There’s evil in the world of all sorts, some of it is the evil in other
people and some of it is the evil in your brother’s heart but the part
of it you can really do something about is the evil in your own heart.
Like I always say, there is suffering in the world. But suffering is
one thing, to encounter someone who wishes that upon you and is willing
to bring it about, that’s a whole different category of horrible
especially when it also reflects something back to you about yourself.
This is because, if someone else can do that to you and they are human,
that means that you partake of the same essence. What this mean is that
you have the tendency to inflict suffering on others too. A knowledge of
this is way more useful than you think, because if you can face it
(i.e. the evil within) then you can start to understand it and that also
makes you strong enough to identify it and to fight it when you see it
in the external world plus you don’t do any harm.
For example, if you
have been naïve and victimized, the way out of that is to no longer be
naïve and to no longer be victimized. I mean, the way you keep a
psychopath at bay is to develop the inner psychopath so that you know
one when you see one. So you want to have this as a set of tools at your
disposal which is the full knowledge of evil.
Now the idea is that
if you look at something monstrous you have a tendency to turn into a
monster and most people are afraid of doing this, that’s why they don’t
get what they want in life.
So should you turn into a monster? Yes
you should. But you should do it voluntarily and not accidentally and
you should do it with the good in mind rather than allowing it to
possess you because that’s the alternative.
How does being a monster
possesses you? Very easy. It can start with what you are suffering
with, this makes you bitter, from bitterness it leads to resentfulness
and vengefulness and once you are on that road all you need to do is to
go a little bit further and then you are fantasizing on committing
crimes and then killing yourself. It was from this pathological ideology
that brutal men like Hitler and Stalin to name a few emerged. So you
don’t want to follow this path.
So what path should you follow?
Let’s look at it this way. Without the capability for mayhem, you are a
potential victim to mayhem. So you need your sword which should be in
the sheath but you need to have it with you just in case. Let say for
example, a lion in the fields staring at a zeal of zebras and patiently
waiting for a hunt. Which particular zebra do you think it will attack?
The one that is alone and seems unprotected right? It is the same way
with humans. That’s why you need to learn to be dangerous in a good
sense and you have to do this by yourself. Only you and no one else.
Also that’s why it is not a good idea to overprotect your kids, because
no matter what you do the snakes are going to come into the garden. So
then instead of trying to keep the snakes away, what you do is to arm
your kids with something that can help them chop the snakes into pieces.
So
who is a monster? A monster in a positive sense is somebody who says NO
and he means it. You have to be one otherwise no one will take you
seriously. You cannot have any sense of character unless you can put up a
fight and to be able to say NO to something is to be able to put up a
fight.
The strange thing is that developing your inner monster makes
you a better person and not a bad person. Jesus said NO to a lot of
things while He was on earth and He is the perfect example of good. Yes
good. But not harmless. Being good and being harmless are entirely two
different things. Someone who is good has the capabilities for
aggression built in but he is also someone who is perfectly capable of
controlling it in a civilized manner. In Jesus words “blessed are the
meek for they shall inherit the earth”. The word MEEK is derived from a
Greek word meaning “those who have weapons and the ability to use them
but determine to keep them in their sheath”. So we can say that those
who have weapons and the ability to use them but determine to keep them
in their sheath will inherit the earth. So people who have this fierce
tendencies but decide not to use them are in the sense meek.
In
conclusion, given the obvious two extremes, order and chaos. I think the
best place to be in is at the middle. Why? Because inasmuch as you want
to have a sense of order in your life, you also want to be aware that
there is chaos in the world so that you can deal with it fundamentally.
Am sorry if this was too long to read. I’ll talk about addiction next time.
