| Answer
from Jesus:
Thank you for bringing up
some questions that I know confuse many of the people I am seeking to
reach with this website. I often see people find this site, and at first
they think the teachings seem fine. Yet when they find a teaching that
talks about dark forces or the existence of evil, they get scared and
don’t want to read any more. I also see many people, especially
New Age people who see themselves as Lightworkers, who have been taught
the understanding you describe. They think the only way to combat evil
is to ignore it, so they refuse to read about it or give any of the
rosaries that mention imperfect conditions. This reaction is understandable,
but let me give you some thoughts that might help you develop a deeper
understanding.
Thought 1
Can you make a cancer go away by ignoring it? Or are you simply allowing
it to spread until it kills the entire body? The simple fact is that
evil does exist, and its existence presents an inescapable dilemma to
all people on Earth. I give some teachings on this dilemma elsewhere,
but here is a short description of the problem:
- If you ignore evil, it
will spread because the basis for the existence of evil is ignorance.
The simplest definition of evil is that it is the process of self-destruction.
And since all self-conscious beings have a survival instinct, no being
will knowingly destroy itself. Even the most evil being in the universe
is not aware that it has entered a self-destructive spiral. It is
trapped by an illusion that makes it think that what it is doing is
right (because it knows better than God) or that it can get away with
doing it (for any number of reasons). So evil exists because of spiritual
blindness, and it is ignorance that makes people spiritually blind.
Therefore, if you ignore evil, it will spread until it controls you
completely and therefore pulls you into its self-destructive spiral.
So you simply cannot ignore evil.
- If you fight evil, you
will give it power. There is truth to the statement that what you
resist persists. As you say, if you give something attention, you
will reinforce it. If you become fanatical and begin to fight evil,
you will end up embodying the evil you are trying to eradicate. In
other words, if you fight evil, you become part of it, you become
absorbed by it. That is why I said, “But I say unto you, That
ye resist not evil:” (Matthew 5:39). So you simply cannot fight
evil.
Now, from a normal perspective,
one might say that this is a classical catch-22 from which there is
no way out. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t—and
that is precisely what dark forces want you to think. They want you
to react in one of the following ways:
-
You ignore evil, whereby
you give it free reign to take over your life and society behind
the scenes.
-
You think evil is permanent,
unavoidable or the polar opposite of good, whereby you give up and
make no effort to eradicate evil. In other words, you are indifferent
which also allows evil to spread.
-
You acknowledge that
evil exists but become so scared that you will do almost anything
to avoid confronting evil. This allows dark forces to control you
through fear, meaning that they can scare you into either ignoring
evil or unknowingly working for its spread.
-
You begin to fight evil
with a religious fervor, which inevitably causes you to reinforce
evil, either by misqualifying God’s energy or by using the
philosophy of evil (the ends justify the means) to fight evil.
Again, there seems to be
no way out. Yet this dilemma exists only when you look at the situation
through the filter of the carnal mind. This mind is based on duality
and thus you think there are only two options. You have to either ignore
evil or fight it, yet either action leads to undesirable results.
The way out of this dilemma is to rise above duality and embrace the
unified vision of the Christ mind. This will empower you to see that
there is an alternative way to deal with evil in which you neither ignore
nor fight evil. The key to understanding this is my statement. “Be
ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” (Matthew
10:16). I explain the importance of this statement elsewhere,
and I recommend you study my explanation.
Thought 2
Two people enter a dark room. One says, “I don’t want to
reinforce the darkness, so I will close my eyes that I shall not see
the darkness.” The other person acknowledges that the room is
dark, fumbles around until he finds the light switch and flips the switch.
Who was most effective in removing the darkness?
Thought 3
While it is true that you reinforce what you focus your attention upon,
it is possible to acknowledge the existence of evil without focusing
your attention on it. Think about the fact that you daily take measures
to avoid a bacterial infection, yet you do this without giving undue
attention to the bacteria.
Some people become obsessed with cleanliness and wash their hands numerous
times a day or clean the house fanatically. This becomes so all-consuming
that they cannot function normally. Yet most people find a healthy balance,
where they protect themselves from harmful bacteria without really giving
it much attention. You can do the same with evil. Yet if you ignore
the existence of harmful bacteria, they are likely to kill you.
Thought 4
A doctor is not reinforcing a disease by acknowledging its existence
and seeking to find a cure. The doctor is not seeing the disease as
incurable. He is seeking to understand the cause of the disease so he
can eradicate it. As I said, the basis for the existence of evil is
ignorance. So it follows that the key to eradicating evil is knowledge
and understanding. The first step toward removing any problem is to
acknowledge that the problem exists. The next step is to understand
the cause of the problem, so you can remove that cause.
Knowledge gives you power over a problem, and an understanding of evil
allows you to protect yourself from its influence without being pulled
into its self-destructive spiral. You cannot attain this knowledge by
ignoring the existence of evil. In medicine, the first step toward a
cure is to diagnose the disease.
You cannot be harmless as a dove unless you are wise as a serpent. Of
course, it is important to avoid letting your knowledge of evil release
negative emotions, such as fear, anger or hatred. So one might say that
being harmless as a dove means that you avoid all negative feelings.
This allows you to acknowledge the existence of evil without feeding
it energy.
Thought 5
When I say that you need to acknowledge the existence of evil, I am
not saying that you should see it as unavoidable or permanent. On the
contrary, when you truly understand evil, you see that it is only a
temporary phenomenon. It is simply an imperfect image – created
in the minds of self-conscious beings – that is being projected
unto the screen of life. And behind the temporary appearance is the
pure light of God, the Ma-ter light. This is what is being explained
by both the Presence
of Oneness and the Presence
of Infinite Light.
When you understand this, you can acknowledge that imperfections exist
without giving them power. You simply see them as temporary and illusory
phenomena. Thereby, you can formulate a more perfect vision and use
your attention to project that vision unto the screen of life. Yet until
you acknowledge that some appearances are imperfect, you will not be
able to purify your vision of these images. There are many imperfections
on this planet that remain simply because people don’t see them
as imperfect and temporary. They see them as normal, natural or unavoidable.
Thought 6
As I explain throughout this website, the basic law of this universe
is the Law of Free will. So evil continues to exist on Earth because
of choices made by human beings. Therefore, the key to removing evil
is to enlighten people so they can choose to leave behind the consciousness
of evil, the consciousness of duality.
That is why one person cannot make the most efficient contribution to
the removal of evil by ignoring it. You must begin by raising yourself
out of the consciousness of duality that makes you vulnerable to evil.
And then you can work to help other people do the same. Only when a
critical mass of people rise above the consciousness that created a
particular form of evil, will that imperfection be eradicated. So you
are right that withdrawing all attention from a particular imperfection
will work only when a critical mass of people join forces. And to reach
that critical mass, you must enlighten people to the existence of imperfections
and give them a more perfect vision. Again, you must replace ignorance
with understanding, blindness with vision.
Thought 7
It is not necessary that every person on Earth rise above a certain
form of evil before that evil can be eradicated. As I said, everything
revolves around free will. Archangel Michael has the power to remove
all evil on Earth in the blink of an eye. Yet he cannot use his power
as long as people choose to remain entangled with the consciousness
of evil. This is explained in my parable about the tares and the wheat
(Matthew 13:24).
For God to remove evil, people must authorize this by coming apart from
the consciousness of evil. When a critical mass of people do this, Archangel
Michael can then use his power. One might say that until you reach Christ
consciousness, you should never attempt to fight evil directly because
you are likely to become entangled with it. Yet you can give Archangel
Michael and the Ascended Host the authority to fight evil on your behalf.
That is precisely what you do when you give a rosary where you consciously
affirm that you separate yourself out from the consciousness of evil.
The important point is that you do not give a rosary with a fear of
evil or anger against evil. You give a rosary with love, and you see
the imperfections you name as temporary and transient. You might notice
that all of the rosaries on this website contain positive affirmations
that make it very difficult to give the rosaries with negative feelings.
These are safeguards designed to assist people in rising above negative
feelings so they do not reinforce the imperfections named in the rosaries.
Obviously, no safeguards can override people’s free will. Yet
if people continue to give the rosaries, the affirmations will gradually
help people overcome their negativity.
Thought 8
You are right that in calling for the purification of the armed forces
or health care, you are affirming conditions that will not necessarily
exist when the kingdom of God is manifest on Earth. Yet the problem
is that the Earth is currently so far from the kingdom of God that it
would be impossible to manifest the kingdom in one great leap. You simply
have to take a gradual approach.
It is not Mother Mary’s
intention that her present rosaries will remain unchanged for a long
period of time. She hopes that a critical mass of people will use the
rosaries to remove the imperfections described in the rosaries. And
as this happens, she will release updated versions of the rosaries.
When you have been working with humankind for a long time, you tend
to become a practical realist. You realize that you have to start at
people’s present level of consciousness and then take small steps
from there. So your vision of a society with no armed forces or health
care is not unrealistic, you simply have to realize that before we get
there, we have to go through some intermediate stages. And this will
require us to start by refining the existing armed forces and health
care systems. Only by doing so can we promote the peace and good health
that will allow us to transcend the need for armies of soldiers and
doctors.
Thought 9
You are correct that many people have different visions of the kingdom
of God. As people manifest Christ consciousness, they will not all end
up with the same vision, for there is room for much diversity in the
kingdom of God. What will happen is that people’s visions will
gradually come into alignment with the laws of God. This will allow
different groups of people to manifest different visions without coming
into conflict with one another.
In other words, Christ consciousness does not create harmony by eradicating
diversity and creating sameness. It creates harmony by empowering people
to see that they all came from the same source, and therefore they can
respect each other's individuality instead of being threatened by differences.
For example, it is not the intention of the Ascended Host to replace
all religions with one faith. It is our intention to help people see
the universal spiritual path behind all religions. This will help people
see that all true spiritual seekers are walking toward the same goal,
they are simply following different paths to get to that goal. And this
recognition will bring peace to Earth and good will toward men without
eradicating individuality or stifling creative expression.
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Copyright
© 2004 by Kim Michaels |
