Not Right, Not Wrong, But a Secret Third Thing...

Shifting from "Morals" to "Potentials"

art by Oliver Wong

“There’s no such thing as ‘right’ and ‘wrong’! Good and evil don’t exist!”

It’s a common claim, usually made by spiritual people when attempting to explain non-duality.

In previous essays, I’ve already belabored the points that

• evil absolutely does exist

• no, it doesn’t have to exist

• ignoring the distinction between “good and evil” can be dangerous

But in this essay, I’d like to talk about the value of reframing our idea of “good and evil.” So, not ignoring ethical questions, but bypassing them in particular circumstances, for the sake of actually learning and growing.

It’s not that good and evil don’t exist (they do)
or that they aren’t distinct from each other (they are),

but that judgments of “good and evil” are often made in contexts that, frankly, don’t warrant a moral judgment.

For example:

drugs, right?

You can hardly have a productive conversation about, say, whether substances like marijuana, magic mushrooms, or ayahuasca are useful on one’s spiritual path.
Why can’t we have a conversation about spiritual drug use? Because people get defensive, so the conversation ends before it starts.
Why do people get defensive? Because they’ve heard all their lives that doing drugs is “bad” and “wrong,” so now any criticism or contemplation of drug use feels like a moral judgment, even if it’s not.

Sure, we could talk about the ethics of how some of these substances are harvested — but that’s not what I’m getting at here. Whether someone “should” take substances in order to facilitate spiritual experiences, can hardly be called a moral issue (because that experience, in and of itself, doesn’t effect anyone other than the person taking the drug).
But until people stop turning drugs into a moral issue, how will we ever find out whether they “should” be taken? Even the question of whether they “should” or not, implies that an ethical conclusion hangs in the balance.

The same goes for the question of whether people “should” have casual sex, or what people “should” eat, etc. These conversations almost always go nowhere, because of how loaded they tend to be with moral judgments (which are, in essence, personal attacks) which trigger countless psychological defenses… making an open, curious discussion nearly impossible.

So I’d like to introduce another way of approaching these “should” questions, that bypasses the moral distinctions of “right” and “wrong” (which, at times, can incidentally function as thought-stopping rhetoric), and instead looks at potentials.

Art by J Timiney

Let’s use the example of drugs again.

Sure, you could take a heroic dose of DMT, hallucinate God, forgive your mother, feel connected to nature, and come back from the trip telling everyone your ego has died.

Or, you could meditate, sober, and achieve the same — or better — results.

Sure, you could smoke weed to facilitate clairvoyant perception.

Or, you could do the work it takes to open your third eye without creating psychological dependence on an external substance.

Is it morally “wrong” to take a shortcut to achieve an altered state of consciousness? I don’t think so.
But is it cheating yourself out of realizing your spiritual potential & finding out what you’re capable of when drawing on nothing but your own internal power? Definitely.

Now, let’s try casual sex:

Sure, you could get half-drunk, pick up a random person from the bar, have mediocre, unfulfilling sex, and risk getting an STD or pregnant (or both).

Or, you could be very intentional about who you make Love with, learn how to control your sexual energy to the point where you can stop yourself from ejaculating or becoming pregnant, go for hours upon hours, and achieve naturally psychedelic and highly invigorating climaxes instead of, uh, rolling over and falling asleep when you’re done.

Is it “wrong” to have casual sex? Of course not (unless “casual” means using people like a sex toy with no regard for their feelings, in which case, yeah that’s problematic).
But is it cheating yourself out of finding out how spiritually potent and healing sex can be? Absofuckinglutely!

Being made aware of our untapped potential, is deeply offensive.

In fact, if you want to insult someone, all you have to do is suggest that they’re not making as much money as they could be, or they’re not as pretty as they could be, or they’re not as smart as they could be…

So it’s not so much the judgment of “bad” and “wrong” that hurts people’s feelings in these conversations—it’s actually the insinuation that they’ve failed to achieve something.

And whereas the former suggests that some Big Bad God is going to punish you for being ~naughty~, the latter is actually… kinda worse. Because while the Moral framework features a punitive God who is an external force (and therefore something you can rage against and blame for stuff), in the Potentials framework, you’re actually being limited by yourself.

The Potentials framework is literally just personal accountability.

That’s what hurts.

But there’s a silver living to that:

When we remove any suggestion of a God or enforcer of karma, and accept that the reason it bruises our ego is because WE aren’t living up to our OWN standards,

that’s actually quite a gift!

Because now that we’ve been made aware of how we’re letting ourselves down by not-realizing our Potential, we can do 2 things:

• Revisit our personal standards, ideals, aspirations, and desires (Who do I want to be? What actions would I need to take to become that person?)

• and choose whether or not to commit to the realization of Potential… or to accept who we are and keep doing what we’ve been doing

In either case, we are only answering to ourselves. Not external judges.

Having untapped Potential, in and of itself, is not a moral failing. It’s not “bad” or “wrong.” It’s only tolerable or not.
And who decides whether it’s tolerable or not? YOU do.

And thankfully, this decision doesn’t need to be predicated on beating yourself up or shaming yourself.

Rather, it can be an invitation to get curious and deepen your Self-exploration —with Love.

If you could be a better version of yourself…
if you were capable of doing greater things that you’ve ever done before…

wouldn’t you like to know?

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