Good, Evil and Inner Peace

What is good? What is evil? What is the nature of sin? Spiritualist Peter Rhodes talks with Dr. Oz about quieting your consciousness to find the answers to such questions, as well as the true essence of being yourself.

Peter says that when you identify with the content of your experience—rather than living, being and experiencing life—that is the nature of sin. "It's easy to get caught up in," he says, and it's something everyone deals with. Peter says it comes about when your happiness is defined based on yourself. "The human ego wants to be the center of attention, but 6 billion people can't be the best," he says. "If I'm identifying with me and I want to be the center of attention, then I'm in conflict with another and the very thought of another creates fear. To me, that's sin. Why should I be comparing myself to you, trying to compete and be different than I am?"

According to Peter, people have to take the bad with the good. "I believe that God is all positive emotions," he says. "How are you going to experience positive emotions unless you have them in the context of negative emotions?" While living with the negative isn't what we strive for, Peter says it does increase your enjoyment of the positive. "In order to have those emotions, to see all the colors, you have to have the prism divided into its various forms," Peter says. "And in order to really appreciate it, you have to have darkness."

In order to find your deeper essence, Peter says you should begin by finding the quiet. "If I can quiet down my natural mind—which wants, needs and has judgments—I can start to understand that it's not me, but it's there to serve me through meditation and contemplation," he says. Peter says to use objective, noncritical observation as the first step toward being. "Just watch," he says. "You can't start to change unless you really know the nature of your mind."