Good and Bad? Why Bad Things Happen to Good People

This is a quote of Ralph Waldo Emerson's, (1803 -82) the renowned American poet, and philosopher.

Is this true? What does he really mean here? Where does love come into it all here?

The quote is a difficult one to try to understand mentally, and we need to approach it more from our hearts.

I think that he means that you see love as either good or bad, depending on the amount of wisdom, that you currently possess to assess it with. Love grows into only goodness, as you grow more in the wisdom of its application. This wisdom is gained from learning love's truths through experiences, both good and bad, within life.

This is a nice introduction to my article, that seeks to explore why it is that seemingly bad things can happen to seemingly good people, sometimes within their life.

Why do bad things happen to good people, or even to bad people, for that matter? Why do bad things ever need to happen at all?

Bad is of course a sliding scale of opinion, based on perception of a happenstance or circumstance, that has just happened,or taken place within somebody's life. Bad, though, is certainly bad, when it is bad. Bad things happen because there are bad people to commit them. These bad people are classed as bad, because at the moment their consciousness is not high enough to be aware of the results of such misguided action.

There are no bad things.

Bad things are done by bad people, and so they are called bad, because of this. These bad people however, have no idea of what badness really is. They are proud of their badness, but they have never yet reached a high enough level of goodness to really know why their badness is considered to be bad. They like to make things bad, not realising that this badness must surely come back to them again one day.

The good feel the bad as pain, but they also need to see that it is actually only their seeing something as bad, that increases their own suffering about what has happened.

Life is a series of events that happen in our environment. The events draw responses from you, and from those around you. The responses lead to other responses. That's life.

Can you really ever change, alter, or judge the events, or the responses?

No, these things, you can't change. No matter where you go, or who you are with, these type of events and responses will always happen.

Why, simply because they are happening as part of the fullness of life.

Why does life have to contain the good and the bad?

It's to get the good to act gooder, and for the good then to raise the bad up more towards the good.

Why have any bad at all?

Because the good doesn't know it's good, unless the bad happens to reflect the good by contrast.

Why is all of this necessary?

It's not really necessary, but at this point, it's happening like this so that the underlying stream of goodness will recognise its own goodness, and then become more consciously aware of why love and goodness exist.

Badness does not really exist, as much as love exists as everything and within everything else. There is really only ever existing the perfect oneness of perfect love.

Badness exists only in the acts of free people that are being separated away from their heart by drugs, liquor, violence, their peers, or other such bad influences.

All of these influences exist in order for love to flow.

Love flows down from heaven so to speak, and is then attracted towards the negative.

This is even as Jesus Christ in the Christian bible said. He said that he didn't come to help the good become gooder, but to help the bad to see the good, and so to become good. Love will cure all. The individual has the freedom to reject or to receive love, based on his connection to his heart, or to his ego and mind.

Only love can eventually penetrate and expose the falseness that rests within the badness. The good people should provide a positive outlet and an example of love to attract the negative towards, and so that it will then be shown what is real love, and then it will begin to feel and think about in a better way.

Good people need to get through to the heart of bad people to change them. The only change that is possible is from good people doing good. Only love can bring the bad pieces back together again, and awaken the love that is hidden as potentialised un-growing seeds within their hearts.

Love is needed to grow more love. Like light, one candle can light another candle, but it's always always the same light. It's the same with love. All is love, but it takes love to connect to the love within another soul to bring it into life for good. We should never doubt the power of love. Only love can change anything. Only love can change the world, but we need to change our own world first.

The good people need to love love, and love, and then love even some more. Accept what is, and love it anyway, even as it is. Do your own thing, and don't become a victim. Good always attracts bad, because the bad can only heal through their contacting of the good.

The bad attracts more bad. The good can also attract more good.

God has set up the world so that good and love will show, without any show of force, that in the end that love is the only way. God wants each part of himself to come to realise this independently, and freely. That's why the freedom to grow a cancer inside of us all is possible.

The freedom to be bad is also there within each one of us too, but as the cancer becomes too painful to bear, it will finally wake people up to love again. Pain is in a way a form of karma. What we sow, we reap says the bible. When we are bad, something bad will invariably return to us, and hopefully this will then reflect to us what is bad within us.

When we reflect on this, and on what has happened to us, we will finally begin to turn towards the good. This will lead us more towards living a life that is now based on loving, and in being lead by love to serve God, through loving all of his creation, ourselves, and of course loving God, as well.

Your reaction is always just as strong as your feeling, when it is coming from your negativity.

The only positive feeling is love. To change our response, we need to change our feelings. We need to change our feelings by taking a deep breath, and saying to ourselves that we will choose the loving response now, and let the rest, all go.

We need to accept all of our experiences, all with love, and then move on past them, having learnt what we can from them. This ensures that we will continue to grow past each negative reaction that comes up from an event in our lives, or from one of our life experiences.

This is the real purpose behind all events. The idea is to teach you to learn to move your reactions all towards only love, and so away from any fear based reactions.

Seeing the love from the real experiencing of it, authenticates the learning, and this means that you now retain the newly gained knowledge, as a greater wisdom.

Badness is a lack of aware love sitting within the heart of the person that is operating from an unbalanced state of mind. This unbalanced state exists because they are ignoring love, and this is often because they want to feel the power of themselves.

Real love never gives power to the one loving, but they are always perceived to be immensely powerful by all others. It is the love using them, and not the person using the love. The bad person doesn't see this, and by not allowing love to use them, they ignore love, and so become bad by following themselves, without following only love. They put themselves above love, and even above God.

This is the only real form of badness, because it takes you away from the good.

There is an old saying, that the dose doesn't produce the poison. You can still be good in the company of bad people, and yet still not be ever poisoned by them. The good only ever exist to help the bad to become good. All life is service of the bad, or of the less good in this way.

We all begin as unconsciously ignorant or bad. We grow into consciously being good when we allow love to change us, by teaching us how to be good, and by acting more wisely from love.

Doing good creates a linking chain of love, but that which never chains us, in any way. The only chains that we ever wear is from being bad, and this occurs by us trying to ignore God, and in trying to lead ourselves, and our lives independently of him, and in our own ways.

When we are not living from love and speaking only words of love, we are increasing the pain, the darkness, and the emptiness of others who are often lost within their own world of badness. Badness is only ever separation from God and his love.

Why do bad things happen to good people?

The only answer is that good people are the only ones that can still see the hand of god in all things, and so they stay good despite the bad. A good person is good not to avoid the bad, but because to be good helps others to feel loved and not so bad about feeling bad.

Good people love without conditions, and conditions come along to test the love, that bad people are still throwing at them in order for them subconsciously to try to receive love back.

Nobody is bad, they only act badly, when they are blocking the inner transmission of God's love, that lives within every heart.

In a way when bad things happen to us, it gives us then the opportunity to forgive.

It was Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68) the great American clergyman, civil rights leader, and freedom fighter, who said that,

'' He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love.''

To summarise then my little article of why bad things happen to good people, this is as good a reason as any. Bad things teach good people to be able to better forgive others, and so as a result, this also increases their ability, their wisdom, and their God given power to love.