http://www.care2.com/greenliving/your-shadow.html
Your Shadow
The shadow itself is not evil and therefore not your enemy. I realize that for many people there is a huge barrier in the form of “the other,” someone outside themselves whose evil is unquestioned.
Sixty years ago “the other” lived in Germany and Japan; thirty years ago it lived in the Soviet Union; today it lives in the Middle East. Such people find evil easier to explain by never losing sight of “the other”–without an enemy, they would have to face the presence of evil inside themselves.
Seeing the shadow in yourself defuses the whole notion of “the other” and brings closer the statement of the Roman poet Terence: Nothing human is foreign to me. Can absolute evil be banished so quickly, however? Polls show that a majority of people believe in the existence of Satan, and many religious sects firmly believe that the devil is loose in the world, secretly changing history through his malignant doings.
It doesn’t seem that good has a chance to conquer evil – perhaps their combat is eternal, never to be finally settled. But you can still choose the side you want to be on. That very fact removes the absolute from absolute evil, since by definition absolute evil would win every time, finding no obstacle in the frailty of human choice.
Most people don’t accept this conclusion, however. They watch the drama of good and evil as if it and not they have the power, sitting mesmerized by pictures of the latest epidemic of crime, war, and disaster.
You and I as individuals can’t solve the problem of evil on a mass scale, and this sense of being powerless magnifies the belief that good in the end really isn’t going to win. But to grapple with evil, you have to look at it, not in horror or as spectacle but with the same attention that you’d given to any problem you are seriously interested in.
Adapted from The Book of Secrets, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2004).
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20 comments
add your comment »Jesse - you did it again. Matt.24 makes no mention of other faiths at all, various nations and peoples not faiths! Zechariah 13 has no mention of the number 666 at all. Revalation 13 does mention the number and it is the number of A (singular) man!
Jesse, it time for you to get new glasses.
You are the one who brought up a conspiracy, not me. If I have invoked any fear, it is to those who are afraid that I might be right.
Thanks for your comments and thoughts. I appreciate you as a person.
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Dixon -- I did read Matthew 24; Jesus specifically stated in that passage that people of other faiths would be saved because of their good works. I find it ironic that you appeal to that passage seeing that it destroys the whole foundation of your claim that Jesus is somehow the only way to heaven. It's not the people who tell him, "Lord, Lord," but the people who show compassion for fellow man for the right reasons.
And Revelation, of course, refers to the Antichrist. But the number 666 refers to Zechariah 13, which refers to the judgment of that passage. In it, the 666 is presented as the sum total of all non-believers, while the number 333 is presented as the sum total of all the believers. It does not refer to any personal "Antichrist" who is somehow at work in the world today; it refers to the saved and unsaved. And Jesus specifically stated that we are not to know the day or hour of his coming. So, all of your conspiracy theorizing ignores the very basic fact stated by Jesus just before he went to heaven that it is not our business to know when He plans to come. All you are doing is invoking fear, while the Jesus of the Bible is perfect love, who drives out fear.
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“I did not come to bring Peace” 1-2
Matthew 10:34; Luke 2:14; 22:36
By Dwight Baker 7/2/09
To rightly divide the word of TRUTH we must be about studying. Jesus clearly had a divine plan and stuck with it. The world system He was against then and still is today. That world system is the anti-Christ those that operate in it have the one common thread they have the Need for Greed that has led them to un-civil insanity.
Many of them say that war is good. It helps the economy. Now is that absurd? Many today have a saying for the poor, abandoned and the ones less for many reasons and it goes a lot like this “Hey Bud you broke SOB go get yours I got Mine.”
The peace of civility has left them devoid of human caring and concern for their fellow human beings the greatest of OUR CREATOR GODS creation mankind.
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“I did not come to bring Peace” 2-2
Now how does that pan out with our ONE CREATOR GOD? Well just think about it for a time then you will see it does not set very well with HIM.
But other places Jesus clearly stated that PEACE was part of HIS plan to show mankind how to live in civil societies where all pitch in so that all might have the rights to life with Justice – so that all should WIN. As depicted in the Art as shown. Family ties for and toward each other are the cores of HIS message to mankind. We that love and care for one another are in the higher order of humankind for we are led by HIS spirit all in HIS family. And in that realm HE has adopted each one of us into HIS family to work for all mankind to have the rights to life in acts of equity with Justice as our guide.
NO PEACE for the Predator BEAST.
PEACE for the many others good and sane and needing a helping hand YES. Led by HIS family on earth today. Not hard to JOIN IN HIS family.
Ref. http://www.carm.org/bible-difficulties/matthew-mark/did-jesus-come-bring-peace-or-not
Dbaker007@stx.rr.com
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Lisa - I don't think Jesse read Matt. 24 or the book of Revelation. Antichrist will setup a world order according to the Bible and that order will take away freedoms. I am NOT saying it has anything to do with Obama. One order in existence today would like to take away your freedoms if it gets the chance. It is well on its way in France and doing pretty good in Britain.
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Lisa, there is nothing in the Bible about any New World Order that is somehow conspiring to take away our freedoms. "It's on the Internet" does not make it true. The American people rejected this sort of crackpot conspiracy theorizing in the last election.
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Actually Christianity believes that evil is not eternally going to fight good. It believes that after Jesus Christ, the military commander & statesman, wins Armageddon & takes over from the evil ruling the world for the past 7 years (i.e.: the Illuminati * of the New World Order **) & reigns for a thousand years, then there will be the judgement. The mostly good people will go to heaven & the mostly evil people will go to hell. So, they will be eternally separated, both good & evil.
*Note: They are mostly America's best families & the European royals of the powerful, still ruling Saxe-Coburg & Gotha bloodline. (They're powerful behind the scenes, all of these American elites & European royalty.) There are some scattered others.
**Note: The NWO is printed on the back of US dollars & has been referenced by various American & foreign heads of state. You can read about all of what I wrote of this online.
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Thank you, Deepak, not only for this great little essay but for choosing to confront shadows in the form of Hollywood concierge doctors' supplying celebrity clients with prescription drugs that are doing them more harm than good. I'm so glad you are speaking-out about it.
My condolences for the loss of your friend, Michael Jackson.
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In reality Good and Evil are nothing but labels of duality that we place on things in this existence. These are choices that we make at any given moment in time. It has been my experience that making the choice that is just can be the most difficult decision to make. It is often so much easier to do nothing or even turn a blind eye; this in itself can be labeled as being evil. Each one of us has a responsibility in the choices we make and we should only hold ourselves accountable for those choices.
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טוב האיש הרע באדם 1-2
One major scripture in the Bible, is the one that states that God, after creation of this world, gave man complete authority (lease) over it, to run it as he pleases. Genesis 1:26 and 28 And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." ..."Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." He also gave man the choice to have this dominion under God's guidance and principles or what we might call good, righteousness, wholeness (holiness) or to do so without God's guidance or what we might call rebelliousness, selfishness Godlessness (ungodliness). Dbaker007@stx.rr.com
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