Good. Evil. A dichotomy in life. Mutually exclusive opposites, or are they? Each soul, as they travel though their experiences of physical lives, will choose to have lifetimes in which they manifest totally different aspects of life. Most of their lives will fall into what we categorize as simply good people. But in order to learn and really understand life, they will also choose to have lives in which they will go to extremes. Some of these extreme lives will be as very good people, saintly even. But in order to achieve the balance in life, and to gain fuller understanding, they will also choose to have some lives in which they are bad people, downright mean and ornery, or even what we would call evil. Of course they develop substantial karma in those lives, but that is all a part of the learning process.
It has been said that within each person, there is equal capacity for both good and evil, love and hatred, etc. It is how each soul decides to express their lives. Now most souls, having experienced both, have decided that “good is better than evil, ‘cause its nicer.” (Mammy Yokum, in the comic strip, L’il Abner)
It has also been said that “a person with limitations of consciousness will find what we call evil more attractive than one with a more expanded awareness.” Now why would this be true? If you stop and think about it, the answer becomes obvious. But in order to understand this fully, we need to think in terms of extremes. Lets say that a person decides that they want to increase their “power.” That power comes from our thoughts, feelings and emotions. The stronger the thought, the more power. And feelings and emotions add even more power than do thoughts. So to generate a lot of power, strong thoughts, feelings and emotions are needed. If we are following a path of love, joy, tolerance and just basic goodness, then we are generating positive power. And the more consistent that we can be, the greater will be our power, it tends to build with consistence. On the other hand, if we are following a path of anger, hatred, irritation, etc. then we are generating negative or evil power. Again consistency plays a big role. As a human, especially for a younger soul, it is far easier to maintain hatred and anger than it is to maintain love and joy. And if you do not believe that, try maintaining very positive thoughts and feelings when you stump your toe, or dump the cake mix that you are working with on the floor. That moment of irritation has just broken your positive attitude.
There is another aspect that will draw someone with limited consciousness to evil. As we work for the light, those high spirits of the light will give us gifts of power, or work with us to increase our abilities. But we must earn their help. They are not being niggardly, but they do know that whatever is earned is much more likely to be used properly than what is granted gratuitously. Just as there are people who seem to hate anything that is of goodness and light, so there are spirits that hate the light. And they will grant to someone who is seeking negative power similar help, only they are not worried about its being earned. After all, they do not really want their gifts to be used “properly.”
There are other aspects of the perception of good and evil where what someone may perceive to be good is exactly the opposite. For an example, let us say that someone has had a religious experience. Now this generally would not have been an old soul, not that old souls cannot have a religious experience, but they would tend to react to it differently. At any rate, this person has this religious experience, and decides that they have “found the truth” and that it is their God Given Duty to force that truth on everyone that they know or meet. To them, they perceive their actions as being good, but in reality, they are trying to deprive others of their God given freedom of choice, their free will. And that is certainly not good.
Another example of someone thinking that they are doing good and in reality are doing exactly the opposite follows. Many people when they get into a spiritual search become interested in spiritual healing. And many of them become quite good at it. Now a such person without the proper understanding may have a friend or acquaintance that becomes ill or is injured. And our hero decides that he/she will heal them. Now there is nothing wrong with this, if we go about it properly. The very first step in doing any healing is getting the permission of the person that you wish to heal. And that is where a person without the proper understanding often is in error.
Joyce Chandler
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