becoming more spiritual.

[00:56:04] But they won’t actually be spiritual until they have a sense within of God. And that doesn’t mean a biblical God or a religious God. It means some kind of sense that there’s more to life, that there’s more to than just them, and that there is something greater and they’re seeking it like they want to get to it. That’s the kind of start, the germination of spirituality. They don’t have to label it as God. And they may use words like the source.

[00:56:33] And I’ve talked in the past about how certain characters can try and derail that by introducing concepts like universal consciousness or planetary consciousness and try and get people to deify that rather than to keep actually seeking the purest, simplest, greatest that which is one thing everywhere. But anyway, I digress slightly that you’ve got the idea that throughout life, through choices that are made, you can raise in vibration, you can sometimes drop in vibration.

[00:57:04] So we got to this point where we are now as a result of all the little choices. And remember, those choices were only made when you were conscious. There’s no spiritual growth. There’s no growth as a result.

[00:57:18] So I’m going to correct myself slightly. You can still go up a bit in vibration if you happen to make the right choice or a good choice unconsciously. But you’re less likely to make good choices unconsciously. And you’re more likely to make bad choices unconsciously. And therefore you’re more likely to be dropping in vibration if you’re always unconsciously reacting. Okay, but let’s get back to the picture because the story is not done. We’re only halfway across the page.

[00:57:47] So what next? Well, at any point, you’ve got choice right now, you know. So right now, watching this video, listening again, you have a choice. There’s a lot going on.

[00:58:03] You’re hearing information, some of it may be new. So you’re thinking, you’re processing. Your spirit, your soul are also involved. But if you’re unconscious, you’re not listening to them, and you’re just listening to your brain. The internal dialogue, the conversations that you have with yourself.

[00:58:21] There’s potential emotional reaction to things that are being said, rejection of things or resistance. That is all the games we play with ourselves and others. To remember, not take responsibility so that others have to change and we can stay the same. So in other words, if you don’t want growth, stay unconscious.

[00:58:42] If you want growth, you have to become conscious, which means being more neutral, just simply observing what’s going on, and therefore more capacity for growth and learning.

[00:58:55] So this is going on right now. And so that means that you’re right now capable of choice. Do you choose to be more conscious and present and neutral or less.

[00:59:06] And that’s what that question mark represents it. So any moment, really, there is a choice point.

[00:59:12] So if you make the Right choice. Now I’m introducing the word right.

[00:59:20] Then your trajectory continues in an upwards.

[00:59:25] So the right choice will lead to more good.

[00:59:28] The wrong choice will start taking you in the wrong trajectory towards bad.

[00:59:38] So at each choice point in life, and there are many in a day, but there are some big ones that come up as well, then every single choice point has an outcome. And the outcome will either be that you’ve become more good or you’ve become more bad. And if you’ve become more bad, you made the wrong choice. And if you become more good, you’ve made the right choice. Now this is actually, it’s a simple drawing, but let’s just take a moment here, guys, because the question is, what does good and bad, right and wrong mean?

[01:00:15] Well, now we understand that good is moving up in vibration. And remember I said we’ll keep the definition of vibration a bit loose so that you can fit it to your understanding more towards goodness, more towards God, a better person, more aligned with God or with, you know, the good stuff, bad moving in the wrong direction. So some people might say, well, good means you’re a good Christian, bad means you’re a Satanic. Well, that would be one demonstration or understanding of this and it wouldn’t be wrong.

[01:00:55] But this is simpler than that. So it’s any direction in the positive versus any direction in the negative.

[01:01:04] And the labeling of the choices is what was the net effect of the choice you made?

[01:01:14] If the choice you made meant that you became more good, then it was the right choice. If the choice you made meant that you fell more into negativity. So remember, let’s apply this to everyday life. The unconscious choice, the one you do habitually, is more than likely going to result in an emotional response. And remember I said most emotions are negative. So negative emotion actually drops. Your vibration means you’re becoming more bad.

[01:01:47] Unconscious choices tend to be the wrong one. That also means it exacerbates problem states. So you become more anxious or you become more depressed or you become more neurotic or you become more scared.

[01:02:00] Remember, fear comes from ego.

[01:02:03] So the wrong choice has a lot of negative outcomes that all collectively mean that your vibration is dropping. Because you can’t sit in ego and maintain a high vibration. You can’t sit in fear and, and be high vibration. You can’t be depressed.

[01:02:22] Because if you’re depressed, then, and I say this with compassion because I’ve, I’ve had friends go through it and I’ve been on the edge of it myself.

[01:02:32] And luckily the, you know, I’ve always been spiritual. So it’s given me the resources which I’m part of why I’m sharing them here.

[01:02:41] But I don’t want to over trivialize or simplify or in any way diminish what anyone’s going through. But it just helps to understand that. Remember I said the unconscious means you’re coming from your brain. You might use the word mind and you’re likely to be stuck because there’s no room for growth because you’re unconscious. You need to be conscious to make choices that could lead to growth. Remember, growth would also imply good. So if you’re growing or moving away from a negative stuck state, then you making the right choice in what you’re doing and you are increasing in your goodness and your vibration.

[01:03:21] So it just helps to understand that the negative stuck states. So depression, anxiety, fear and addictions are all brain or mind based.

[01:03:35] And so the simplest solution is to become present in the moment because then you’re not feeding the anxiety or the depression which is either the future or the past. Referencing the future all the time or referencing the past. So the future, by that I mean someone’s always worried what if this, what if that, what if? Well that’s what might happen but hasn’t happened, that’s the future. Or dwelling on what has happened and going into victim mentality and victim mode, which is about the past. So becoming more present, moving out of the head focus and into the heart focus, finding more neutrality and stillness so that you’re not going and creating negative emotional states that you then fall into that then drag you down.

[01:04:20] So you can see how this could actually understanding the words good, bad, right and wrong can actually help a person overcome a problem state. And so let’s just clarify then. So what we have is good and bad is the outcome and the direction more up, more down, right and wrong is the assessment of the outcome of the choice.

[01:04:48] So it’s all about choice. And the only thing you are responsible for is your choice. Everything else comes from it.

[01:04:59] So that’s why if you’re conscious, I. E. In state, then you have the opportunity to make a good choice or make a right choice which would increase your goodness. And that’s because that side of things. So the good right choice is what your spirit is telling you to do.

[01:05:18] But if you’re unconscious, not in state, you’re more than likely going to make the wrong choice. And that’s because that’s what your brain is telling you to do. So it literally is head good, right and brain wrong, bad. Now I’m not saying your brain is bad. What I’m saying is if you leave it in charge, then you’ll go into habits, you’ll go into the patterns and the things that don’t help, and you won’t be listening to your soul, your spirit, and you’ll move in the wrong direction.

[01:05:52] So is it all. If you, if you’ve made the wrong choice, is it all. Is it all over?

[01:05:59] That’s the obvious doom and gloom question. Well, no, because every point along that timeline, remember, time is flowing. Okay, so this could just be one hour we’re looking at. It could be zoomed in on one hour or one minute, or it could be that we’re looking at an entire lifetime there.

[01:06:19] Because I kid you not, choices are happening all the time.

[01:06:23] Okay, so what happens if you’ve started going in the wrong direction? Well, you still have another choice, the next choice. And it might be seconds after the wrong choice. You go, oh, hang on a sec, moving in the wrong direction here. Okay, what’s the right thing to do? Well, let’s first of all stop. Become neutral. Become present.

[01:06:51] Be aware of the games that you’re playing with yourself. Take responsibility.

[01:06:57] Understand that it doesn’t matter what’s happened up till now. The only thing that really you’re in control of is right now, what is the next choice that you’re going to make. And then if you make a right choice at that point, you can start raising up. But let’s just say this was mapping out your entire life on this graph so that we’re all the way from birth, you know. Well, let’s just say from young adulthood, because that’s really where this all kicks in through to death.

[01:07:27] Well, this person, if they’ve stayed on the negative trajectory, having made the wrong choice at this midpoint, would end up a lower vibration at the end of their life than they started.

[01:07:40] And that would be a. That would actually be a catastrophe. And it does happen.

[01:07:46] That person has really.

[01:07:48] Their soul and spirit would have suffered in this life.

[01:07:52] But even if they make some horrendous mistakes but manage to redeem themselves, and I’m not being religious here, I’m not talking about sin or anything, just if the outcome has been quite bad in terms of their vibration, but they start making the right choices that mean that they become more good, then they could still at the end of life be higher than they were when they came into life. Which means that overall, the journey through life has been beneficial to their soul and their spirit. And what I’m referring To there really is that, because I didn’t put it in the refresher. But all that you are that survives beyond your physical death, soul, spirit, aura and other bits, that’s who you really are. And then this body and the brain that we’ve talked about in this episode is the temporary lower self, if you like. The part of you that’s having all the experiences and thinks, you know, if you didn’t know better, if you weren’t spiritually awake, you think this is the be all and end all. It’s not. It’s just a temporary thing. It will come to an end. It will feed the worms.

[01:09:02] But during the time that it’s breathing and active, when it is conscious, it can make choices that raise up the vibration. And going back to that picture, the vibration of what the smiley face in the middle actually you could say is your soul and your spirit collectively your higher self.

[01:09:23] So are you through right choices, doing what is right, raising the vibration which is good, or are you making the wrong choices which is dropping the vibration of your higher self? That’s what’s going on. That’s the kind of a very simple graphical explanation of the spiritual growth journey and the soul growth journey through life. Because remember, every time you make a right choice, your soul kind of archives that choice. It remembers, it makes a point of remembering it. So it’s a resource to draw on in the future. That’s how you have developing character and more of these qualities like fortitude and courage and things over many lifetimes. Because over many lifetimes you’ve, on occasion, when it was necessary, made the right choice.

[01:10:14] And the harder the choice, the, you know, the more difficult the environment, the situation, the more the growth, the more good you move up or the more you drop.

[01:10:26] So let’s summarize, because going back to that list of different systems of Catholicism, Buddhism, dictionary, legal and law, let’s add spirituality. So good, bad, right and wrong, they’re on the screen. I won’t recount what we already discussed, but let’s add spirituality. So at the bottom, we’ve got good. From a spiritual point of view, good means demonstrating the qualities of the nature God. Now remember those long lists of all the things that we recapped and remembered. The source of all that is good is God. So if you make if so good is you demonstrating those qualities of God, whatever those qualities are. I want to keep it artfully vague at this point, but we have touched on it in other episodes. But for example, you could say kindness, neutrality, acceptance, love. You know, those kinds of things bad.

[01:11:18] So what’s bad then from a spiritual definition point of view? So demonstrating the opposite of the qualities of the nature of God.

[01:11:28] So take love, for example. That would be very good.

[01:11:32] Bad would be hate.

[01:11:36] God is truth because the absolute truth must be one thing everywhere because it has to be true for everything.

[01:11:42] And therefore, so if you, you know, if you, if you value truth and you seek the truth and you speak the truth, then you are demonstrating the qualities of the nature of God. If you don’t care about the truth and you want to pretend that a human being can identify as a cat, for example, then that’s bad because it is demonstrating a disregard for truth, absolute truth.

[01:12:05] And therefore you’re demonstrating the opposite of the qualities of the nature of God. See, this is a spiritual thing. I know people have these ideas and that, and people can have beliefs. Beliefs aren’t the same thing. People can believe anything they want. That doesn’t make it true.

[01:12:22] So in a spiritual sense, then, for example, bad would be going against truth, hating, deceiving, because that’s an act of going against truth, for example. And then we go on to write, so what is right?

[01:12:42] The choice which increases your goodness. So that’s why the previous graph, right choice increases your goodness, wrong choice decreases your goodness and drops and drops you into badness. So right, simply it all pivots around choice, the good and the bad is the demonstration having made the choice. And right and wrong is the way of assessing the choice. So that choice created more goodness, therefore it was the right choice.

[01:13:12] So right from a spiritual point of view means the choice which increases your goodness and wrong is the choice which increases your badness.

[01:13:22] So I’m quite comfortable looking at that.

[01:13:28] I’m quite comfortable saying, yeah, I have no problems from a spiritual point of view using words good, bad, right and wrong, wrong.

[01:13:35] I think they’re the right words.

[01:13:39] Okay, so now I can appreciate that people, if they’ve been through the Catholic system, some of them may have picked up negative associations.

[01:13:51] Have we remembered that it’s still a choice and they are responsible?

[01:13:57] So by pointing it out, are we giving them an opportunity?

[01:14:02] And by them I mean us, because it may well be us that we’re talking to. You know, when this comes out as a podcast, I’ll listen back to it and I’ll go into a more neutral state. I’ll practice what I preach and be present and non judgmental and I’ll hear because this me talking isn’t scripted. So I will listen to it as if I am you and I may well realize that I have some letting go to do as well. To do with associations with certain words, you know, from my past. So this isn’t a one, one rule for everyone else, one rule for me. No, this is by they, I mean me, you, us. We thank you for joining me tonight on this little journey. So the point being that I think that it’s very, very simple what good, bad, right and wrong mean from a spiritual point of view and that they are the right words to use.

[01:15:00] Now I said demonstrating the qualities of the nature of God, good and bad.

[01:15:07] I want to share a slide. We’re going to kind of wrap up here in a minute, but I’m going to share a slide from way back when we did episode seven.

[01:15:16] And don’t worry about England in the middle or Great Britain in the middle of this picture. You can go back and look at episode 7 if you want to know more about that. But basically we listed stuff out and I phrased it as positive and negative. But it struck me that that is equally good on the left and bad on the right. And so on the left, the positive or the good. Because these are demonstrations of the qualities of God.

[01:15:42] Love, kindness, forgiveness, compassion, truth, caring, healing, communication.

[01:15:52] Now by that I don’t mean that God communicates necessarily with people.

[01:15:56] What I mean is that the desire for a flow of knowledge and information, for example, the fact that you’re guided by your spirit is communication. That ultimately your spirit was a gift from God. Why? To get you closer to God.

[01:16:12] So there is the demonstration of communication in the, in the qualities of God. Justice, that’s an interesting one.

[01:16:21] Creativity, that’s, that’s also an interesting one. And we’ve touched on, we did an episode where someone asked about creativity and the more spiritual you are, potentially the more creative you can be.

[01:16:33] Faithfulness.

[01:16:35] And then the last one. And we’ll see if this triggers is belief in Jesus.

[01:16:42] Why? Because Jesus is the physical embodiment of God. And again, I’m not talking religion. And if you’ve been to the website, the opening sentence at the top of the first page is, you know something. Well, I can’t remember what it is. It might have changed, but it used to be.

[01:16:57] Could it be that God doesn’t belong and Jesus don’t belong to religion? Words to that effect. In other words, what came first? I mean, certainly Roman Catholic was 375 or 365 AD, you know, the Council of Nicaea with a certain agenda. So that religion certainly existed after Jesus.

[01:17:21] And I don’t want to Digress too much. But these are all the good stuff, so the opposite of them is a good way of understanding the bad stuff. Using good and bad unashamedly in a spiritual context.

[01:17:35] So bad would be hate, the opposite of love. Cruelty, the opposite of kindness. Merciless, the opposite of forgiveness. Heartlessness, the opposite of compassion.

[01:17:46] Deception, the opposite of truth. Neglect, the opposite of caring.

[01:17:51] Fighting war, as in attack, is the opposite of healing.

[01:17:55] Uninterested, the opposite of communication. Injustice, the opposite of justice. Unimaginative, the opposite of creative unfaithfulness, the opposite of faithfulness, and satanic, which is the opposite of Jesus.

[01:18:12] So people that reject Jesus and go in the opposite direction become satanic.

[01:18:18] Jesse, there he is. So I just called my dog because I think he was having a little nightmare, and he’s all right. He’s just lying on the floor staring at me now.

[01:18:28] Jesse’s a good boy.

[01:18:30] Good boy, good and bad.

[01:18:34] You know, these words existed well before Catholic Church. So let’s reclaim them and. And let’s put the spiritual material meaning first and foremost in our heads, share it with others and say, look, when I say good and bad, this is what I mean. When I say right and wrong, this is what I mean. And what we’re referring to is very much an energetic. What is the consequence, energetically, of the choices that you make? The right choices, raise your vibration. The wrong choices, drop your vibration.

[01:19:06] So that’s pretty much. Guys, that is where we wanted to be at the end of this episode and just looking over at the chat, because normally I say we’ll go to the chat if there’s any questions. So I’ll give you a moment. I know there’s a few seconds delay. There’s about 10 seconds between me talking to you and it and you hearing it.

[01:19:29] So if you have got any questions, now’s the time. Quickly get them into the live chat. But we have actually covered a lot today, and I know some of it was going right back to basics, but I’m unapologetic in that I don’t think we can look at the subject of spirituality.

[01:19:48] There’s no such thing as looking at it too many times or trying to simplify it, because it is a.

[01:19:55] Can be a bit of a difficult subject for people to get their heads around.

[01:20:01] And the clue is if they’re trying to get their head round, then they’ll never really understand it. So I guess the thing to remember is it all really begins with coming from your heart, which means being present, which means being conscious, which means being able to have free will, etc. All those really good things that were listed out and having kind of got to the end. I think this will be one of those episodes that maybe is worth revisiting from time to time because I think there’s a lot of genuine useful stuff in it. But for now, I just wanted to thank you for giving me your time.

[01:20:37] And you know, this live show, I said it many times, is, is yours.

[01:20:44] And I also want to thank the person that kind of spun this whole thing off by having because they had the courage to offer their feedback and maybe this in some way will help them. It’s like a mirror to shine, to say, well, what you experienced and gave us feedback was actually feedback for you as well about at that time where you were and with the goal that we can all grow.

[01:21:16] So I’m grateful to that person and I’m grateful to you.

[01:21:22] I’m also grateful upstairs, you know. And if you want to know more about gratitude and things like that, then I definitely recommend looking into the six virtues.

[01:21:33] But for now, as I say, and we’ve been reminded again today that how important choice is. And I had that slide where it said, I said, it looks like it’s all about choice. It is good and bad, right and wrong, pivot around choice.

[01:21:47] And so keep making good choices. Ironically, I’ve said that every week, keep making good choices. But now we know why. Keep making the right choices would probably be the more accurate phrase based on what we’ve discussed today.

[01:22:01] And with that, God bless you and I will see you here next week. But also I invite you to join me on Sunday morning for the time with books.

[01:22:13] And I’ll see you then if you can make it. God bless you.

[01:22:20] Thank you for being awesome and joining me for this episode. I’m truly grateful. As a spiritual person, I hope it’s inspiring to realize that you’re not alone and that more and more like minded people just like you are enjoying this live show. This means that you’re part of a growing and awakening community. And together we’re all finding the way back to God. Going deeper than just ideas and beliefs to experience firsthand real spiritual awakening. This is a journey of the heart, not the head.

[01:22:54] So take this moment to just become a little bit stiller, more present, more neutral.

[01:23:04] Now notice what you notice when I ask you this question.

[01:23:11] What in this particular episode has been most useful?

[01:23:18] Now, who in your life at this particular time would benefit the most from knowing this too?

[01:23:24] Maybe it’s one person or maybe it’s more. More than one. But because sharing is caring, it’s really nice to know that you can actually share this show with them and therefore help them.

[01:23:35] This show is completely free to enjoy and benefit from. Now, speaking of free stuff, if you’d like other useful, helpful spiritual resources, then head on over to thewaybackgroup.org there you’ll find all kinds of free resources, articles, eBooks, MP3s, guided meditations, and a whole load of other stuff that’s completely free and waiting for you to discover it. So that’s all for this episode, but your journey and my journey continues.

[01:24:07] And so I look forward to having you join me next week for more revelation and exploration into spiritual things. And together, let’s make more sense of life, not just for us, but for our loved ones so that we can help them too.

[01:24:24] So remember to subscribe and hit the notifications so that you don’t miss out.

[01:24:29] Who knows what we’ll be discussing next week, and the next question or topic might even be yours. Perhaps there’s a reason you’ve been guided to this show.

[01:24:38] So God bless you. And remember, real change starts when we put into practice what we’re learning so that we go from thinking and doing to finally being.

[01:24:57] So take what you’ve learned today and keep on being the best version of you.

[01:25:02] God bless.

[01:25:22] Okay, so now we understand that quite often people employ this kind of behavioral pattern which they, for the best part, don’t even realize they’re doing, which is I feel uncomfortable because of my own associations with words, and I need you to change your use of words to accommodate my emotional response. In other words, I don’t want to change. So you have to.

[01:25:47] Now for the best part, what I’m talking about is normal people who don’t even realize they’re doing it. The case in hand being my dear friend who was the fellow dog walker, now there is a group of people that realize they’re kind of doing it and actually use it to their advantage. And you could, broadly speaking, refer to narcissists.

[01:26:11] And what they’re doing is this. They’re saying, look, I’m going to threaten negative behavior such as anger if I don’t get my way.

[01:26:24] So if you don’t accommodate me, I will use my bad energy, my bad behavior, my bad emotions to make you regret not complying with my demands.

[01:26:40] And we use, in everyday language, we use phrases like passive aggression or having to walk on eggshells around a certain person because you don’t want to trigger them.

[01:26:53] So those people are very much, generally speaking in their ego, there’s a power lust that comes from that. In other words, they understand the power they have that if they start to get angry, you will obey, or if they start to get upset, you will jump.

[01:27:11] You know, how high do you want me to jump? Type thing.

[01:27:14] So they have you trained to moderate their emotions.

[01:27:21] The threat of their emotions means you change your behavior.

[01:27:25] And so by just kind of spelling that out, what I’m hoping to do is to give you an opportunity to go, oh, okay, I see the game that is being played here. It’s no different than the game that was described near the start of this episode.

[01:27:39] You don’t want to change, so you demand everyone else changes to accommodate you being in a stuck state. And that state is founded in ego. Now, remember, you’re not responsible for them. You’re not responsible for their stuck state. You’re not responsible for their ego. You’re responsible for your reaction.

[01:27:57] So I’m not telling you what you should do, but I personally would not kind of see this as an opportunity to confront them.

[01:28:06] Someone who is in their ego isn’t present, isn’t receptive to spiritual guidance, and isn’t looking for change. They’re looking for continuity of character. They don’t want to change. They’ve already made that choice.

[01:28:21] So it would kind of be like picking an argument with a lump of coal. It’s not going to change. There’s no desire for change. There’s no inspiration. There’s no spiritual input.

[01:28:32] So you have to look at your situation and go, well, what can I change? What is actually my responsibility? Is it my reaction? And maybe that just means that you change your reaction to them. Now that you realize that they tr. They’re controlling your behavior through the fear of their behavior. Then if you’ve got fear of them, remember, that means you’re not in state. Because fear ultimately comes from ego. And ego is what we are when we are not in state. So actually, it could just be a case of almost like, well, thank you to them for showing you that you could be more in state. And what happens when you become more in state? You might find that just by being more in state, it changes the dynamic.

[01:29:16] Maybe there’s a natural setting of boundaries, not a confrontational, aggressive one. Because remember, confrontation, aggression, war, these are not the qualities of God. We always want to strive for the best, as in the best in ourselves.

[01:29:31] Good. And we’ve talked a lot about good and bad today. So we don’t want to be bad just because someone else is bad. We want to be good if we can be as much as possible all the time. And it could be that the the only choice you’ve got is to change your environment, as in remove them from it.

[01:29:47] But that is something you have to navigate. All I’m simply pointing out here is that sometimes people, people deliberately use this stance of I don’t want to change, so you have to.

[01:30:00] And now that we can spot it, we have more choice. But I always bring it back to please remember your responsibility is only for how you react and what you can actually change. Not asking others to change because ironically, expecting them to change, even if they’re in the wrong, expecting them to change is not very spiritual.

[01:30:23] Literally, I was just given the thought.

[01:30:25] God gave us legs for a reason, so sometimes walk away.

[01:30:29] Okay, on that note, stay positive.

[01:30:35] We’re all just learning in this journey through life.

[01:30:38] And when we make these epiphanies and we realize, hang on, I’m being played or I’m playing some, then it’s just an opportunity to stop, become centered, become neutral, become in state, and then make wise good choices, make the right choice.

[01:31:01] And on that note, God bless you and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and I’ll see you next week for the next live show.

[01:31:09] Or I also invite you to join me in the Time With Books live show, which is a new thing that we’re doing.

[01:31:15] Either way, God bless. I’ll see you soon.