Corral

Within the space of possibilities

Fears corral and partition the whole

Into the right and the wrong

Into the good and the bad

Into the this and the that

A necessity of the partitioned individuality

Yet

Limits individual exploration

Hinders growth if forgotten from the scope

Of consciousness.

Territoriality

Territoriality of knowledge

Partitions the field of the known

Into tiny human-sized chunks

Prevents mutual nourishment widespread.

Were we to learn the art of sharing

Not dictated by amounts and measures

But guided by the resonance of the moment

Not curtailed by the fear of injustice

But with trust in the tides of our life

Not ashamed by the flaws of our knowing

But impelled by the love of the True

Oh would we THRIVE.

Recognize

From a man's eyes

Do I chase chase chase beauty and grace in women one after another after another after another

Or

Do I recognize the source of the beauty that lies within these humans

Understand it

And recognize it within

Myself.

Finality

The illusion of finality

Brings many to rush or to lose hope

And fall out of balance from the natural cycles

Which merely flow and turn ever forth.

Believing any end is absolute

Brings some to seek shortcuts or to cheat

Accepting that end overrides means

Except there truly is no end

And one's path is sullied thereby.

The illusion of finality

Pulls our focus to the future

Out there where effort vanishes

Where lives the object of our desire

Waiting for us to redeem ourselves

With its magical touch.

"Come here, and quench your desire",

Says the phantom to our mind.

Finales, though they may be sweet

Or thunderous, relieving, or help one feel complete

None can definitely resolve

The substance in which we are mired.

They are but turns and cascades in this same river

Which holds many prisoners

Of their desire.

Realizing the illusion of finality

Brings one face to face with

The eternal continuity.

Evil

Adolf Hitler was a human. Joseph Stalin was a human. Ruthless leaders and cruel generals who mandate the repression, abuse, and deaths of countless others are humans. Thieves, murderers, serial killers, all throughout history, they have all been humans.

You are a human. I am a human.

Evil is glamorized. It is cut out from the rest of us, and considered "something else". In the realms of our mind, it is exiled to the dungeons and shunned from afar. We place it there because we fear touching it, like we would fear disgusting vermin or a venomous beast. We fear associating with it, or seen next to it, lest we be thought to be friends with this wretched evil. "No, we must not be seen as evil", we think. "We cannot be thought of as evil, lest we be thrown into the dungeons of their own minds as well". And so we fear evil. Fear is the dungeon, evil the outcast, and I am... "well, at least I'm not that".

Seen by whom? By "them". "Them, the world". "The people around me". "I don't want them to shun me". "I want them to like me."

"Besides, I'm not evil", says I. "I don't know why these horrible people do the things they do. What do I know about it?" "And why EVER would I want to get involved with the evil? Oh no... if I try to understand those people, maybe I will actually empathize with them, and maybe justify them, and be seen as evil just like them! Oh no, I don't want that, no. I don't know how evil works and I don't want to know. Someone else will know how to do that better, yes. Someone else."

While we keep what we think of as evil exiled in the dungeons of our fears, we cannot understand it. And while we do not understand it, we cannot engage with it, nor resolve it - in our mind nor in the world. Whether we localize evil in ruthless dictators, cruel generals, corrupt businessmen, callous politicians, petty thieves, deserting lovers, appalling parents, obnoxious coworkers, disloyal friends, rude strangers... do you notice we so often place the evil in humans? The humans they are, the humans we are? Can you trace their actions back to a source within them - a thought, an emotion, a fear, an anger - that you can relate to in your self?

Try. Seek a common source from which spring the actions you so detest. Only then can come understanding. Only then can you see.

Evil Label

Evil is a label. It is not any particular act nor person. It is no particular misdeed, injustice, tradition, lifestyle, nation, or race. It is but a label we choose to stick onto things in the world that we believe should not exist. It is a "should", a "to-do" label we put on our to-do list, and it's one of the tough ones. It seems so hard. This thing exists, and some of it all over the world. How can I make it not exist? How can I, a single human, do something about this evil that is spread all over the world?

Daunted at the difficulty of the task, we leave it intact. It's an item we keep skipping over each time we're figuring out what to do, because it seems so hard. Gradually we pay less and less attention to it, and skipping it becomes an automatic reaction, until it's a faded item on an old, yellow sheet at the bottom of the dusty pile of boxes in the basement, together with all those other to-do's we never go to finishing. But there it remains, and we know it.