Cloudscape

Everything we experience is no more than a connection with things that are already there in the universe. Therefore, ethical matters are more a concern of one's own connection with these things in the universe than those things themselves. Everything, being infinite, will always remain the same anyway. In an infinite universe, all things occur at an infinite frequency, and so their frequency always remains the same. Nothing we ever do can therefore change anything about the universe itself; it can only change the nature of our own connection with the universe.

Ethics, then, is not so much about not hurting others in the universe, but not hurting one's own connection with others in the universe. Others are part of our connection with the universe as is our ego, and so they are part of ourselves. Whoever hurts someone else will hurt themselves.

If there is or would be a God, then all things to God are of infinite and therefore equal value. With regards to its value, therefore, it does not matter what we do except to ourselves individually.

Suggest to yourself that everything around you loves you infinitely, and in this suggestion love it back. If nothing else, it is merely a suggestion, but nonetheless it is one that has incredible psychological power.

Everything has unique aspects of beauty surpassed by nothing else in the universe.

Spiritual beliefs need not be true; whether they are or not, they work if you believe in them. In this they are true to the spirit — in a spiritual sense — which is all that matters.

Spiritual beliefs are akin to hypnosis: similarly, hypnosis makes use of suggestions which, while untrue, still work. Hypnosis might visualize images such as light filling the body, or pain assuming a physical form, or, as means of hypnotic induction, of magnets on each hand attracting each other or a balloon tied to the hand lifting it; none of these things are real in the physical world, but they are real in the mental world. They are constructs of the mind, and so to the mind they are true.

Within, they exist as thoughts, which are quite real. When one considers this, one realizes that there isn't really anything which is not "real," and that apparently immaterial things matter as much as material things.

We may, for instance, conceive of things as though they were alive; from what we know this may be true or it may not be, but that doesn't really matter. From a certain viewpoint, one could say this is true because the things we perceive around us are themselves but our own perceptions, and therefore, part of our own mind, very much alive. As they are part of our own persona, it can allow us to more fully respect our persona if we deem them as if they were persons themselves.

It is unscientific to simply take it for granted that it is so, but one can nonetheless imagine that it is so. Thereby one can allow oneself to feel more connected to the outside world, even when one is alone.

On the other hand, it can be misleading to mix scientific and spiritual beliefs, though the two may be connected. If one merely imagines something to be true without knowing whether it is so or not, one will never be deceived; if one actually assumes it, however, then one will be easily deceived.

Everything can be both positive or negative depending on the case. Therefore nothing in itself is positive or negative, thought to different persons or things it will have positive or negative effects; it is impossible to do anything that is positive or negative in itself, except relative to a specific person or thing. It is but the combination of two things that will make either of the two either creative or destructive to the other. We should try, then, to combine all things in harmony; though to do so fully to all things we would have to be divine.

We can try to let whatever happen to us be as positive to us as it can be, and no matter how negative it may seem, it can always also have a positive influence. In the long run, it may even be constructive even though seeming destructive on the short term.

In an infinite universe there will always be infinite suffering, and nothing we ever do can ever change that. For an infinite universe as a whole can never be changed, for that would otherwise have been done by others before us. While its parts may be changed, on the whole it always remains as it has always been.
The only thing that matters to us, then, is the beauty of our own experiences.

The butterfly effect says that very small changes can have very large results. It is famously quoted that the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brasil may cause a tornado in Texas — imagine! This is more than just a thought experiment; it actually happens.
This is so because of chaos. The Universe is so complex that extremely small changes may have extremely large consequences. For one thing, the world consists of atoms, and all of those atoms, in the whole world, are connected to one another at the speed at sound of their respective material; above all, those atoms in turn consist of quanta of energy, and all those quanta, in the whole universe, are connected to each other at the speed of light and perhaps beyond.
This is so because the universe is emergent. Every layer of existence arises from the layer below it; the human level arises from the cellular level, the cellular level from the atomic level. When the butterfly flaps its wings, the energy of its motion spreads across the atoms around it across the entire planet and even the entire universe.
At the atomic level, it takes at most 19 hours before its energy has spread across the planet in the form of sound waves; it gets no further than the earth for a very long time because there are few atoms in space. However, at the quantum level, it takes just one fiftieth of a second before it has spread across the planet, and a hundred thousand years before it has spread across the entire galaxy, in the form of light waves.
After all, the way the butterfly moves affects the way light shines on it, and so too the way it will shine onto other elementary particles, which will then in turn affect other elementary particles until every atom in the world is very, very slightly different. Very, very slightly, but that is enough given that this counts for every atom in the whole world to potentially have dramatic consequences.
Next time you see a butterfly, run for your lives.
It might go even further than that. The mass of the butterfly has a very tiny influence on the Earth's gravitational field, and the flap of its wings will change that influence. This effect is extremely small, of course, but quantum mechanics is so extremely chaotic that even so, it may still have enormous effects. The tiniest gravitational wave will affect the atoms it affects, and even if it is just by a femtometer, that's more than enough, as the atom affects all other atoms on the same planet. If gravity travels faster than light, then its gravitational influence will also have a faster effect on the universe than its electromagnetic influence, despite the fact that the latter is much stronger.
Tom van Flandern calculated that the speed of gravity is 20 billion times that of light, and if this is true, it would take two years and four months for the flap of a butterfly to affect the entire observable universe. Through an incredible snowball effect, the slightest movement of a single atom could, in this way, change the course of history throughout the entire observable universe.
If one thinks about this further, this becomes so frightening that it will profoundly change the way one looks at the world. For this is far, far more than a bit of scientific trivia; it casts a different light on the meaning of everything we do in our lives.
Over an infinite amount of time, every action, every event, will randomly cause infinite suffering as well as joy, and also prevent infinite suffering and joy. It will, in fact, have infinitely diverse consequences. That is to say, given that the universe is infinite; even if it is not infinite, then this effect will still be inestimably large. In a universe that is not only infinitely large but also infinitely complex, this infinite butterfly effect is not only infinite over time but also instantly (see entry "subcosmic and supercosmic levels").
Whatever we do, then, will cause cataclysms far greater than we could even begin to imagine, from human to astronomical extent. What, then, is the meaning of our actions here and now, if not for the enrichment of our own lives?
Nothing we do will make the slightest difference in the long run: for whatever we do, both the destruction as well as the creation we cause without even trying to do so is already infinite, and so neither will be greater, nor can either be made greater or smaller; the two will always be equal, since they are both infinite, and infinity divided by infinity is undefined.
In this aspect, all entities in the universe are equal in worth; all of us are Gods, and so is every tiniest bit of energy. Everything in the universe is so infinitely connected that it has no use to cling to such values as dignity except for ourselves and our own lives.
We should but love, then, for the beauty of love, not for what it does to others or to the world; this I say for all kinds of love, from the love of a friend to love of one's occupation. If one sees how people benefit from one's love, then that is a beautiful thing; but it is no more than that. It is not of any actual importance to the world; only to one's own world.
From the viewpoint of severe psychopaths, there is no reason at all to love someone, nor, aside from law, any reason not to kill someone if they wish to. After all, it does not make a difference to themselves, and neither does it make a difference to the universe. But they will never know the beauty of true love unless they somehow learn to see it.
Many people go so far as to state that everything we do is done out of selfishness. This is one perception, but it is no more than that, a mere way of looking at things: it is no more or less correct than any other. Though one could interpret this as selfishness, it is merely an interpretation. It is indeed true that, one way or another, we do whatever we do for our own feelings; even if we do something for others, we do so merely for our own feelings, be it our feelings for others or our feelings about ourselves. One could then say that we do everything for our "self."
The fact of the matter is, this merely depends on how one defines "self." If the self is our consciousness, and we are conscious of other people, then to the extent that we are conscious of them, they become part of ourselves. The only reason why we are ourselves more than we are others is because we are more conscious of ourselves, since, after all, we live in ourselves, and so are conscious of all our perceptions; whereas, if we have compassion for others, we share only part of their perceptions, so that we are them to a far lesser extent than we are ourselves.
Put in a more scientific way: from a neurological viewpoint, our selves are usually defined as our brain, or rather as the contents of our brain. It appears that we are not the matter our brain comprises but rather the information it stores; but this information concerns both ourselves and others. When we empathize with someone, we construct a "scale model" of his or her feelings within our own brain (at least, of what we think his or her feelings to be). In this way, our brain attempts to integrate part of someone else's feelings — a purely evolutionary mechanism, one could say, but also the most beautiful mechanism of our organism, for it gives us the ability to love. When one empathizes with someone, one could say that one thereby becomes partly unified with them, as one's emotions become partly synchronized with theirs. Love is a connection with other beings. When we love someone, whatever we do we still do for ourselves, but our selves have come to partially include another person or their feelings.
Should we still love, then, if love is useless but to ourselves? That love is useless on the whole does not make it meaningless. Love is the most beautiful thing in the universe, not only to the people we love but also to ourselves.

In what we are, all of us are of infinite value to the universe, yet in what we do none of us will ever make even the most infinitesimal difference to it. We can only make a difference to our own lives, though what our lives are includes the connections they have with others'.

Light is love. In this it is merciful, even for the dark. Love spares what it loves, even if it hurts; only hate can destroy. While light may increase positive things, it may not decrease negative things; only darkness can decrease negative things, though it cannot increase positive things. Day casts light both on that which is beautiful and that which is ugly, or is seen as such; night hides both in darkness.
Of course, what is good or bad depends entirely on one's perception, but what perception is good or bad itself, as well, depends on one's perception of it in turn. Positive and negative are entirely subjective, as are all things.
If in the eternity of time, aught has achieved to become one with the Universe or even near, then its infinite light must love all people and all things in the Universe for it to exist at all, and so it does not seek to change them; not even oblivion, chaos, suffering, ignorance, or lack of free will. If there is a God, then God is infinite love, love for everything, even all the things that we hate, and even for our hate of those things, and for our hate of our hate and so on.
For love has not the strength to undo that upon which it shines its light; and hate has not the strength to become one with the universe, for if it would do so it would come to hate itself and destroy itself.
In an infinite universe all things already are. Changing such a universe would mean to remove something from it, for one cannot add anything to it. It therefore removes nothing from existence as that would make it less complete
In an infinite universe all things already are. Changing such a universe would mean to remove something from it, for one cannot add anything to it.
In this God loves hatred, suffering, darkness and emptiness as much as love, happiness, light and beauty. If one loves something, one will not change it; if one loves all the Universe, then so too one will not change it. In this there is nothing that separates God from the Devil; God is not just good or evil, but both, or else neither.
For us, even if there is a God, there might not be any God for ourselves. It makes no difference to us at all whether there is or not, unless we follow it to become one with the Universe ourselves.
Universal love means universal mercy. But what does mercy really mean? In the epics where Good battles against Evil, it has often been shown how, while the evil side spares no-one, when the good side prevails it has mercy for evil side. Whatever deeds have been committed by the evil side are often forgiven by the good side; the evildoers, even their leaders, are imprisoned, banished, or converted, but rarely killed. This is so not because the good side happens to have such inclination to forgiveness, but because that is what defines is as the good side.
If one had the perception that everything is beautiful, one would change nothing at all, not even things that hurt oneself or others. Only through love can one become infinite, for one would otherwise flee from that infinity. There is nothing that could become one with the Universe, and thereby become the Universe, without loving it altogether as it is.
Such is the bane of God's love.