Theos-Talk Archives (October 1994 Message tl00014)

This is by Eldon Tucker

---- Step Out of the Dark

       When the subject changes to evil, sorcerers, the
Dark Brotherhood, and such things, do we feel a dreadful
chill? Is there an uneasy feeling that something dark
and fearful is waiting for us, once we've paid it some
attention? This should *not* be the case!
       Should we dwell on evil and those working for it?
No. But should we seek to understand it and it's place
in the scheme of things? Yes, that's useful. The
importance of good is realized by its contrast with the
bad. We further appreciate the path of Holiness when we
know where the path of selfishness leads us.
       Someone may have horrible dreams, nightmares, and
even be afraid of the dark. I even knew one man, years
ago, a member of the Salt Lake T.S. Study Center, whom
was continually in fear of dark forces; he felt under
constant psychic attack. Why does this happen?
       We need to learn to face evil, and not tremble in
fear and flee from it, nor respond to it with anger,
viewing the situation as good forces fighting bad
forces. All sense of fear and the threatening nature of
evil goes when we are rooted in *good* spirituality.
Should we be afraid? Absolutely not! When we establish
ourselves as firmly rooted in the spiritual, evil has no
hold over us, and runs from us. Being rooted in the
Spiritual, we manifest the Natural Order and our very
nature hastens the predestined dissolution of evil
beings, their Fear and horrid Fate! There is no sense of
using the light to battle the darkness; rather, we
*become* the light and the shadows disappear (hide from
our sight).
       The disappearance of evil does not result from the
denial of a dark side to life, repressing it into our
unconscious. There is not an equally-valid evil side of
consciousness that thereby becomes the qualities of our
alter-ego, the shadow. Evil disappears as we become
firmly rooted in the incorruptible, in the immortal, in
the impersonal. We attain a wholeness that is not based
upon embracing good and evil equally, and being
indifferent to them. The wholeness means that we are
clear to manifest the spiritual nature, and are firmly
rooted in the One Life. We have attained a clarity of
mind where we are unbiased by the structure and
inclinations of our current personality. This loss of
*bias* allows us to respond freshly to any situation in
life. Unbiased and rooted in the highest, we see what is
good and right to do.
       This is not a denial of evil in the world, nor of
the results of the actions of evil people. And it is not
painting everything in a stark black-and-white good-and-
bad character. There are a multitude of shades of gray,
and often no clear-cut right way to make a decision.
Often, our only distinguishing factor in making a
decision a particular way comes from our motivation.
       How do we  distinguish the corruptible from the
incorruptible? How do we tell the mortal from the
immortal? How do we separate the personal from the
impersonal? We might ask ourselves how we experience the
situation. What is the viewpoint, the perspective, the
perceived action and actor? Is the greatest good
foremost in our consciousness, or is the emphasis on a
greater sense of a separate self, a sense of us versus
them, a sense of us versus the rest of the world? Is
there a sense of rightness, fairness, and general
principles at play, or just a sense of greed and
personal acquisition?
       When we make decisions based upon the greater good,
unbiased by self-interest, this does not, though, mean
that we automatically choose to "do for others."
Sometimes the greatest good is in our favor. The sense
of impersonality comes from a lack of *bias* in the
evaluation, in the clarity of vision, and not from the
resulting decision. The greatest good, for instance, may
be to kill plants for food, even though they might not
wish to give up their lives.
       There are different ways that life appears,
depending upon one's state of consciousness. Life is the
same, and remains unchanged, although the apparent nature of
things changes, as for instance, one shifts
consciousness from ordinary waking consciousness to the
Devachanic or Nirvanic experience. The same is true of
the dualism of good versus evil. This duality appears as
part of one's experience until one has become firmly,
unshakably rooted in the *good* spiritual. This
rootedness, this certainty, brings an experience of
life where the evil side of things drops away.
       A psychologist might attempt to describe this
"rootedness" as being possessed by an archetype. He
might say that there is a weak and helpless person, with
a puny personality, desperately clinging to something
external as a crutch, as a substitute for his own
personal maturity and strength. This idea might be
voiced, but it is often a cry of "sour grapes" by
psychologists unwilling or unable to move beyond the
realm of the personality and embrace the Higher.
       We are required to rely on our personal strength.
The need for self-direction and independence is greater
as we approach the Path. But the basis of awareness
is from a clear insight into the overall good, upon the
real impact of our actions, a clear and penetrating
ethical or buddhic consciousness.
       This rootedness is a natural thing, a solidarity
with life, a conscious identification, relatedness, and
awareness of our identity with the universal One Life.
Although open to much criticism, Christian
Fundamentalism is superior to skeptical science in this
respect, because of the conviction in the reality of the
spiritual and one's firm relationship to it. This is
attained for them at the great price of rigidity of mind
and lose of Reason and spiritual insight. That price,
though, is not a natural consequence of identification
with the Root. Science, on the other hand, has
flexibility of mind and open inquiry into things, but
pays the price of a loss of fundamental spirituality.
       The common believer in western science has lost the
non-dualistic consciousness, and lives in a universe
where both good and evil do battle, where they both
exist, and there is no ultimate standard rising out of
life itself. This viewpoint causes a gnawing doubt, an
uncertainty, a skepticism, out of a self-imposed
isolation from the awareness of the higher principles,
Atma-Buddhi. There is a great sense of loneliness, of
being alone in a big, empty, dark universe of Maya. The
experience, though, is but one stage of development. We
must take this self-imposed limitation to our awareness,
this Ring-Pass-Not, and step beyond it into the light of
universality.
       Life and the universe itself is a cooperative
venture. We co-create it, in interaction with the rest
of living things. Each of us, as Monads, projects a ray
into matter and adds our own splash to the pond. In our
experience of life, we may take our material existence
too seriously, and forget our essential source. We may
lose a sense of our rootedness in the One Life and
experience the dualism of good and evil as battling
forces. We don't, though, have to forget; and we can
remember the essential unity and *good* spirituality
that pervades and guides all things.
       Evil is like a mayavic, illusory shadow cast by an
imperfect light, without a substantial nature of its
own, and destined to destruction as the light perfects
itself and becomes all-pervading. That happens as we
become rooted in the incorruptible, and the corruptible
about us becomes subject to dissolution. Let's pass
through this Ring-Pass-Not and rebecome rooted in the
Highest!