Evil.

[Tony]

Does Evil exist?

Evil is just a word to describe an activity, or a thought behind an activity. This is a complex issue, but basically, it is selfishness - and selfishness is a sentient being's trait!

Within all of us are two potentials, one of dark and the other of light. One is a Conventional reality and the other is an Ultimate reality.

On an Ultimate level Evil cannot exist, because the ultimate is pure, with no attitude...accept truly unconditional love...and that is our true nature!

However, Evil must exist on a 'relative level' (when we only identify with this mind and body): it is the opposite of love, and has an attitude.
Evil could be said to be 'a lack of love'.

Love is being of unconditional benefit to others.
'Lack of love' is being of conditional benefit to 'self'.
This 'lack of love' is selfishness.
This selfishness is Evil.
Sentient beings - being 'me first' obsessed - create Evil, and attract Evil!

Let's take a closer look at this selfish Evil.

In general, sentient beings scamper around this planet, building nests, collecting food and wearing fur, feathers and t-shirts, and are selfish on a small scale. They don't really know what love or hate is. Their love blows hot and cold: they just react out of selfish survival. However, at this level, beings can be easily manipulated. Within is a dark selfishness. Within us all are the possibilities of being a murderer, thief and sexual deviant. All it needs is a green light to suggest that this is alright, and off we go!

Then there sentient beings who scamper around the planet wanting bigger nests, better food and more luxurious fur, feathers and Guicci T-shirts to wear. They are selfish on a bigger scale, because wanting more means others get less! They too are open to green light suggestions, and more people suffer. As one of Bob Diamond's colleagues said to me, “If we gain, then others must loose!”

We are starting to get the idea that selfishness is feeding off others, and that has to be Evil.

Evil has been given too exotic an image, so that we all think, “I cannot possibly be Evil! I'm not that bad! But 'they' can!”
See how the Evil works? This is merely self-centred righteousness.
Evil is just loving yourself a bit more than loving others. We want others to adore us, and worship us. We want them to say, “He's gone up in the world!”

Sentient beings can also feed off other's emotions, to gain some sort of control over them.
Me high/right: you low/wrong. What we do not realise is that a greater Evil is feeding off us!

I've come to the conclusion that the higher we progress up the 'tree of knowledge', the more we attract Evil, and the more we are susceptible to the misuse of powers...and so the more alert we have to be. This has to do with enlightened activities, which can be turned into demonic “I” activities.
I'll explain more on that later.

The demonic entities in the universe are practitioners who have stopped practising: one could call them fallen angels. They hate compassionate activity and feed off negative emotions. Don't we all dislike people who seem too pure for us? Don't we also gossip and feed off others faults? When we fall prey to like and dislike, we attract very unpleasant company!

On an Ultimate level, anything that takes Pure Awareness away from its Pure state 'lacks love'.
At the ultimate level, there is no difference between attraction and desire or dislike and hatred. We have moved away from our still centre with all of these.

When my mind only has regard for myself, I am being Evil...selfish.

If Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then Evil is in the I of the beholder!
The beauty is in the seeing, in the awareness that everything is as it is.
The evil is in the claiming and cherishing of ideas about oneself.

We counteract Evil by not joining in. By not following the herd.
Tread very carefully.





Tony

[Spiral]

Evil is definitely a relativistic pseudo moral construct, certainly in the way it is used in politics, Hilary Clinton comes to mind.

Thats not to say that it doesn't exist, in the form of harming others & living & acting contrary to universal law, in that respect we all need to work at it from moment to moment.

[Tarka the Duck]

If Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then Evil is in the I of the beholder!
The beauty is in the seeing, in the awareness that everything is as it is.
The evil is in the claiming and cherishing of ideas about oneself.

Oooo, "I" like that...

[Fred Steeves]

Posted by pie'n'eal (here)

I've come to the conclusion that the higher we progress up the 'tree of knowledge', the more we attract Evil, and the more we are susceptible to the misuse of powers...and so the more alert we have to be.

Hi Tony. That reminds me of the awesome parable of Satan's big temptation of Jesus out in the desert. How ironic really, to be telling a being who has attained free run of the universe, how much power on earth he can be given, if he only...


Cheers Mate,
Fred

[Beren]

Posted by Fred Steeves (here)

Posted by pie'n'eal (here)

I've come to the conclusion that the higher we progress up the 'tree of knowledge', the more we attract Evil, and the more we are susceptible to the misuse of powers...and so the more alert we have to be.

Hi Tony. That reminds me of the awesome parable of Satan's big temptation of Jesus out in the desert. How ironic really, to be telling a being who has attained free run of the universe, how much power on earth he can be given, if he only...


Cheers Mate,
Fred

Exactly!

Notice the way the temptation goes; after 40 days of fasting when body is hungry, upon the high wall when possible fear of death arises, on the high mountain where in vision he offers all Earthly kingdoms...

All these are bodily temptations .
But Jesus transcended the body...

[Tony]

Let's look at our own aggression.

If we have invested a lot of time and effort into our beliefs, it is bound to make us defensive and... aggressive. Everyday we add to the picture we have created, and get angry because the world does not fit our picture.
We are constantly being fed information to make us more angry, therefore more righteous! And so we go round in circles.

We get angry because we find that the world is not how we think it should be. Remember others have a slightly different picture, and these collective different pictures, only adds to our confusion and tends to make us talk at very 'cross' purposes!

It keeps us busy!

We often dislike what others do. This dislike is in fact hatred - and we have now joined with the thing we hate. The emotion of hatred has taken control, and this is exactly what attracts and creates more negativity. It is fed by our own 'likes' and 'dislikes'. Remember, we are constantly being fed information to make us react!

Our set of likes and dislikes creates the illusory world we live in.
The illusion is real: it is a real illusion!
However the illusion is a tool, as its Illusory nature is its Absolute nature!

Absolute reality reflects illusory reality.
Illusory reality reflects ultimate reality...one reflects the other.
Anything that appears in the mind is a mental image. Reality is precisely that which is aware….of these mental images, not the images themselves.

The more we react to evil out there, the more real it seems, and therefore the more control it has over us.

If I just looked at the anger personality of a person, I would not be seeing reality. But I know that very anger is the result of an inner conflict between the person's true nature and the beliefs they hold. In time, this truth will be recognised.

This inner conflict, this anger, can illuminate our true nature. With practice, we will recognise this.
The wisdom is in just letting go, letting go, letting go...of everything, even the watcher.

What is left is Pure Perception = Absolute reality.



Tony

[Tony]

We face temptations at every moment.
In those dark moments we are in conflict, if we persevere there is light at the end of the tunnel...of course there is always the next dark tunnel to go through!
Sometimes life is full of joy, sometimes it feels like a 'bootcamp'!
When we do not react to either, we know we must be awake or asleep!




Tony

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Thanks for this Tony.

A lot of this 'evil' is propagated by the illusion of Materialism, and the illusion of 'I', the Individuated, one who is individual - that because 'I' am biologically separated from other beings means that 'I' am spiritually separated from other beings as well.

This Individualism, this selfness, breeds a sense of sovereign empowerment= ambition for the self. Here the spiral begins.

However there are degrees to 'selfishness' that is hard to resolve. I'll explain briefly. I have a great friend of mine who is suffering financially at the moment. I hope to get a chance to visit him very soon, and with him I will take an offering of as much money as I can spare to help him - if he accepts it. Is the fact that I'm giving him but a partial 'sum' of my money, and not emptying my entire bank account, all that I have, selfish?

[spiritguide]

Evil = Wetiko The greatest epidemic sickness known to humanity. Native Americans overcame this through their culture of sharing. Symbiotic relationship with the universe.

[Tony]

Hello Star Mariner

Is the fact that I'm giving him but a partial 'sum' of my money, and not emptying my entire bank account, all that I have, selfish?

No...within our human realm, it's skilful and compassionate.

[pugwash84]

In my opinion nothing is 100 percent evil. You have to have light to cast shadow.

[Tarka the Duck]

Posted by pugwash84 (here)
In my opinion nothing is 100 percent evil. You have to have light to cast shadow.

Yes, our true nature - as the OP says - can never be evil.
As Pie said...

On an Ultimate level Evil cannot exist, because the ultimate is pure, with no attitude...accept truly unconditional love...and that is our true nature!

[Ry.com]

you might think im being funny but im not.
my mum in law is the most selfish person on the planet,when she comes in a room she sucks all happiness,life out of it
shes all take when you come into contact with her she sucks all life force out of you
I think she is pure evil

[The One]

Does Evil exist

Great question and where does it actually come from

Its like does religion exist.Every human being that's born does not have any knowledge of religion its something that's taught to us and i personally think its been purposely put there to divide us.It creates hate,wars and divides us maybe this is the evil maybe not.

Its like searching for the truth if we ever find it will we like what we see.I hope within every human being no matter how dark there is light

[Carmody]

Posted by Fred Steeves (here)

Posted by pie'n'eal (here)

I've come to the conclusion that the higher we progress up the 'tree of knowledge', the more we attract Evil, and the more we are susceptible to the misuse of powers...and so the more alert we have to be.

Hi Tony. That reminds me of the awesome parable of Satan's big temptation of Jesus out in the desert. How ironic really, to be telling a being who has attained free run of the universe, how much power on earth he can be given, if he only...


Cheers Mate,
Fred

Yes, the more one expands, the more one grows the larger the view the larger the subtle influence, the more careful one has to be.

Until we finally end up like the monk in the cave - fully expanded, fully clear, weighted by no influences either cast or taken on..free of all.

Not one pebble in the pockets that unbalances freedom.

[korgh]

Yep.. the evil exist and will never to be apart of us, because there is the “good” part.. They must coexist because must exist a balance.
But what is "the evil" in the pure essence? Well.. depends of our concept of the reality who's surround us and my reality could be not the same of yours.
Too many factors will be relevant here. The Environment, society, values, community sense are markers of the organized conscient and based on a society. The selfishness is an individual marker based on survival on a low level feeling. And it is very strong. When there is a mix of conscient organized where the collective is our main guide and our necessities (primary or secondary) are supplanted by factors beyond our will , a new feeling automatically arrives: selfishness ( shame, isn't?)
We cannot do anything to not have this one bad feeling.. is like a "sub-routine" called from lots of variables. Yes, we can suppress this feeling, but we cannot ban it forever. It is there, printed in our code and we are a big "soup" of codes with routines, sub-routines and libraries inherited from our ancestrals and we will pass all of this together with our experiences to our sons. That's it.
Like any organism, we have a "black box" where our experiences are mantained and there are remains of experiences from our ancestrals, and depend of our conscient organized make the code better every generation. Evolution!
No one is evil by nature. The “evil” is trigged by something beyond of our rational conscient and no one is totally immune to this behavior. Once again, you need "filter" some basic feelings or thoughts who leads to desperation and finally to evil acts.
We need to stay strong and learn each other, share experiences and accept differences. I believe that is the key to improve our code and build something better day by day. Is all that you will let here. Good feelings, good memories, good times, and good experiences, survives and challenges the time.
The Evil don't.

[Tony]

This from a Tibetan buddhist perspective, and may sound too complex, but it is useful to know or be aware of.

All sentient beings are BUDDHAS but do not notice it.
1.Our essence is emptiness/pure.
2.Our nature is cognisance/awareness/knowing.
3.Our expression is unconfined compassionate energy.

These qualities if gone unnoticed become:
1.Ignorance.
2.Desire/attraction/grasping.
3.Aversion/hatred.

It is interesting that attraction, repulsion and inertia, are the three main components of every atom in this universe!

These the three Buddha qualities, prism into five wisdoms. We all lean towards one of these qualities:

THE FIVE BUDDHA FAMLIES.

Wisdoms.
Buddha.............all encompassing.
Varjra................mirror.
Ratna.................equanimity.
Padma...............discriminating.
Karma................all accomplishing .

Enlightened style.
Buddha...............spacious, accommodation.
Varjra..................clarity, precision.
Ratna...................generosity, richness.
Padma.................selfless appreciation, love.
Karma.................efficiency without ambition.

Neurotic style.
Buddha..............spaced-out, stupid.
Varjra.................aggressive, irritable.
Ratna..................territorial, suffocating.
Padma................clinging, grasping, poverty stricken.
Karma.................competitive, pugnacious.


From the Three Buddha qualities, the four enlightened activities of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas manifest, but also the dark forces (Maras/Demons) can pervert them within us.

With the laws of attraction, you have to be aware that there are other laws as well, and that each one can be distorted by the ego! This is because our capacity is not strong enough yet.
I'll try and keep this brief.

Along the fast path one develops all five wisdoms. A fully enlightened person will manifest them when a particular situation arises. These five wisdoms convert into the four karmas (actions).

These activities are PACIFYING, ENRICHING, MAGNETISING AND DESTROYING.
Pacifying connects to mirror-like wisdom.
Enriching connects to the wisdom of equality.
Magnetising connects to discriminating wisdom.
Destroying connects to all-accomplishing wisdom.
The fifth wisdom of space allows the other four to operate.

The action of pacifying accommodates everything. It reveals that there are no problems, and that aggression from the ego is unnecessary.

The action of enriching brings to light the process of growth, and allows the process of knowledge.

The action of magnetising bypasses the conventional reality. In conventional reality, we continually try to draw desired situations towards ourselves and fend off undesirable ones. A realised person simply remains as he or she is, without this ego intervention, attracting naturally.

The action of destroying is connected to compassion, aimed at ego's manipulations.

THE DISTORTIONS OF EGO = THE FOUR MARAS.
These four demonic activities are directed at building and fortifying our concept of 'self.'

The mara of pacifying appears as devaputra mara.
It attempts to make peace by using pleasure and security, to eliminate what is unpleasant. It is an imitation of genuine pacifying, which is beyond any self-serving strategy ( … “there, there - it will be alright, trust me”).

The mara of enriching is skanda mara, the mara of accumulating.
Ego takes the natural growth and turns it into its own ground. It takes the richness, and turns it into my wealth (… “see how clever I am”).

The mara of magnetising is klesha mara.
One attempts to attract, to feed one's ego with what is desirable, based on the possessive emotions ( … “I enjoy praying for others” ).

The mara of destroying is Yama mara.
Yama mara, instead of destroying what needs to be destroyed, obliterates everything. Trungpa Rinpoche wrote, “it begins to get inspired in the wrong way, and uproots the whole tree...And that is the karmic quality of destruction gone wild, unnecessarily” (… “you are talking total rubbish!”).

This reveals that reality is nothing other than wisdom. We need to look closely at the world we actually inhabit and to contemplate our most ordinary experiences. If we do so, if we let go of what we think and simply let the true being show itself, we will discover that it is nothing other than primordial immaculate wisdom.

Remember: the outer demons do not miss a trick! Any whiff of ego involvement and they will feed off it. And off we go round in circles, re-acting... “Feeding time!!”





Tony

[gooty64]

Very profound.

Evil has been given too exotic an image, so that we all think, “I cannot possibly be Evil! I'm not that bad! But 'they' can!”
See how the Evil works? This is merely self-centred righteousness.
Evil is just loving yourself a bit more than loving others. We want others to adore us, and worship us. We want them to say, “He's gone up in the world!”

I really appreciate the way you have described this Tony. There are many tossing around the terms psychopath and sociopath and evil too often-imho.
It must really suck to be empty inside and completely identified with power and ego!

Eckhart Tolle has said that if there is anything such as evil, it is "complete identification with form". Or detachment from that which is formless. In a way this makes it easier to forgive and not hate evil when I consider that they-the evil ones are trapped in form and "know not what they do".

A similar distinction can made regarding mental illness; it's a very fine line between sanity and insanity. Consider that we all have selfish little thoughts and dark ideas can run through our minds seemingly from out of nowhere.

So the trick is to not identify with form and to not identify with the thoughts in your head, imho.

[Tony]

Posted by gooty64 (here)
Very profound.

Evil has been given too exotic an image, so that we all think, “I cannot possibly be Evil! I'm not that bad! But 'they' can!”
See how the Evil works? This is merely self-centred righteousness.
Evil is just loving yourself a bit more than loving others. We want others to adore us, and worship us. We want them to say, “He's gone up in the world!”

I really appreciate the way you have described this Tony. There are many tossing around the terms psychopath and sociopath and evil too often-imho.
It must really suck to be empty inside and completely identified with power and ego!

Eckhart Tolle has said that if there is anything such as evil, it is "complete identification with form". Or detachment from that which is formless. In a way this makes it easier to forgive and not hate evil when I consider that they-the evil ones are trapped in form and "know not what they do".

A similar distinction can made regarding mental illness; it's a very fine line between sanity and insanity. Consider that we all have selfish little thoughts and dark ideas can run through our minds seemingly from out of nowhere.

So the trick is to not identify with form and to not identify with the thoughts in your head, imho.

I just love that nose (of the dog!) I keep staring at it!

Tony

[Tony]

Posted by The One (here)

Does Evil exist

Great question and where does it actually come from

Its like does religion exist.Every human being that's born does not have any knowledge of religion its something that's taught to us and i personally think its been purposely put there to divide us.It creates hate,wars and divides us maybe this is the evil maybe not.

Its like searching for the truth if we ever find it will we like what we see.I hope within every human being no matter how dark there is light

I entirely agree with you Malcolm.
Religions do use spiritual emotional blackmail of sin, evil and ego to make us feel guilty, and get us to conform. The problem with religions is that, they are full of humans..
.... and humans have a hobby of being tribal!

Like everything, we go to a place to learn some basic skills, then we move on and practice those skills and develop them. Some choose to stay, because it's the place they want to be. We have to play with our inner wisdom and neurotic style.

Some need a crutch, and will let go in their own time.........even though it is tempting to give the crutch a kick!


All the best,
tony