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The Lesson of Evil
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Unrest and pain and sorrow are the shadows of life.There is no heart in all the world that has not felt the sting of pain,no mind has not been tossed upon the dark waters of trouble, no eye that has wept the hot blinding tears of unspeakable anguish...
In the strong,and apparently indestructible meshes of evil all are more or less fast caught,and pain,unhappiness,and misfortune wait upon mankind.
With the object of escaping, or in some way mitigating this over shading gloom,men and women rush blindly into innumerable devices,pathways by which they foundly hope to enter into a happiness which will not pass away.
Such are the drunkard and the harlot,who revel in sensual excitements;such is the exclusive aesthete,who shuts himself out from tulle sorrow of the world,and surrounds himself with enervating luxuries;such is he who thirsts for wealth or fame,and subordinates all things to the achievements of that object;and such are they who seek consolation in the performance of religious rites.
And to all the happiness sought seems to come,and the soul,for a time,is lulled into a sweet security,and an intoxicating forgetfulness of the existence of evil; but the day of disease comes at last,or some great sorrow,tempetation,or misfortune breaks suddenly in one the unfortified soul,and the fabric of its fancied happiness is torn to shreds.
The child to be a man or a woman;the man and women sigh for the lost felicity of childhood.The poor man chafes under the chains of poverty by which is bound,and the rich man often lives in fear of poverty,or scours the world in search of an elusive shadow he calls happiness.
Sometimes the soul fees that it has found a secure peace and happiness in adpoting a certain religion,in embracing an intellectual philosophy,or in building up an intellectual or artistic ideal; but some overpowering temptation proves the religion to be inadequate or insufficient;the theoretical philosophy is found to be a useless prop; or in a moment,the idealistic statue upon which the devotee has for years been laboring,is shattered into fragments at his feet.
Is there,then no way of escape from pain and sorrow? Is permanent happiness,secure prosperity,and abding peace a follish dream?
No,there is a way,and i speak it with gladness,by which evil can be slain for ever;there is a process by which disease,poverty,or any adverse condition or circumstance can be put on one side never to return;there is a method by which a permanent prosperity can be secured,free from all fear of the rectum of adversity,and there is a practice by whcih unbroken and unending peace and bliss can be partaken of and realized.
Evil has always been symbolized by darkness,and Good by light,and hidden within the symbol is contained the perfect interpretation,the reality;for,just as light always floods the universe,and darkness is only a mere speck or shadow cast by a small body intercepting a few rays of the illimitable light,so the light of the supreme good is the positive and life-giving power which floods the universe,and evil the insignificant shawdow cast by the self that intercepts and shuts off the illuminating rays which strive for entrance.
When night folds the world in its black impenetrable mantle,no matter how dense the darkness,it covers but the small space of half hour little planet,while the whole unverse is ablaze with living light,and every soul knows that it will awake in the light in the morning.
Know,then,that when the dark night of sorrow,pain,or misfortune settles down upon your soul,and you stumble along with weary and uncertain steps,that you are merely intercepting your own personal desires between yourself and the boundless light of joy and bliss,and the dark shadow that covers you is cast by none and nothing but yourself
And Just as the darkness without is but a negative shadow,an unreality which comes from nowhere,goes to nowhere,and has no abiding dwelling place, so the darkness within is equally
a negative shadow passing over the evolving and light-born soul.
"But," I fancy i hear someone say."Why pass through the darkness of evil at all?" Because,by ignorance,you have choosen to do so,and because,by doing so,you may understand both good and evil,and may the more appreciate the light by having passed through the darkness.
As evil is the direct outcome of ignorance,so,when the lesson of evil are fully learned,ignorance passes away,and wisdom takes its place.
He,therefore,who would shake himself free of the evil which encompasses him,must be willing and ready to learn,and must be prepared to undergo that disciplinary process without which no grain of wisdom or abiding happiness and peace can be secured.
A man may shut himself up in a dark room,and deny that the light exists,but it is everywhere without,and darkness exists,but it is everywhere without,and darkness exists only in his own little room.
So you may shut out the light of truth,or you may begin to pull down the walls of prejudice,self -seeking and error which you have built around yourself,and so let in the glorious and omnopresent light.
By earnest self-examination strive to realize,and not merely hold as a theory,that evil is a passing phase, a self-created shadow;that all your pains, sorrows and misfortunes have come to you by a process of undeviating and absolutely perfect law;have come to you because you deserve and require them,and that by first enduring,and then understanding them,you may be made stronger,wiser,nobler
When you have fully entered into this realization,you will be a position to mould your own circumstances, to transmute all evil into good and weave,with a master hand, the fabric of your destiny.
Post comment Comment (3 replies)
- Reply bluephoebe
- today for the first time i once again felt the power of words. i really like your writings but i have to admit that i don't fully agree with what you are trying to deliver here. Perhaps my world is too simple, not much evil hanging around, or perhaps i am just like a man shut himself in a bright room, and deny that the darkness exists. yeah, coming to evil, i'm afraid that most of time i took ostrich policy
