By Ustaz Mark Bang
My perspective is that each one of us is a multidimensional being.
I came to this understanding through spiritual enlightenment, quantum physics, and learning from those who have an open connection to a knowing beyond the physical. This is to say that we are a body of energy, a vibrational signature that is unique in all the cosmos. We are capable of energy healing, telepathic communication, astral projection, time travel, shared dreaming, etc. Quantum physics is proving much of this.
When you start to realize that every human is connected to a divine source, has multidimensionality, and has perhaps had many lifetimes and parallel lifetimes of experience, judgment falls away. Because to evaluate a person based solely on their existence in this dimension does not take into consideration why they need to follow this particular path.
In addition to that, this kind of black-and-white belief system of “This is bad; this is good” doesn’t allow for self-expansion and learning, compassion, etc. This polarity seems to be in existence as a guide to sorting out our own real beliefs.
Many of us walk around with ideas that were given to us by our parents, our teachers, the community, and so on. It’s part of an old archaic paradigm that is slowly falling away as we evolve into sentient beings right now. I believe that our world will become a more loving place with less crime, less depression, less sickness, less separation, less suicide, less loneliness, better education, more synchronicity, and more support when we let go of judgments about what is bad and what is good. It’s up to you as an individual to decide for yourself about yourself.
You can ask yourself, “Do I want to believe that ignorance is bad?” And then stand up for that decision. That will be your own path. And no matter what, if you do what feels good, it will lead you toward the least amount of resistance in all things. Or you could tell yourself, “Perhaps this person who is ignorant, or one who believes that particular person is ignorant, could use my loving support to be in alignment with themselves.”
Ignorance itself is neither immoral nor displeasure, but acting on that ignorance can be both. It is the actions that result from the implications derived from ignorance that lead to harm. In fact, ignorance can be blissful and pleasant, because of all of the real-life phenomena to observe, there are often unpleasantries that some find easier to ignore than others.
However, lack of action is also an act, and if failing to act does harm, arrived from lack of wisdom or knowledge, then the lack of acting was the cause of the harm. Humans do not consistently agree on whether or not acting, out of ignorance, is immoral, but we DO have laws that explicitly state that acting illegally, out of ignorance of the law, is not an excuse for acting illegally. However, no one is arguing here that illegal = immoral.
All this being said, it complicates the answer to this question. Living with more wisdom and knowledge allows us to act more ethically when events occur that lead to such a challenge, but it doesn’t necessarily imply the converse, which is that acting ethically means we are wiser and more knowledgeable.
It boils down to knowing what to do gives you the choice to act, and not knowing what to do gives you no choice but to rely ONLY on your own intuition. One cannot claim ignorance after one has been given the knowledge, for denial of such information in order to claim ignorance is morally equivalent to lying and manipulation.
However, this is an internal battle, because those outside cannot determine if one is denying the knowledge, unable to integrate the knowledge into their beliefs, or incapable of understanding what knowledge was bestowed. And, hence, the moral quandary is internal. A good way of looking at this is the difference between “may” and “should.”
It may be ethically permissible for me to allow a child to drown in a shallow lake if I cannot swim; however, it is not ethically best if I do nothing. The “fear of drowning myself because I can’t swim” or “fear of the unknown shallowness of the lake” creates the ethical dilemma between saving or not saving would be better informed by either knowledge of the depth of the lake or the ability to swim and may leave the observer with a sense of guilt if that information becomes known. One may reject helping the drowning child, but one probably should do something about it. Thanks for reading. “Public Staunchest Ally”
The writer of this article is a human rights activist, writer, and professional teacher.