“Evil is non-existent; it is the absence of good.” ~Abdul Baha~
Evil. A word which is familiar to our ears, yet remains a mystery. We encounter this word in newspapers, televisions and magazines. It is strewn all across various religious texts. It finds its way into our conversations but, do we really know and understand what evil really means?
One of the first thing that our mind conjures up when we hear or see this word, is the devil or better known as Satan. Is the devil a manifestation of evil or does the word has a meaning much closer to home? To answer this question, we must first discover what evil stands for.
Well, the answer to that question is simple. “Evil is imperfection.” It might sound silly, but that is what the word really implies. The myriad meanings and manifestations of evil in the past are man’s way of trying to understand their own selves,unknowingly. In reality, evil refers to the lower nature of man. In man there are two expressions. One is the expression of nature and the other, the expression of the spiritual realm.
In other words, man’s life is governed by his material nature and spiritual nature. In his material nature, we see qualities such as injustice, cruelty and tyranny manifest itself. These are an expression of the imperfections of nature. Therefore, evil is a product of man’s lower material nature. One might ask, since evil is part of human nature, is it good? The answer is yes and no.
Just because evil is a part of our material nature, this does not imply that we are powerless to overcome it. We are given the capacities to do so. This is where our spiritual nature comes into the picture. Through the expression of spiritual qualities such as love, kindness and compassion, we can overcome the evil within our material nature. And yet, without evil, how will we know the good?