123. Evil

©2004 Athene Bitting All Rights Reserved

CXXIII

Will Force Part 3:

Ethics, Evil, & Instinct

In the Halls of Light, in the lives of men

In the days and nights of all who live and breathe

We shift our thoughts to the point of stillness

Where nothing but peace can reside.

We bring our thoughts to the only path of strength,

The path of the quiet hand and the tranquil heart.

There are no walls to protect us from ourselves

Therefore we guard our words and our intentions.

We look to the Great Beacon of Light

To guide us through our meanderings in twilight.

Lux omniae physicae superat.

The Light transcends all limitations of the physical plane.

We fear no apparent danger; we struggle against no illusion.

Here we take the vow of serenity

To move through life unmoved, to love but not to desire.

To understand that our wishes are already granted

(such is the sweetness of our Great Spirit)

Only awaiting our permission to manifest.

All the harbingers, the angels of Light sing out:

It is enough simply to be.

The Light, the dream, and the love that surround us are all one.

***

Lecture based Questions:

1. Draw or describe a reminder or symbol of one of your helpers.

Hundreds of helpers surround you always. They offer guidance and encouragement whenever you seek it.

2. What exactly defines evil?

For our purposes, it is the absence of conscious intention to be constructive. We use it as an adjective rather than a noun.

Some people prefer to demonize evil as a foreign power that acts on us or influences us. This allows them to feel separate from the process. Some people believe in a pantheon of evil characters (human and supernatural) who are responsible for death, chaos, suffering, and catastrophe. This allows them to feel that they are innocent victims in the process.

When we choose between right and wrong, the simplicity of the Now is the only defining instant. It shows us that every choice we make is either black or white at the moment when we make it. With the limited knowledge and awareness that we possess at the time, we make good or bad choices only through our intention.

It is easy to point the finger at evil on a grand scale such as the holocaust and say, “these people were bad and they did bad things.” Yet the holocaust was made up of a million small bad choices, each made at a crucial moment on a personal level. The result was horrific, as has been many such terrible occasions in our humanity. Each time, many people made their decisions without considering anything beyond their desire and their fear.

3. Are evildoers different from ordinary people? I thought that they made a conscious decision to do harm. Don’t people who do evil wish to make others suffer?

No. Everyone has done evil. And whenever they did it, it was action justified in their minds to achieve a purpose that they felt was for their rightful personal gain or for a cause that was worth the cost of whatever they did. This is why we say “The end never justifies the means.”

In terms of karma and lost personal power and spiritual sickness, the integrity of ethics is always the most important denominator in any choice.

So when you observe someone doing a destructive behavior, when you consider him in an empathetic mode you can see that he believes that there is a moral stance to what he has done. Even when he believes that he is evil and is doing wrong things, he still feels justified somehow by his environment. Very often, the victims are byproducts of his crusade to achieve a different goal.

4. Is there some collective energy and organization that serves evil?

Not in the comic book sense. This is how it works. Negative energy seeks out other negative energy. By its nature it tends to pool together in a combining function. There is no special intelligence to it, and there is no insidious plot against the forces of good. Some mischief makers like to hang out together, but it is hard for them to like each other. It has been known to happen that some people with a common beef have cooperated with each other to make a bang in the world, but these groups come and go.

At the heart of it all, there are only people like you and me going about our lives and learning what makes happiness and what makes unhappiness. As we discover that other people have reality just as we do, then we increasingly respect them and learn to feel empathy for their struggles and desires. Before then, we are insensitive, violent, territorial, cutthroat, and try to feel superior in any way that we can manage. Sometimes we are influenced by others to do more harm than we intended.

In the Astral World, negative energy has a heaviness to it that resembles the law of physical gravity. Because the Astral World is one of the lower dimensions, it tends to work at a certain atomic direction, namely down. What we call the lower the Astral Planes is where negative energy tends to collect. This is also where folks live who entertain negative emotions. Chaos and instinctive urges reign in this region, which is rife with violence, lust, greed, and all those other activities that can be destructive. The higher Astral areas do not experience these sorts of activities.

In the Mental World, conflicting ideas and illusions of desire populate the lower realms. Violence and unhappiness also prevail there. When we understand that discipline of thought and logic are valuable, we rise up out of those areas and into more pleasant and beautiful places.

5. What about mischief makers and other scary types of intelligences?

Because of anger, the need to feel powerful, rebellious, jealousy, resentment, and those other nasty emotional reactions, some people have made a hobby of frightening people and trying to influence them to do negative things. This is not a permanent condition for them, (nothing is, really) and eventually they will lose so much personal power that they will have to begin again in collecting it. Some of them are helped by missionaries to find happiness again. Until then, you can be immune to their presence through your faith in God’s rightness and in the correct affirmations and meditation habits. Praying for their enlightenment without suffering will also help them (and you) immensely.

By the way, just as we each have the potential for being an avatar for Light, the same goes the opposite way. Each time we lunge forward to grab what we deem to be the golden prize, there is danger that others will get run over in the process. Every time we seek to validate ourselves by thinking critical thoughts or angry thoughts, we envelop ourselves in darkness. Every time we say a negative statement even in jest, we burn negative archetypes into the auras of those who have heard us. During those times we are spreading negative energy into the environment. Each of us is just a thought away from acting as a mischief maker.

6. What about serial killers and brutal tyrants?

These people have been victims of emotional and physical abuse. They would genuinely not cause harm unless their sorrowful memories were not triggered by the people who become their victims. Of course, there are several other factors involved in making them the way they are, but basically, they are reacting to their insufferable emotional pain, which is temporarily relieved by lashing out. We can also pray for their healing and enlightenment without suffering. Of course, we need to pray for the victims too. That goes without saying.

It has been said before but it bears repeating. The last thing that the victims of tragedy need are your anger and indignation. It only compounds the negative energy. What are needed are your affirmations for healing, your prayers for their blessing, and your physical contributions when possible.

Most people who are hated and feared by others do not set out to hurt anyone. They have a driving will to achieve something and do not care about who or what is harmed or destroyed in the process. For them the end is the thing and any means available will be used to achieve this end. Other people wish to make a name for themselves and view anyone who gets in the way to be the evil party or the enemy.

In one’s own mind, everyone is the hero of his or her own story, whether acting constructively or destructively. We who can feel with empathy understand this and pray for the enlightenment of all in harmony, equality, and spiritual blessing.

7. What are the most common things that I do every day that make negative energy?

They are many, but here is a short list. You will get the idea when you read it as to other types of transgression-activities.

The finger

The angry retort or expletive

Name calling and criticizing

Bulldozing through people and situations

Jealousy

Expectation of bad things

Fixating your thoughts on others who do harm

Wishing that other wrongdoers be punished and suffer

Forceful movements or thoughts

Desire to control others

Taking advantage of people who are emotionally vulnerable

Profiting from the misfortunes of others

Self abuse

8. The impulses that create negative energy are all instinctive. Does this mean that our instinct is to do evil?

Remember that the word evil describes an act or an effect. Instincts are designed to preserve the body and promote the success of the genetic clan. As we mature spiritually, we understand that success in happiness and personal power usually mean to go against instinct. Sometimes the use of the word evil separates us from this wisdom. We have all made horrible mistakes in our actions. We will all transmute the harm that we have done through acts of atonement and understanding.

Nobody is perfect. Everybody achieves relative perfection in the Universe eventually. We all change for the better. This is inevitable.