Question On The Problem Of Evil

This question fits in with the two previous articles even though it was not prompted by them. It was asked from the standpoint of someone who followed the spiritual path but felt that any attention paid to the negative aspects of life only emphasised those aspects, and it was much better to take the line that evil was simply ignorance. So it is, but when consciously pursued, as it is by the dark forces, it is not innocent ignorance, and it is certainly not without intelligence, so you really should be wise to their wiles and modus operandi. I realise that the term 'dark forces' can sound almost comically sinister to some but the reality is that there are what the Masters called erring souls whose purpose it is to mislead. It is much better to know about these things than blithely assume they don't concern you. If you are serious about the spiritual quest, they do. However their existence can actually be used to our advantage because the fact that they will exploit any flaws we may have can serve to make us aware of those flaws and correct them. Only if we remain awake, though.

Q. Your Masters do seem to go on rather a lot about evil. Doesn’t concentrating on it to that extent just make you slightly paranoid? Surely it’s much better not to pay any attention to it and focus on the good?

A. By all means focus on the good. The Masters never told me to worry about evil or to fix my thoughts on it. I agree that would be giving it manure in which to grow, if I can put it like that. But they did warn me to beware of it and its machinations, and we have to recognise that evil does exist in this world, both in the physical world and in certain non-material aspects of the world, the psychic plane as you might call it. There are fallen powers that seek to deceive, distract, corrupt and lead astray, and they do focus much of their attention on prospective disciples and those attempting to free themselves from the illusions of this world because those are the ones most likely to escape their net and potentially help others to do the same. That is why the spiritual field, as it exists in earthly terms, is so riddled with half truths and falsehood. It has been thoroughly penetrated by the dark powers who have cooked up all kinds of false paths, most of which contain enough elements of the truth to make some appeal but always deviate from it in a critical way. Usually in a way designed to attract the prideful, desiring, prejudiced lower self. And that is why it is the responsibility of those somewhat established on the spiritual path to point out the false, though this should always be done with humility, dispassion and without descending to the sort of intolerant antagonism one has seen so often in religious history. You also have to distinguish between a path that is incomplete but legitimate (nothing is complete, after all) and one that contains greater illusion than truth. We truly do have to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves and that is not always an easy balance to strike.

On the subtler level, we have to be aware of evil within ourselves. If there is no evil in us, then there is no evil in the world by which I mean that we perceive evil has no fundamental reality. However as long as there is any propensity to falseness at all in us then evil remains in the world. So when the Masters warned me against evil they were saying that, yes, there are powers that seek to deceive and their ways are subtle but they were also telling me to guard against all negativity in myself. Unto the pure all things are pure.

The question of evil has always been there as a problem that must be confronted by anyone who seeks to find out the truth behind appearance. It cannot be denied and it cannot be ignored. It must be understood and the only way to understand it properly is to see that it is not part of God's reality but arises in a dualistic world as a consequence of free will. But that is just the aspect that relates to our capacity to make wrong choices. There is another aspect to evil, what you might call the cosmic aspect, and that is expressed in various religions as the refusal of certain high spiritual beings to acknowledge the supremacy of God. This led to their expulsion from heaven (figuratively speaking) to lower, though still non-material, levels, and that in turn led to the fall of humanity when we lost our spiritual connection and created a separate self. Our task now is to turn our faces back to the light and re-establish that connection. Our task is to reject separation which is the foundation of evil.