The universal Golden Rule

In recent years there’s been quite a deal of turmoil and conflict in the world. In this and other posts I present some ideas that might help some to gain more sense of the world, and of recent events.

I will begin by offering my understanding that the world in which we live is a self-organizing system in which everyone and everything is dynamically interacting via faster-than-light quantum interconnections [see Note 1].

This self-organizing system or SOS for short, reveals itself in nature as a dynamic balance of two tendencies, one being toward community and togetherness, and the other is toward individuality and separateness. Both are necessary to life. In fact life would not exist if either were absent.

The turmoil and conflict in our world is when one of those tendencies is favoured at the expense of the other. We can check to see if we’re biased toward one tendency at the expense of the other, by asking a few simple questions - Is what I’m doing for my benefit and for the benefit of others?

Am I being selfish, which benefits me, but not others?

Am I being selfless, which benefits others, but not me? Now, it might seem there is virtue in being selfless, but in quite literal terms, selfless means no self – that is, there is no self to receive food, love, shelter etc.

Being either selfish or selfless is not ideal, or even sustainable.

This dynamic balance of being separate individuals within a greater togetherness can be seen as the basis for the Golden Rule which basically means to treat others as you would have them treat you.

An example: in recent times there were those in authority who expected and often mandated many people to receive various experimental medical injections, supposedly to ‘protect grandma’. That was, and in some sectors of society remains, a severe violation of the Golden Rule.

In other posts and videos I’ll cover what I believe is the self-evident reasoning of why the Golden Rule is a root imperative in not just this life, as we know it, but in all dimensions, across all times, including the after-life.

The universe in which we exist, as it turns out, is an infinitely complex, dynamic self-organizing system that, due to the underlying quantum inter-connectivity, does not reward or allow sustained violations of the Golden Rule. We either learn to live by the Golden Rule, or we’ll be presented with reciprocal experiences in this and other lives, by which we get to deeply value its necessity and universality.

This is not about punishment. In fact, when living by the Golden Rule, one does not seek punishment of others, or of oneself. My understanding is that we’re in physical life to learn how to live by the Golden Rule in ever more energetic and mutually beneficial ways. And in time, in whichever dimension or reality we find ourselves.

Another example: Being dishonest, rent seeking, stealing from others, taking advantage of others, for whatever reason, are all violations of the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule beckons us to be considerate, creative, honest, and to add value to the world in which we exist, thereby fulfilling the reciprocal dynamic of the Golden Rule.

Living by the Golden Rule might seem extremely difficult or just plain inappropriate to how we live in modern suburbia. But if we consider life within a tribe, or within a small village in which the villagers cooperate when building a new residence (as for example per the Amish custom) we can appreciate that the Golden Rule would be routine and natural in such circumstances.

In my experience I have often failed to live by the Golden Rule. In the past I have been selfish and inconsiderate. Part of the reason for writing this post is to remind myself of the primacy and necessity of living by the Golden Rule. Insofar as the Golden Rule is a universal imperative of life, the Golden Rule is pivotal to peace, love, creativity and growth.

Note 1: As physicist Nick Herbert wrote in Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics, “immediate, unmediated (non-local) connections are present not only in rare and exotic circumstances, but underlie all the events of everyday life*. Non-local connections are ubiquitous because reality itself is non-local.”

* My emphasis.