Greets all, It appears to me that the different sides have somewhat different viewpoints on equality. First I will start with that of the darksider as they make it most evident. When reading through the darkside lectures and conversing with darksiders, look at the information. There isn't a great deal of equality to be found. This is most evident when they talk of the "Wolf and sheep" scenario and can be found embodied in their desires to control everything around them. The typical stance is one of the darksider being the leader with everyone else as the follower, falling into a structured hierarchy where everyone has their place and the idea of elitism being very much ingrained. The light side view on this is somewhat different and would work from the most publicised western society's view of human rights to explain that each person was created at an equal level and should be treated as such. For the lightsiders there are no sheep and no wolves, there are just people with exactly the same rights as each other.
This brings us onto the shadow. Where do we stand in all of this? Well at the first level you could look at it and say that yes we were all created equal and therefore have the same rights, but society and its people have imposed limits on different people to have different rights according to race, colour and creed although the governments of developed worlds would have us believe otherwise. It is fairly evident that in today's society people don't have equal rights. Whether or not they should have equal rights is a matter of personal opinion and I believe that most lightsiders would instinctively say that people should have equal rights, and they can easily provide their own well thought through reasoning, just like the Dark can for their own.
Now as a Shadow I understand both of these perceptions, their usefulness and their limitations and this is one of he cases where the perceptions can be shifted and altered to fit each situation.
When a being enters this level of existence, it starts as no more than a life force. It has unmeasured potential that it starts to use immediately as it grows and develops. Some people will restrict their potential themselves through mental barriers and blocks. Very few people actually use these barriers intentionally and even fewer realise what barriers exist within themselves. Identifying these barriers is the first step to removing them and being able to use up that little bit extra of the potential available to you, should you want to do so.
Some people will allow others to restrict their potential. On the physical plane of existence then this is fairly easy to allow to happen and can be very hard to break out of (for example a person getting put into prison). But there are the other planes, for example the mind, heart and spirit which are a lot harder for one person to control in another, though it can be done in the person being controlled allows them to, either consciously or subconsciously.
So theoretically everyone is equal and has the same amount of potential available to them. In actual fact the only thing that stands between this and reality is mental or physical barriers imposed by the self or others. If there is little you can do about some of the physical barriers (say your parent's disconnect you from the Internet - which you can work round but be mindful of the consequences of doing so), remember that you are the only one who has full control over the other barriers and you have the ability to add, set and remove these barriers.
This ties in with the issue of importance, and a question that was asked of me what seems so long ago. The question was "What is the most important thing in life?" and my reply can be seen in the text with that question as the title, but that is another story.