The Root of All Evil

What is good?

What is evil?

This question has been heavily debated for centuries. From this question springs all manner of rules and laws that we use to try and control human behavior. We say killing is evil, and yet we wage wars and kill in the name of righteousness or freedom to prevent others from doing the killing. We say thievery is wrong, yet we pillage the resources of one country and give them to another to generate opulence and excess. We say adultery is bad, yet we pollute our minds with pornography and lust that isolates us from true intimacy, and we call it sexual freedom. All these laws are like medication that only treats the symptoms, it doesn’t address or heal the underlying problem. What is worse is that the medication creates more symptoms and requires yet more medications to treat those. Laws on top of laws. It is a vicious cycle that locks us in a perpetual state of separation, us versus them. In the end, who really has the moral high ground? Good and evil just becomes a matter of perspective. Good for one means evil for another.

So, what is the underlying problem. To understand this, we need to return to the source of human behavior. At its core human behavior is driven by two fundamental forces, fear and love. Human evolution has taught us that fear keeps us safe and protected. It warns us of the danger of the saber tooth tiger hiding in the dark waiting devour us. Love allows us to transcend that fear and act in ways that are completely counter to the signals fear is sending us. But love can be corrupted. The bible tells us that “The love of money is the root of all evil.” Why? Because money represents material things. These things are temporary, impermanent and have no soul. Loving it locks us into chasing an illusion that falls completely away when our lives end. Instead, the bible says to focus our love on what matters, “Love God, Love Others, Love Yourself”. At its heart evil is simply misplaced love. Because of misplaced love we chase things that really don’t matter in the grand scheme of eternal life. Wealth, status, power, fame, but why do we misplace our love in the first place. What is the mechanism that drives this?

To answer that we must understand fear. As we go through life and experience trauma it creates many kinds of fears in us that manipulate and drive our behavior. The perfectionist parent teaches the child that their efforts are never good enough. The child becomes afraid they fundamentally lack what they need to be successful in life. They slip into paralyzing fear of failure that drives them to appear lazy, or they go the opposite direction and work themselves to death trying to prove to everyone the fear of not being enough isn’t true. Fear shows us an illusion. When we hold on to that fear we hold on to that illusion. The only way through the illusion is to sit in fear and accept what it shows us until the fear and illusion dissolve and we finally see the truth on the other side. The truth is we have misplaced our fear. Misplaced fear causes us to misplace our love. That is why the Bible says, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The Lord is the only thing that is not an illusion. The Lord is the only thing that it is safe to fear. At the heart of all evil is simply misplaced love and misplaced fear. The bible even says fearing death is misplaced fear. Matthew 10:39 “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” Clinging to our life leads us to chase the material things that sustain it. It completely takes our eyes off the real prize, our eternal status with the Creator.

But what does it truly mean to fear the Lord? What even is the Lord? At its heart fear of the Lord is really fear of not having the Lord or more specifically, not having the Lord within you. Until you see the Father in you all is lost. When we don’t hold the fear of the Lord within us it opens us up a void that lets in the fear of everything else. We see shadows everywhere. We become terrified of the dark. We become driven to see and predict and plan and control more to appease that fear. But you aren’t afraid of the dark, you are afraid of what might be lurking in the dark. The great unknown that is creeping up on you do devour you. Fear of the Lord replaces that anxiety with calm certainty that you are held and protected by the Almighty. Psalm 23:4 “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” It reassures you that yes, you may face difficulty and hardships in life, but it is all divinely orchestrated for your growth and evolution to bring you back into alignment with God. It helps you see that you were never separate from Source. The Source of all things was always within you. Your intuition, your higher self. You begin to see this Source manifesting itself in all things.

Years ago, I asked God to please give me an argument to give the atheist’s that proved God’s existence. Be careful what you wish for because what I received turned into so much more. “The only root cause necessary in an emergent universe, is that which needs no cause and fully embodies every effect that springs from it.” Consider the scope of what that really means. God encompasses all things. God is not just light, nor is God just dark. God holds the paradox of duality within itself in an unresolved state. God is both the void, the perfect pristine receptor of all the light reveals and the light itself, the signal and the sum of the infinite everything. To find God within yourself you need to understand that you hold this paradox as well. Our brains at the core are simply signal receivers. We get bombarded by the signals life sends at us every day that create dissonance and noise. In that way the signal from Source gets drowned out and corrupted. To truly hear the voice of God you must seek the void within. Dismantle every projection. Tear down every box you have tried to put God in. Shatter every mirror you have used to see yourself. Become nothing and no one.

Last Sunday my pastor preached on the need for community. None of us are meant to walk this earth alone. He said every individual is like a piece of the puzzle that has some role to play in shaping the big picture. Different skills, different perspectives, all part of one wholistic truth. As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. A true friend comes along not just to comfort you but to grind the rough edges off your life. Sometimes through that sharpening they reveal the warts in our own life. The misplaced fears and misplaced love we are clinging to. This brought to mind the verse from Ephesians 2:20, “Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself.” I am reminded though, Christ may be the corner stone, but he is not the only stone. The apostles and prophets may be the foundation, but a house isn’t just a foundation. Consider what this means when it comes to bringing people we view as external to the “Christian” faith into the fold. Does that mean the have to completely abandon all wisdom all perspective that their view on God offers? Or does that simply mean that when applied to the foundation of the house, what is good and true becomes the structure you build the house with and what is illusion based in misplaced fear falls away. Like trying to build an overhang out too far with no support. Consider what all this means and really think about the kind of box you are trying to put the infinite Creator in.

Recently I met a beautiful soul, rooted in Christ with some very unique spiritual gifts. She could enter people’s heart spaces and see what was there. One night I invited her to enter mine. She said she saw an ancient leatherbound tome and when it opened it gave off the essence of an exciting mystery. She said my heart was unlike any she had seen before, most are just one open room but mine had multiple levels and layers all with rows and rows of neatly organized files. The thing I took away from it is this, the words of truth are literally written on our hearts and there is always another level of the mystery to discover. After the encounter, God gave me this little nugget dropped into my intuition, “You lack nothing within you to make the story good.” Can you see the paradox of this statement? You need the nothing, the void within you to make the story good but you also already have everything within you to write it. When you hold this duality within you in an unresolved state, the center point of consciousness can be observed. You connect to the Source of all things. Fear aligns with Love and dissolves into pure reverence and you step into your role as a co-creator with the Divine. At the end of the day all you need is a little faith and willingness.