Evil exists everywhere, and every God-centered person I have ever met wrestles with the question of how to deal with it.
Yesterday I received the following heart-rending message from a person posting as “Diana Ekman” in the Comments Section of this blog. I should like to respond to it in “dialogue” form, with Diana’s comments in bold.

…I think I get what you’re saying. You are stretching me a bit here, but if I let myself feel your words instead of formulating inner arguments as I read them, I -sorta- get it.

I am so glad, because this information, which is about the very basis and purpose and function and expression of Life, cannot be absorbed or embraced at any logical level. It in all ways side-steps logic, as we humans have constructed it. It obeys the Higher Logic of the Universe, and of Life Itself, but not the Limited Logic of the Human Mind.

But I’m struggling, too. We are talking about working on being, living and experiencing through our own individual here and now bodies. I like that- I like being told that I am responsible for what I allow in my reality. But…how do we deal with the impact of other people’s choices, when it affects our own bodies?

This is a question asked by all people. We do not live in a singular reality, where only one of us is creating an experience arising out of one thought–namely, our own. Rather, we live in a plural reality, where all of us at once are thinking thoughts, and all of us at once are creating our experience from those thoughts.. The collective experience is being created by the Collective Consciousness. In other words, our joint experience arises From All Thoughts Everywhere–or what some people abbreviate as F.A.T.E.

This question is something I struggle with. My son suffers from schizophrenia, and is profoundly ill. He was missing for two years, presumed dead, but actually living under a dock in SoCal. Somewhere, at some point, my kid was held down while cigars were burning his back. Ben just says it was the Devil.

I am so sorry that both your son, and, by extension, you, have gone through such a terrible experience.

I can’t describe how I feel, as a mom, seeing this abuse made to my beautiful son. I know other moms have to deal with violence against loved ones, but I don’t know how they get over it. I have tried very very hard to imagine the sick mind that would do this, and try, repeatedly, to forgive this behavior. But thinking about it makes me physically ill, and I’m stuck here. I am not sure how to BE with this issue, as opposed to experiencing it, as the sorrow is so great.

The question here is, what State of Being do you choose in a situation such as this? This is a terrible situation. It is a horrible thing that has happened. Yet every situation in life–even the most horrible–invites us to experience a State of Being of our choosing.
This is what Jesus was trying to teach us when, even as he was being crucified, he forgave those who were crucifying him. Even in the moment of his greatest suffering he was “being” forgiving.
He could have chosen to “be” many other things. He could have chosen to be angry. Or to be condemning. Or to be hateful. Or to be self-pitying. But he chose to be forgiving. It was by such a conscious choice that he demonstrated Who He Really Was–and in that moment he self-realized. That is, he realized (or “made real”) his highest awareness about himself. He experienced relatively, here in the Realm of the Physical, what he had come to know absolutely, in the Realm of the Spiritual.
He could not have done this in such an extraordinary way had it not been for the extraordinary situation in which he found himself. Or, more correctly, in which he placed himself. For nothing happened to Jesus, and everything happened through Jesus.
The same thing is true in all our lives. The only difference is that Jesus knew it, and most of us don’t.
…until we do.

I can handle that my kid lost at the great lottery of life and drew the sz ticket. I can’t handle that such evil exists in the world that would allow someone to hurt such an innocent victim of illness.

We do not and cannot know the agenda of each individual soul–but we can know that the agenda of each individual soul serves the agenda of every other soul. Conversations with God teaches that there are no victims and there are no villains; there are only individual souls, each walking their path, each experiencing the circumstances that are required to allow that soul to create, to express, and to experience their true identity at the next highest level.
Yet how to live this awareness on a day-to-day basis, especially in the face of such horrible events and conditions? That is the question. It would take a saint…or a Christed One. I have not been able to get to that placem and I don’t want anyone to think that I have–or that I think I have. Yet at least now I know the path, at least now I know the walk I am taking.

How do you deal with the issue of Evil in this world? It must exist- for my son has the scars on his body. How can my changing my world view from acquiring to being, affect another person’s wanting to burn my son?

You are right, of course. Evil does exist in the world. And while changing your world view from “acquiring” to “being” may do little to affect all other people, it can very well affect one other person’s wanting to burn your son.
An extraordinary act of forgiveness on your part can change individuals’ lives, there is no question about that. I have seen evidence of this over and over again throughout my life. It is even possible for one person (and certainly for a group of people) to change the collective consciousness around human expressions such as violence, so that the more and more forgiveness we see, the less and less violence we create.
It is, in fact, precisely in this way that masters, avatars, gurus and spiritual teachers of all kinds change people’s lives, and even alter the world. This is what Jesus did. It is what Buddha did. It is what Muhammad and Moses and all the saints and sages and prophets and messengers of all the world’s religions did–and do every day. For the appearance of sages has not ended, and the teaching of humanity is far from over.

I ask sincerely. I would give anything to live in a world where each person is cherished, and I try to create that reality, on my better days. But when my reality crashes against another person’s, and that person is intent on harm, what do I do?

That is your choice. And I have not said that it is an easy choice… because it is not. Yet the choice can never be taken away from you, but is always and ever yours. The world can do what it wants, but it can never make you respond in any particular way. That is always up to you. A particular response from you is not something that the world can ever demand or require.
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Later in the Comments Section on the same day, Diana posted again, offering this…

Maybe part of the challenge…is to recognize that each of us is capable of such violence, just as each of us is capable of great beauty. And that each of us has to make choices, all the time, as to which we want to create — violence or beauty.

This comes very close, Diana, to exactly what I was saying above. Yes, and we make our choices based on our reactions to what the world is sending us, to what life is presenting us.

But the thing is, if I make a choice for beauty, and you are holding me down and burning me, or marching me off to the ovens, what choice is left me?

The same choice that was left Jesus when he was being crucified. The exact same choice. Others have taken this choice, not only Jesus. To offer you one contemporary example, Nelson Mandela, after being held in captivity for 27 years, forgave his captors, and asked the country of South Africa to forgive them as well, by trying to understand why those captors did what they did. Mr. Mandela gave us an up-to-date model of Christhood, for all the world to see.

I struggle with this very much- unless all of us decide to be the best us, then some of us are going to be hurt, over and over…

Yes, but fewer and fewer. I am convinced, fewer and fewer, as more and more people begin to understand who they really are, and choose to demonstrate that.

I am not a big fan of pain. I understand that there can be beauty in suffering, but I don’t want to live in a world where intentional violence is viewed as a reasonable action.

Nor do I, Diana. And that is why you and I are invited to work toward creating a newer world. And that is why we invite others to join us in doing so. And we invite others, Diana, not by our words, but by our actions.

So, at what point do we become a big enough group that our beliefs offer some sort of global protection against this thinking?

When we reach critical mass. When the number of people who are committed to demonstrating the next highest thought that they hold about who they are reaches critical mass. That is about 3.5% of the whole, incidentally. All it is going to take is 3.5% of the total number of humans on this planet to decide this and to demonstrate this, and the first domino will fall.
We will have created and demonstrated a new way to be human. And others will join us in this creation–for they will see that there is another way to live; a way other than with violence, anger, and hurtfulness.
You see, Diana, the problem now is that most people think there is no other way to live. They think that violence is “human nature,” and that hurtfulness is a basic part of life.
These are foundational thoughts about Life and How It Is. They emerge from a much larger thought–a thought about ourselves, and Who We Really Are. As soon as we alter the second thought, the first thought will change itself.

And in the meantime, what is my own responsibility to protect myself and loved ones from violence? from Evil?

Diana, CwG says that “every act is an act of self-definition.” It is not a question of “responsibility,” it is a question of you deciding how you wish to define yourself. This is a decision you make every day, with every breath you take. Every thought, word, and action that passes through you announces this decision, and demonstrates it.

You’re right. It is NOT easy. This question of Evil is the main thing that divides us, drives us, and separates us from each other and God.

Yet it need not have to, Diana. Rather than divide us, drive us, and separate us from each other and from God, it can unite us, inspire us, and reunite us with each other and with God. The choice is ours, and it is an individual choice that each of us will make in every moment of every day, throughout all of our lives.
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That is my response for you, Diana, and I do hope that it is worthy of your consideration as you continue to ponder these questions you have asked.
In the same Comments Section of this blog a person who posted without leaving a name wrote…

Ask God your question, sincerely. Walsch is not a ‘god’, nor is he divine, although he would like to be worshipped as such.

I have had many things said about me through the years, but not even my worst critics had come to that conclusion. So this is a new one. Let me say then, just “for the record,” that of course I do not wish to be “worshipped” in any way. Nor, for that matter, does the Sum Total of Us and Everything that we call “God.”
I’m pretty clear that there’s not even the slightest danger of my being “worshipped” here on this blog…so it’s not something that any of has actually has to worry about now, is it….?
;o)
And I will see you here next time.