“There is no man
that has power over the wind to retain the wind, neither has the power over the
day of [his] death; and there is no discharge in war, neither shall wickedness
deliver him that is given to it. All this have I seen, even applied my heart to
whatever the work that is done under the sun; what time one man had power over
another to his hurt.” ( Ecclesiastes 8:8-9)
These verses come to expand the reasons for not
to entertain fantasies and illusions that we are not fully aware of their
outcome, once we turn them into something real. Thus we understand that they are
similar to believe that we are able to handle evil or to control it, as we also
would like to do with death.
Once we engage ourselves to negative
attachments, obsessions or addictions, we are bound to them with no easy relief
or deliverance.
There is nothing to profit from this predicament as well as
from anything in the realm of ego’s fantasies and illusions, even more so if we
inflict wickedness to one another.
“And so I saw the
wicked buried, and they entered into their [final] rest; and they that had done
right went away from the holy place, and were forgotten in the city. This also
is vanity. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily,
therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.”
(8:10-11)
(8:10-11)
Both the just and the wicked end up in graves,
either sooner or later. Here the just are warned not to separate from their
permanent awareness of goodness as the holy place where they belong. Otherwise,
they will be forgotten as the wicked in the vanities that they choose to live,
for in them there is no judgment or justice.
If we allow negative traits and
trends as the ways and means of our consciousness, we confirm that wickedness
is sheltered in our hearts.
“Because a sinner
does evil a hundred times and [yet he] prolongs his days. Although yet I know
that it shall be well with them that revere [lit. fear] God, that fear before
Him. But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his
days which are as a shadow because he fears not before God.” (8:12-13)
King
Solomon invites us again to become aware of the vanity, futility and
frustration of our negative choices, either these shorten or prolong our days,
for in them life becomes meaningless.
Thus we translate the reverence (“fear”)
of God as the appreciation and devotion to the goodness by which our steps in
the path of life are shinned.
“There is a vanity
which is done upon the earth, that there are righteous men to whom it happens
according to the work of the wicked; again, there are wicked men to whom it happens
according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.” (8:14)
This verse reiterates that as long as we engage
in the vanity and futility of ego’s fantasies and illusions, there is no
difference is we are just or wicked.
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