Tame the Superbugs of Evil

 

Mahatma Gandhi: “Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.”

Plato says ignorance is the root and stem of all evil. So my dear seekers of truth, the first step lies in recognizing it. Even the most hateful of individuals have some good in them. The shiniest of personas around have some bad in them. All of us have our entitlements and copyrights to both good and bad. So it's better to start rectifying our own house, putting things in order in our own yard.

Our strengths stand out too shiny and hence most often we remain blind to the shadowy gray areas in our persona. Shade your eyes with the palm of your hand and look for these murky areas. It's here the parasites lie waiting to stall the full luxuriant blossoming of your personality.

John Bradshaw: “Evil is a source of moral intelligence in the sense that we need to learn from our shadow, from our dark side, in order to be good.”

You have got to believe that there is a methodology of driving the evil, first, out of your body, second, your mind, and consequently out of your soul. This is the process of wiping the floor clean with disinfectants so that your loving nature has a scope to bloom in perfect splendor.

At the level of the body, in the domain of the visible world around you, put up a conscious effort to avoid doing anything bad that may hurt someone in its multiple meanings including the physical, economical, emotional and social. Avoidance of bad at this level will help you become a law-abiding citizen. It will give you a clean social image. These are required to keep you motivated and bound to the path leading to the next level of goodness, or the path to taming the evil.

Taming the evil at the level of mind is a bit tougher. Thoughts come more rampantly than actions. It’s basically a free float. In fact, these are even more suitable outlets for the bad. We can think bad to any extent in the hidden corners of our mind. We can plan any sinister scheme in the safe secrecy of our brain. We can hate anybody to any extent inside us. We can burn in jealousy about anybody on earth.

This mode of letting out badness is even more tempting because, unlike badness in action that might get us punishment at the hands of law or fall in our public image, this channel of hate does not carry the risks of such immediate, visible punishments. It but harms us in more ways than we can ever think of. The punishment crawls slowly, silently. And it is poisonous.

All these negative emotions of hate, jealousy, frustration, fears, apprehensions, illusions and unrealistic assumptions let out toxics on the impulse of our brain. By engaging in such thinking you are bombarding your own body with chemical weapons. You are your own enemy before anyone else. You are putting your gun at your own poor head.

Slowly over a period of time these poisons, the unseen punishments of uncontrolled evil thoughts, eat away the body. Our brain, the seat of unrestricted potential to be good to the self and others, becomes the ticking bomb, letting out toxins in our blood stream, eating our vitality, our strength and drawing us to a frustrated death. That is the cruel-most punishment, your own brain letting out poison in your body. Mind you, your thoughts are the trigger for this.

So driving out the evil at the level of ideas and thoughts is of utmost importance. Right from our birth, life is all about bypassing the snares of mortality. But the inherent meaning of life is to find happiness while we avoid the snares of death. You cannot find happiness in any corner of this world, under any material comfort if your thoughts are plagued with the virus of evil, the bugs of hate, jealousy, selfishness and anger.

We cannot avoid death. It will come. But we can turn it meaningless. The success of death lies in giving us a painful feeling that life was meaningless at the last breath. If we die with a feeling that life has been worth it, we deny death its final laugh. Life prevails over death in this regard. (Because there is journey after the interruption, don’t worry.) We can do justice to life by being happy, and making others happy as well along the way, and be loving. There can be no other meaning of life.

So train your mind for better thoughts and better emotions. It will help your brain in becoming a launch pad of creativity instead of a toxic tool of death. Meditation is the first step in taming the restlessness that is basically the foundation of the evil in the mind. Dislodge it from its seat. Sit down and practice restfulness. Calm your mind. Give it a space as you contemplate peace.

Be a neutral observer and witness to what goes in the mind. Try to be aware of your trail of thoughts instead of just allowing them to float freely in the dark rooms of negligence. The real you, the best judge, keeps a watch over the trail of thoughts either positive or negative. Believe me, just by being aware of the negative flow of thoughts leads to check-dam these after some time. Under the stern watchful eyes of your consciousness the shadows will vanish. Positivity and good thoughts start becoming your instinctive nature because with each good thought you feel rewarded by your soul, and with each negative one you find yourself reprimanded. And who doesn’t need rewards?

As much as bugs of death are ever eager to finish their task of chucking out organisms and lives, the angels of healing are even more eager to sustain life. And the seat of healing is in love, in caring, in positive emotions. Allow yourself some time of stillness, repose and rest. The angels of healing, the agents of life, the couriers of love will cure you.

The practice of love and rest in thoughts leads to a healthier soul. It nourishes the soul as much as it heals the body. As a loving person you become a flower spreading fragrance and beauty. As a hateful individual you become a thorn drawing blood from the feet that are leading to their destination. Both die anyway. But look at the roles they play while in their journey.