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On Good and Evil

by Robert A. Kezer

Believing evil is something to fight against leads our world to one future: knowing wrong cannot be confronted that way takes us to another. We can never be forced to love our neighbor; non-violence can be imposed only within confined periods. The responsibility for true peace resides with us - the world's citizens - and it is only through changing ourselves first that we can expect to abolish war.

There is no evil per se: no entity is opposing God or trying to dominate our minds. There is perfection of love - the essence of our Creator - on one end of the scale, and then the absolute lack of the divine - manifested as human fear - on the other. In-between these two extremes everything else is relative: each act, person, or situation scaled in direct relation to the degree of divinity it contains.

To consider evil as real - something to be fought against - redirects our focus. Many times we find the same fear-based concepts being used by both sides. The result is greater darkness, which is better understood as less light. Hate, anger, revenge, and intolerance - when used against themselves for whatever reason - always lead to more of the same: that involved in bringing about a new system, remains.

Achieving different results means breaking the cycle - countering fear with love. Ours is an obligation to mature, as individuals and as a race. The ways of the past have not worked: to continue to use them labels us insane. We require a greater understanding of God, and the resultant higher level of conduct this knowledge produces. This changes the ratio between that divine and that not. Light obliterates darkness, but fear only adds to itself.

Change cannot come quickly: the events of the past all bear consequences. For some groups of people, generations will be needed to release their resentment and pave the way to forgiveness. This is difficult, but not impossible. Throughout the process those who know must remain committed to maintaining a higher order of being: only by responding to fear with love can we some day hope to extinguish the flames of hatred consuming our planet.

To know God as absolute perfection of eternal truth, divine beauty, and infinite goodness is to know our Creator as pure love, the essence - the binding force - of creation. For us to some day join with God in this state of divinity, we must become as this Original Source: something imperfect cannot join with that perfect, and have the sum remain the same. Only that of love has eternal reality - nothing else can survive.

Any soul participating in this long journey to perfection knows baggage cannot be carried forward: we choose to forgive, or we stay behind. Those times where once grudges and human emotions predominated become nothing more than gaps in our consciousness, while those periods of love we did experience form our eternal memories. To forgive is to forget - forever: as it is with God, so must it become with us.

While mortals rushing through space on the material worlds perceive the movement of time, for God, our universe's entire process of reaching perfection is but one instantaneous event. We who are experiencing creation may perceive something as evil, and the effects of it are real for us, but in eternity it carries no weight: nothing but love survives the creative flash that in one moment contained our entire past, present, and future.

This is our most powerful tool for directing the evolution of our planet: only love-based actions possess the substance that can move us toward peace. While defense is appropriate, love can still prevail: only that force needed to stop further harm is allowed. Any violence beyond that is based on human reasoning, not cosmic truth. A better future will only result from helping people, not hurting them.

For a planet to evolve requires increasing divinity in the world. Imagine a sphere with billions of inhabitants, each possessing within themselves an individual entity from God that is also one and the same with God. Each person with a mind capable of discerning right from wrong becomes a portal through which our Creator's love flows into the space, and each is a focal point through whose senses God experiences creation.

We do not receive light from without: we radiate it from within. There is no need to ask God to come into our lives - this has already happened. While our future is to reside with our Creator, we only accomplish this journey because our indwelling fragment of God first finds us, takes up residence in our minds, and over time guides us back to the original source from which that spirit came.

We exercise free will through the decisions we make: our choices either move us - hence to a slight degree our world - forward or backward. Those determinations conditioned by the divine traits of love - such as mercy, tolerance, forgiveness, compassion and empathy - add light to the world; those based in human emotions of fear - such as hate, anger, greed, jealousy and intolerance keep it at bay.

Viewed from without, our world's spiritual evolution is shown by the light it radiates. Humanity is a sum total - one race sharing the same planet with none having divine favor. While today the Earth resembles a dark unreflective ball, as more people trust the process of allowing their spirit to pour forth we will illuminate our space. This choice is personal, available to everyone, and a prerequisite to be effective in greater work.

Seen from within, some regions improve sooner than others. This contrast is important: the generation that redirects our course can only do so if the results of past decisions are clear. This is becoming easier for people to discern. Violence resides where anger, revenge and intolerance are allowed to trump patience, forgiveness and good will. Two wrongs never make right: only love can bring forth light and eradicate darkness.

Peace is a result of an environment conditioned by love: it can never be forced, imposed, or mandated if expected to last. As we find that our personal lives improve as we mature into more loving people, so will we see our world become less violent: as with the parts so goes the whole. While the scale differs, the requirements remain the same - making conscious decisions based in love.

Violence works to maintain the status quo: war is necessary to support today's world system. True peace will require new leadership, world federation, and diverse religions existing under a single sovereign Creator. This responsibility for non-violence resides with us, the world's citizenry: we possess the greatest power - the ability to love. Free will is our divine right, global citizenship our future, and peace our greatest legacy - if we so decide.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Returning to college in 2002, Bob earned degrees in International and Religious studies from the University of Oregon. Working to become bilingual and also present in Spanish, he writes and speaks on God, religious tolerance, and our tools for abolishing war. His book, God Refined: A Proposal for Peace, (http://stores.lulu.com/bobkezer) became available March 1st. He has one son and lives in Eugene, Oregon.