Sacred Inner Evolution

Do you believe in God, or a god? Do you follow a religion? Are you spiritual? How has your belief in a higher power helped or hindered you throughout your life?

One argument I frequently hear when people question the existence of a higher power is this: if God is benevolent and represents all that is good, why do bad things happen? It’s a valid question and one that often stems from Christian teachings.

In Christianity, God is often portrayed as the source of all that is good, while suffering is seen as a tool designed to teach spiritual lessons and foster a deeper understanding of God. According to this belief, suffering encourages repentance, faith, and reliance on divine grace. Many Christians view suffering as a test of faith, a path toward spiritual growth, and ultimately, a means to understand God better.

However, this way of thinking has led to widespread disillusionment. People naturally start to wonder why a benevolent God “allows” so many horrible experiences to occur. This is where I believe the concept of the Devil originated. Humanity needed something to blame for the bad things in life. If God is responsible for only the good, there must be an opposing force to account for the bad—an evil counterpart. In the Christian narrative, this villain is the Devil.

By creating this dichotomy—God as good and the Devil as bad—we form a simple balance between good and evil. This idea of balance, however, isn’t unique to Christianity; it exists in many religions around the world.

Taoism, for example, introduces the concepts of yin and yang, two equal and opposite forces that together create harmony and balance in the universe. In Taoism, these forces are not in conflict but instead complement one another. There is no day without night, no life without death, no good without bad. This balance forms the natural order of the universe, and any attempt to separate these forces would lead to chaos.

In Hinduism, the gods Shiva and Shakti represent a similar balance between creation and destruction. Shiva, the destroyer, isn’t seen as evil; rather, his role is necessary to clear the way for new creation. Shakti represents the creative energy that brings life and change. Together, they embody the cosmic balance of birth, death, and rebirth. Destruction makes way for creation, and without creation, destruction has no purpose.

Looking at these and other religious teachings paints a picture of God as the source of all that exists, not just the good. God isn’t merely the force of goodness, but rather the balancing point—the equal sign in the equation of the universe. For anything to exist, its opposite must also exist to maintain balance. Just as we balance a mathematical equation by performing the same action on both sides of the equal sign, the universe maintains balance through duality.

In the human experience, we have hot and cold, wet and dry, up and down, north and south, good and bad, right and wrong, here and there. These dualities exist on a spectrum, and if one were removed, we would lose the context for understanding the other. Near doesn’t matter if nothing is far. Up doesn’t matter if there is no down. Good doesn’t matter if there is no bad. Right doesn’t matter if there is no wrong.

Humans understand duality because we experience both sides of it. If we ever reached a place where only one side of the spectrum existed, both would lose their relevance. Without context, one cannot exist without the other.

When we place God as the neutral point in the middle—like the fulcrum on a scale—the universe and life itself start to make more sense. When we see God as only the good side of the scale, it throws everything else off balance. It becomes difficult to reconcile the suffering we see around us with our belief in a higher power.

This line of thinking extends to the concept of karma. Karma can be understood as the equal and opposite reaction to everything we think, do, say, or feel. When you have a thought followed by another, that’s karma in action. If you feel bad and then receive a reason to feel bad, that’s also karma. Similarly, when you do something negative and experience a negative consequence, that’s karma. Conversely, when you perform a good deed and receive a positive outcome, that too is karma.

However, because karma is about balance, we often observe good things happening to people we perceive as bad, and bad things occurring to those we view as good. Just as in the universe, where concepts like wet and dry or hot and cold coexist, life is not solely about extremes; rather, it encompasses a mix of all experiences.

Do you ever feel that life is out of balance, with too much negativity or perhaps too much positivity? It's important to remember that karma spans the existence of the spirit or soul within you, extending beyond just this physical lifetime. This broader perspective can challenge our human understanding of what balance truly looks like. As humans, we often have a limited viewpoint, which can exclude significant factors, such as the influences from five lifetimes ago that continue to affect you today.

Our purpose in this current human form is to adapt to our experiences in such a way that we do not self-create additional suffering beyond what the experience originally presented. The goal is to learn how to heal and release each experience.

We are not meant to suffer, contrary to what Christian tradition may suggest. Instead, we are meant to find joy and thrive in life. To achieve this, we must learn to manage the extremes of our experiences. We need to adapt to all aspects of life—both good and bad—in order to discover the joy that is inherently ours.

What is the point of a benevolent being if chaos is allowed to reign? Wouldn't the Big Bang be a simpler explanation?

For me, God is a source of understanding and clarity. God does not withhold anything; no one is being punished. This means that when we ask for help, we receive it. However, it doesn’t always arrive in the form we expect. Sometimes it comes as a new thought, a feeling, a billboard sign, or a song. These experiences offer guidance, clarity, and focus, enabling me to make better choices for myself.

I perceive God as being in control of a world that often seems chaotic. What I’ve come to understand is that if something were truly wrong, God would correct it. Therefore, the truth is that nothing is fundamentally wrong; the world is balanced. We often perceive bad and wrong because that’s what we focus on, not because it represents the entirety of existence. Our human perspective can be more of a problem than what is actually happening in the world. When we learn to see the good around us, we can find it, which helps shift our focus away from the negativity that we know exists.

God embodies the duality we see in the world. God is the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, the up and the down, and the wet and the dry. God truly encompasses all that is. When we allow ourselves to seek the balance that exists in our world, we can find it; we just need to be willing to look.

Are you ready to start searching for the good that exists in everything?

Love to all.

Della

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