1
There is that in man which repeatedly works against
his finer aspirations, which provides him with opposition. Upon this anvil his
character is hammered out, shaped, and developed.
2
So soon as a being limits interests and welfare to
its own self exclusively, so soon is it bound to come into conflict with other
beings. Thus evil originates through the first being's ignorance, not through
the presence of an absolute and eternal principle of evil.
3
Where there is total ignorance there is total
self-love. From this proceed all negativity, sensuality, indulgence, and
discord. Where there is total knowledge there is total turning to the eternal
IS. From this proceed harmony, positivity, goodwill. Where hate and cruelty come
to excess, there is denial of the divine principle and reversal of the twofold
truth. Where attention and attraction are partly turned to the THAT WHICH IS,
there is sharing of mind and will between good and evil.
4
The universal pretense of evil to be good and the
occasional presence of some good in most evil create confusion or bewilderment
in many minds and lead to wrong judgement in other minds. Is there any absolute
way of distinguishing good from evil? The Russian Staretz Silouan, of Mount
Athos, thought there was - that however good an end might seem, if the means
used to attain it was bad, then it was to be rejected. It is easy for us to see
that falsehood intended to lead others to act against their own welfare could be
such a bad means, as also could malicious cruelty.
5
Not to see the world as it is, with all its
depravity and malice, is to be a fool, even if one happens to be a saint as
well. The philosopher, like the ordinary man, sees its actuality but, unlike the
ordinary man, is not stained by it. Moreover, he sees also the goodness and
aspiration and, more importantly, the divine World-Idea.
6
Evil is something which man encounters on his
journey to Good. Evil-doing is what he expresses when still far from his
destination.
7
It is true that evil forces do exist but not true
that they exist on the highest level. Insight into the ultimate sees them not.
8
Evil is certainly present, plain to sight and
unpleasant to experience; but it is not altogether, nor only, what it seems. It
is really an appearance, and reconcilable with the benign source of good.
9
Why is history such a record of wars, oppressions,
exploitations, invasions, and persecutions? Why have all the saviours, avatars,
prophets, and saints succeeded only with individual men here and there, not with
the mass of mankind? Is the religious dream of universal goodness nothing more
than a dream? It is not a help but a self-deception to ignore the double
polarity of existence, the yin-and-yang in the universe, the shadow-self in man.
Only outside of religion, in the philosophic realm of ultimate being, the
Unique, the Real, where the entire world itself is cast out, can we talk of
friction-free consciousness, and only in the deepest meditation can we share it.
Although the experience is a temporary one, the peace in it so passes the
understanding that "the kingdom of heaven" is its fit name. Here indeed is the
Good raised to its highest degree. Here is a demonstration that human evil is
but privation of good.
10
What may be true on the ultimate level - the
non-existence of evil, the reality of the Good, the True, the Beautiful -
becomes false on the level of duality. Here the twofold powers, the opposites,
do exist, do hold the world in their sway. To deny relative evil here is to
confuse different planes of being.(P)
11
The man who would deliberately harm his fellows
for his own ends is a sinner.
12
Evil arises only when an entity goes astray into
the delusions of separateness and materialism, and thence into conflict with
other entities. There is no ultimate and eternal principle of evil, but there
are forces of evil, unseen entities who have gone so far astray and are so
powerful in themselves that they work against goodness, truth, and justice. But
by their very nature such entities are doomed to eventual destruction, and even
their work of opposition is utilized for good in the end and becomes the
resistance against which evolution tests its own achievements, the grindstone
against which it sharpens man's intelligence, the mirror in which it shows him
his flaws.(P)
13
The lower nature is incurably hostile to the
higher one. It prefers its fleeting joys with their attendant miseries, its ugly
sins with their painful consequences, because this spells life to it.(P)
14
Everything and everyone has a negative side. One
could fill up a lifetime looking for and finding it. One could go on grumbling,
criticizing, ranting, and hating. But there is also the positive and opposite
side. The philosophical attitude seeks deeper, keeps calmer, for it finds
equilibrium on another plane.
15
The descent from faith in Holy Spirit to faith in
unholy spirits happens to those who are either too weak to remain at such a high
altitude or too incapable of rising from a sensate view of existence.
16
Evil can take every form, even that of the guru,
the quest, and the learner.
17
Some years ago someone asked me, "What about
absolute evil?" The answer is this: with Confucius we say that sin is due to
ignorance, and with Pythagoras that evil is due to the absence of good.
Ignorance leads to selfishness, and extreme ignorance leads to extreme
selfishness, which in turn leads to extreme evil. Now, all these are relative
conditions and pass away in time as the person learns his lessons through the
series of experiences and corrects his mistakes during the reincarnations. There
cannot be an absolute evil because there is only one Absolute Power, one God,
one Supreme Being; and it is this which inspires the highest goodness known to
man when he discovers its presence, through the Overself, in his heart. In that
sense only I said there was an absolute good. The pairs of opposites exist only
in the finite, relative, and limited world. There is no opposite to the Supreme
Power in the timeless and infinite world, no Satan with whom God is in
everlasting conflict. But, on its own level, Mind knows neither good nor bad.
There is only IS-ness.
18
It seems that there is evil in the world, but why?
What bad men have done is to let their evil grow like a noxious weed too large
and their good too little, whereas good men have cultivated a high proportion of
goodness. There is no absolute evil. It is truer to talk of absolute good for
that is there first. Why? Because God is there first. Men came later and broke
the divine laws little by little. They created their own evil consequences. Or
for different reasons they harm others and have later to suffer forit.
19
When the good is absent the evil is present. The
cynic who denies the existence of the good, the dreamer who denies the existence
of the evil - each ignores the other half of life as evidenced in history and in
the world around him.
20
A cultivated man of taste and feeling can find
much that is beautiful in nature and art; and if he is also a moral idealist, he
will find much that is good and virtuous in human life and experience. But it
would be incomplete to stop there and ignore the fact that there is also around
us much that is base, dark, and even evil. The two sides put together form a
complete observation. But it is only the mystics and the philosophers who can
see - because it requires a deeper penetration than the intellect and the senses
can give - that the dark side deals with the world of appearances, a world which
is fleeting and ephemeral, whereas the good side and the beautiful side is
merely a hint of that other world closer to Reality.
21
Evil is a very real problem in this world of time
and space. Evil forces exist and must be fought with all our strength.
Nevertheless the Power out of which all things and all entities come is a
beneficent one. Love is its radiation. There is no evil and no pain in it. They
begin only on the lower levels of separation and differentiation.
22
Philosophy does not agree with the doctrine that
man can sink into oblivion permanently. If man's fundamental nature, however
hidden it be, is essentially immaterial and of the same stuff as divinity, where
can he sink back to except to that self-same divinity? The mystery of evil is
perhaps the profoundest of all but it cannot be understood through surface
views. Evil is closely connected with suffering and the latter in its turn with
karma, which again is itself an expression of the fundamental self. It is all an
educative process from which nobody can escape - not even Satan himself were
there such a personal devil, which philosophy does not admit, although there are
evil spirits, evil beings, and evil men. All will be saved because when
seen from the timeless viewpoint they are already saved. The great mass
of humanity are moving in the right direction, despite appearances to the
contrary, and they shall enter the kingdom of heaven one day. Do not doubt
that; the guarantee is that they are in their hidden selves already divine.
23
No man is beyond redemption for no man is utterly
evil.
24
The problem of evil must be considered in the
light of various factors. One of these is standpoint; one man's evil is another
man's good. Another is karma; the individual has enough latitude to go to the
dogs but has to suffer from the consequences of his acts. Then there is the
question of rebirth. It seems impossible for human beings to be reborn as
animals but Nature has made some provision for it. Then the ethical value of
suffering must be considered. But most important of all are the questions of the
nature of God, His relation to the universe and to humanity, and the purpose, if
any, which is being worked out.
25
When a man commits an act of violence and
destruction against other men, he is denounced and punished as a criminal. But
when Nature commits such an act and maims or kills a mass of people, God is not
denounced. Instead, poet and priest search for some excuse, find some hidden
good intention, for God's reputation for goodness must be saved.
26
If the forces of evolution or laws of nature, as
the expression of the World-Mind, have evoked the World-Idea and with it the
possibilities of evil, we must unflinchingly accept the logical conclusion. This
is that the World-Mind certainly permits the presence of Evil, allows and does
not hinder its actuality. Nevertheless, we should always couple with this
admission the equal and attendant truth that there is a higher outcome from the
working of evil, a nobler purpose in its actuality. Through the operations of
the law of recompense and the pressures of divine evolution it is transmuted
into good. Evil has nowhere else to turn in the end except to turn itself into
good!
27
To accept God as the source of this universe but
to reject God as the source of those things contained in the universe which we
dislike, is to deny God. Because we humans dislike evil and suffering, we
separate them from God. But when we do that we separate ourselves from God.
28
The good and the bad are all part of the
world-picture, although their proportions vary as the time-wheel turns around.
29
It is the function of such opposing forces,
environments, or persons to compel him to negotiate them properly, or
suffer the consequences.
30
It would be a totally unobservant or totally
theoretic person who denied the presence of evil, but it would be an
ill-informed one who did not perceive that its life and power are circumscribed.
31
I hope I shall not be misunderstood for saying
that I saw clearly how the physical expression of evil is a necessary
prerequisite to the spiritual redemption from evil. For what the sinner
does is after all only an outcome of what he thinks. If the doing of
wrong actions will, by the higher law of recompense, bring him ultimately the
physical punitive consequences of those actions, they will also bring him - and
again ultimately - the thought that the two are inseparably connected together.
This is a step - admittedly only a first step - toward that repentance and that
purification which make redemption possible.
32
The notion that the God-Power is engaged in a
desperate struggle with an evil power, that God calls on man to give his help
and that the outcome of this warfare depends to any extent on such help - this
notion is a ridiculous one.
33
My experience of life and observation of others
have taught me that there is no situation in which you will find good alone
present without some concomitant evil. To look for undiluted good is utopian,
unrealistic, and self-deceptive.
34
The awful fact of innate evil, the hideous mystery
of innate sin, must be recognized and faced. We cannot make bad men into
good men; but Nature, Life, with millions of years at her disposal, can.
35
Evil arises where the good is still undeveloped
from its latency, but sometimes it is the distortion of the good.
36
We will understand this problem better when we
understand that the presence of good and evil in the universe does not signify a
division of power but a division of thought.
37
Thought is the cause; thought is the cure.
38
Satan can pretend to be an Angel of Light. There
are adepts in evil who hide their real aim behind an outward show of altruistic
purpose.
39
These secret purposes disguise themselves in a
convenient form, and if no other is convenient they will even use some open
purpose which stands in total opposition to them. They emerge in the most
unlikely and unlooked-for places.
40
The evil in human relations springs from the
ignorance in human beings. As each one brings the principle of truth into his
own consciousness, he brings it into his relation with others as a result. The
love which accompanies it denies birth to cruelty, anger, and lust or dissolves
any which already exist.
41
Although it is perfectly true that divine goodness
is at the heart of things, it is no less true that demonic evil is on the
surface of things. The followers of simple cults which stubbornly try to see
only the goodness and not the evil, which deny things as they are and indulge
wishful thinking, have themselves and their leaders to blame when disaster
awakens them to the errors in the map they are following. They would do better
to arouse themselves, while there is yet time, to keep a soundly balanced
attitude, neither falling over to one side or the other overmuch, yet always
remembering that superphysical experience between the incarnations is
disproportionately good and free from evil, by contrast with physical plane
experience.
42
Let us not insult human reason by denying human
evil.
43
In any universal arrangement or personal
situation, there is either gross disorder, with its consequent turmoil trouble
and suffering, or there is real order, with its harmonious co-operation with the
divine will working outward from the divine centre - be it man's heart or the
sun's rays.
44
The great ills (miscalled evils) of bodily life,
such as disease and poverty, are often forced upon him by an implacable fate.
But it would be a delusion to class them always with the great evils of mental
life, such as hate and cruelty. For their control is frequently beyond his
power, and their course may have to be endured, whereas sinful thoughts and
their resultant deeds are not independent of his control and may be avoided.
45
When right principles, theories, or concepts are
taken up by the wrong persons, they become wrong themselves - because misused,
falsified, perverted.
46
Suffering is not always an evil. It is often
educative. All evil is then seen to spring from separativeness, which is a stage
inevitable to all creatures as they follow the line of unfoldment. Evil
therefore is the adverse element in Nature. Man can conquer it in his mind by
conquering separativeness and realizing the All as himself. At the same time he
discovers that the whole creation is really a mental one, hence like but
not the same as a dream; and if he keeps awake to the Static
Reality whilst in the midst of the earthly dream, the whole world becomes merely
a school for educating consciousness. Then suffering, evil, and the like are
transient aspects leaving permanent results.
47
The wedding of heaven and earth can never be
brought about, since the Perfect and the Imperfect are incompatibles. But they
can be brought into some sort of equilibrium, into better balance, so that life
in the world would not be as bad as it is.
48
Those who ignorantly believe that God needs their
help to ensure his triumph over evil in this world, have yet to learn that this
triumph has been eternally accomplished already. The human being who can affect
this situation either by helping or hindering does not exist.
49
It is a disturbing concept which holds that man's
goodness seldom becomes actualized without the presence of, and struggle
against, man's evil.
50
If men engaged themselves more in asking not "What
is good and what is evil?" but rather "What is the Highest Good?" the first
question would get itself answered automatically and peace would then follow
anyway.
51
When the evil in man is washed out, he will find
in all its goodness the original stuff of which he is made - beneficent to all,
a joy to himself.
52
But because we affirm that the powers of evil will
destroy themselves in the end, this must not be mistaken to mean that we may all
sit down in smug complacency. We ought not to make this an excuse for inaction.
On the contrary, it should inspire us to stronger efforts to preserve the
noblest things in life from their attack.
53
Burke may have over-weighted his judgement by
applying it to all cases, but there is still plenty of substance in it when he
declared: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do
nothing."
54
The night's darkness shelters the evil forces, the
sun's brightness tells us where the divine ones are centralized.