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At TZF's Consider This! there is an article about a call in The Great Invocation for sealing "the door where evil dwells". There, I question the wisdom of that line. Briefly restated, here's my concern. Anna and I built the home in which we live (and some other structures). We know how quickly and easily "permanent" can become in need of maintenance, repair, and replacement. Therefore, I fear that if we simply put evil behind a great steel door, we are going to have to spend the rest of time caring for it, because sooner or later it is going to rust and fall apart, and evil is going to be back out among us. Therefore, I conclude, why not instead focus our efforts on enlightening evil, christening evil (by enlightening, christening ourselves?), and thereby once and for all ridding ourselves of it.

Over the years, that article has generated some comment (for some of that, see "The Great Invocation" at TZF's Letters page), most recently the following, from LaUna Huffines (http://www.PathofLight.com, http://www.TrianglesofLight.org, and http://www.HealingwithLight.org), whom we thank for sharing these thoughts:

I too wondered about this statement. It sounded strange. Then I began to study the books by A.A.Bailey (who received and released the Great Invocation for humanity in 1945) and realized that the "evil" referred to in The Great Invocation is entirely different than our human self-absorbtion and selfish tendencies. The evil that the Plan of love and light will seal is that power beyond the human. Here is a brief explanation about that statement from Externalization of the Hierarchy, page 490.

"May it seal the door where evil dwells ...The evil referred to has nothing to do with the evil inclinations, the selfish instincts and the separativeness found in the hearts and minds of human beings. These they must overcome and eliminate for themselves. But the reduction to impotency of the loosed forces of evil ... requires the imposition of a power beyond the human. This (Plan) must be invoked, and the invocation will meet with speedy response. These evil potencies will be occultly 'sealed' within their own place; what this exactly means has naught to do with humanity Men today must learn the lessons of the past, profit from the discipline of the war, and deal -- each in his own life and community -- with the weaknesses and errors to which he may find himself prone ...."

If I read the quotation from Bailey correctly, she is making a distinction between "the evil inclinations, the selfish instincts, and the separativeness found in the hearts and minds of human beings", on the one hand, and, on the other, "the loosed forces of evil".

I see her point, of course, but I wonder if it is a valid distinction.

As I see it, the separative perspective "I am me, and you aren't me" defines and describes the egoic body/mind and its life and environment. Accordingly, it seems to me that "I am me, and you aren't me" is likewise the source (and a symptom) of evil, of the existence of evil. Without the separative environment created by the separative perspective "I am me, and you aren't me", there would be no place for evil (or any thing else) to dwell, and therefore how could it even exist?

After all, it is that separative perspective through which or as which I perceive not only "you" as a person separate from and other than "me" but also every-one and every-thing "else" including God ("I am me on earth, God is God in heaven") and concepts like love and hate, up and down, man and woman, and, yes, goodness and evil. In the end, all of this is about the word "and" (for more on that, please see our book In The Beginning). That is, when or where the separative, egoic perspective is transcended (or seen never to have been at all), then whatever there is, is spontaneously known to be one and the same one, eliminating the need and meaning of the word "and". There, there is the One, no "One and … anything", including evil.

So, again, it seems to me that the answer is not to lock up the "others" (including evil) which each of us perceives within and around "me", but rather to see that there is no such thing as "me, not you", that there is no such thing as "a person" or "a" anything else.

Undoubtedly, other (!) TZF visitors will perceive this subject differently. If so, I hope they will choose to add their comments to this thread.

... the answer is not to lock up the "others" (including evil) which each of us perceives within and around "me", but rather to see that there is no such thing as "me, not you", that there is no such thing as "a person" or "a" anything else.

Oh that feels good, like an unreserved swing that meets its mark square on. The driving blow, doesn't it have such a sweet finality about it.

I agree with the above comments, including the Alice Bailey paragraph. It was a long time before I was comfortable with the idea that all is one indivisible whole that includes both good and evil. Then, evil was a separate force, maybe separate from God. I probably could not have explained it very clearly, but that is the way I saw it. I can understand why Alice Bailey might see it that way, too.

Working on TZF's Here's A Thought recently, I happened across two quotations (one of which is now at Here's A Thought) that speak to my consideration of this thread's issue.

The first is E. B. White's "One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy".

The other is Booker T. Washington's "You can't hold a man down without staying down with him".

Perceiving evil as a force separate from and antagonistic to God, the Supreme Indivisible One, and then having endlessly to focus our attention and energy on containing it, continues to seem to me uneconomical at best and counterproductive at worst.

All the same, I agree with Phyllis that initially in our journey along the spiritual way, evil does seem to be "out there" and that "the devil made me do it" does sometimes seem to be an acceptable explanation for mankind's history and even, from time to time, our own behavior.

But soon enough it becomes clear to all of us, I think, that if there is a devil, he lives in the mirror. The more work we do on ourselves, the more natural evolution we encourage and welcome within, the more evident it becomes that all the things that seem to be "out there" actually emanate from within or, more precisely, are the within perceived as being out there, that "me" and "my life" are one and the same, that the inner and the outer are one and the same, and that the way to fix the outer is to heal or make whole the inner.

A new posting to TZF's Open Space reminds us that "what you focus on expands".