def: The belief that the world is separated into “good” and “bad” and that the “bad” must be defeated.
Not the PERSON who believes it, not the ACT of a person who believes it, the BELIEF ITSELF.
Evil is an innocently confused thought, a confusion brought on by the illusion of separation, taking what is whole, thinking it separated and then going to war with an imaginary part - a part that is not a part at all but the whole, misunderstood.
That’s all it is.
And the only one defeated by evil is the one caught up in this confusion.
“Deliver us from evil” means “Deliver us from the notion that ‘what is’ can ever be ever divided against itself and that we must dedicate ourselves to the destruction of an imaginary part of what is eternally whole. Remind us that all is one, that ‘separate things’ are an illusion.”
An illusion can only exist in the mind. So the only place evil can exist is in the mind.
When I fail to see that all is one, it’s because I’m telling myself a story of a world that is divided.
When I name one part of my imaginary division “good” and the other “bad,” I invent something to fear where there never had been before - and never can be - except in my imagination.
Then, to vanquish the fear I invented, I go to war with the bad I invented, all within the imagination that invented it all to begin with.
When I fight with my own imagination, I lose. Every time. The only person I defeat is me. And self-defeat hurts.
This is how evil is the root of all suffering.
“The only devils in this world are the ones running around in our own hearts, and that is where the battle should be fought. ”
Evil isn’t the work of an enemy, it isn’t the influence of an enemy, it is the very thought of an enemy.
I can never win a war with my own thoughts. As long as I think I have an enemy, I have an enemy. As long as I have an enemy, I have war. As long as I have war, I have suffering. And so I defeat myself.
Whenever I release my mind from such burdens, all that’s left is peace.
Evil is nothing more than a mistake of the mind. There is only eternal peace in reality.
And reality never leaves. It’s always right here waiting for me.