History's Play and the Display of Good and Evil

[Practitioner]

“[Life is] a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” was one of MacBeth’s famous statements. Yet Shakespeare was not alone in comparing the drama of our human history to a tale or a theatrical play. Many scholars and historians have also proclaimed this metaphor, as though our lives as individuals and as a civilization are prone to take narrative form—sometimes tragic, sometimes heroic.

Spiritual truths and axioms are often told or even embodied through parables and plays, which become living examples for us to remember and follow. And as the profound realities of our Cosmos emerge, the layered reflections they cast into our unique dimension of time and space do indeed seem quite play-like, as though History itself were conceived, written, and edited by one or more great Playwrights, intending that this Great Work be performed in the human world.

I believe that those in our world who possess the highest levels of understanding and insight might also agree that our world’s events ebb and flow like the scenes of a play, a play whose true meaning and significance might lie beneath the surface, a play that could reveal—no matter how chaotic the appearance of its scenes—a serene and enduring truth: the very nature of who we are as living beings, what our purpose in life is, and why all of these strange things are happening.

I should mention in passing the unfortunate fact that mankind’s adopted path of conventional science is often not well suited to reveal life’s higher truths. The mechanical tools and largely deductive methods of scientific observation, as well as the cumbersome yet vacuous descriptions these observations tend to evoke, are far too often focused upon sporadic artifacts and isolated phenomena within a great and profound reality that a simple child could grasp more deeply and readily. While it is not my intention to criticize our modern science, in the end, when this outer layer of particles dissolves and the truth is revealed, we may well conclude that modern science was itself part of the great deception that afflicted humankind of this age, confined our civilization, and accelerated our degeneration. But then, this too is one of the underlying themes to History’s Play. Humankind’s knowledge has always been limited. At this point, humankind’s daily function is so dependant upon modern science that we can only continue to make use of it for the time being.

Historically, both the Buddha School and the Tao School have talked about the “Three Realms,” a term used to describe regions of time and space where beings’ souls undergo transmigration and reincarnation, rising and falling in accordance with their karmic circumstances. The Three Realms also refer to what mankind also calls the Heaven, the Earth and the Underworld. Actually, the true Heavens are at levels higher than the Three Realms. They exist in dimensions that humankind and other beings within the Three Realms are not aware of. However, within the Three Realms, there are those whose levels and living state are higher than that of our mankind, and those who are lower. For beings at higher levels, their wisdom, resplendence and moral conscience are greater than that of man. At lower levels, beings’ moral conscience is lesser. Beings below the level of mankind do not yet have inborn qualities that enable them to ascend towards a Divine state.

Human beings are also unique in that we live in delusion. The kaleidoscopic reflections that we can see with our ordinary eyes are like mere shadows of truth. We cannot readily see the beings in other dimensions, and our memories of our origins and true selves’ identities have been concealed. At the same time, our physical bodies made of flesh perform the role of restricting us, to the point that even animals and beings in the netherworld might have some abilities and potency that we lack. Human beings are like the characters in this world’s play, acting out roles that we agreed to perform, being watched from both near and afar. When a person dies, most often it becomes clear to him/her who he/she is and the meaning of the life that was lived.

When the Three Realms were created, the beings were made to embody the qualities of both good and evil, the positive and the negative. The positive, upright qualities can be summarized as truthfulness, magnanimous compassion, and forbearance. The negative qualities can be summarized by the opposite--deceitfulness, hateful callousness, and selfish greed. Beings in the Three Realms, ourselves included, may exhibit either of these characteristics at various times, but tend towards one direction or another. This is how beings are positioned in the universe.

The Three Realms have another unique characteristic, which is that the principles that guide them are inverted. They are backwards. What ordinary human beings want and pursue for the sake of gratifying some type of self interest, are, when viewed by higher beings, precisely bad behavior born of selfishness. Human beings in their quest for worldly power, comfort, pleasures, etc. are capable of committing any sin. Yet their selfish pursuits ultimately result in tragedy for themselves and often for others. This is why people who historically practiced spiritual cultivation and held moral values would restrain themselves, adhere to non-action, and follow the course of nature.

As for the extra-terrestrials that have involved themselves in human affairs—to the point that some people even place trust in them—it can be said that despite the systematic advancement of their science over the course of many millennia, many of them display a depleted character and lack of moral conscience that places them amongst the lowest and most unworthy beings. Nonetheless, many of them too could be savable.

So who are these covert elitists, these traditionally shadowy figures who seek to advance the state of society in order to serve their own selfish interests as they assume a villainous role in History’s Play? They have indeed shaped the course of history, especially in modern times. Yet they themselves might be surprised to learn that every detail of this Play, including each of their own individual thoughts, words and deeds, were also arranged for them to carry out. Whereas, the True Meaning of History’s Play and its True Outcome remain beyond their knowledge and control.


In many ways, these are very capable people. It is simply that they abide by a strict hierarchy that is upside down. They believe they are meant to perform an antithetical role, testing the righteous faith of human beings in a destructive and hostile manner. As a result, those nearer the pinnacle of their pyramid consciously act like some of the worst beings, and they consort with demons. At this time in History, however, the Cosmos is changing, the Play has been amended, and these people’s intended contributions as villains are no longer necessary. As the course of History continues along an amended path, these people’s intended actions are likely to deviate from History’s new requirements. Thus, by clinging to past arrangements they might well place themselves in a dangerous situation.

In our world today, there are those who still recognize virtue. Such people are relatively kindhearted and are even willing to make personal sacrifices for the benefit of others. They care about the well being of others, and they aspire to be honest and good. By contrast, those who are more selfish, those who do not care much about others and are willing to harm others unnecessarily—selfish beings who would even carry out any plot, no matter how warped or devious, in order to pursue what they deem to be their ‘self interest’—look inferior and degraded in the eyes of higher beings.

So lets think for a minute—if this universe really is guided by intelligent factors, if there is a true and higher purpose to History’s Play, if you yourself were a high-level being responsible for the safety of others and responsible for the stability of living environments—then which type of being should be kept and which would have to be cleaned out? Isn’t the answer becoming more clear? I am not referring to merely the matter of a being’s single lifetime, but to the entire existence of a being, that is, a being’s true self. The beings who have been purged from existence during the course of History are precisely those who harm others, those who obstruct the order of the Universe, those who interfere with beings’ own right to position themselves, those who—by their own will through numerous lifetimes—have become unkeepable. From a certain perspective, the process by which beings are eliminated is really not much different from the way our bodies isolate and eliminate pathogens. It is just that the specific circumstances through which this process plays out might take any form that conforms to the state of our ordinary world.

So why do I write these comments? It is simply to warn the covert elitists that they ought to take another look at themselves. For all of their careful planning and accumulation of past knowledge, they do not know what the future has in store for them. At the same time, some of them might also be prone to harming or destroying themselves. When even Satan has retreated and collapsed, who would want them? Over the long course of History some may have acquired the fortunate opportunity to learn the truth. Yet to do so, they must be able to put down their attachment to past, ineffective arrangements that no longer exist.