The Reiki Cafe 

Hi All,

I always feel a little confused as to whether or not Evil is just something in our imaginations, or whether it really exists. What about such human monsters as Charles Manson, or Adolph Hitler? Certainly they operated out of an area that could certainly be said to be merely not choosing God.

Blessings,
Roxy

Otoharo!

Roxy, I have come to have a deep appreciation for your astuteness. You cut through the stuff to what is real. The first time is had to look at Adolph Hitler was when reading one of the Conversations with God series with a group. I was sitting on the floor and reporting that as I read these passages I wanted to shout to God, No, God! Don't let him in! (to heaven) It took me quite a long time to come to terms with finding Hitler among those I would meet someday.

We choose God or we choose separation. I agree.

finality

Personally I think good and evil are merely human terms and no such thing really exists as universal forces. I am however a firm believer of Order and Chaos. But one is not good and one is not evil. I think things get labelled as such depending on how we view a specific action or behavior.
I do not think there is some climactic universal battle between Good and Evil going on behind the scenes.

Hi Roxy
Who actually says that both Hiler and Manson,Saddam Hussain along with Pol Pot and Stalin were monsters.
We do, because what they did or made happen, things that to our way of thinking were very wrong. The taking of so much human life.

When we get rid of a wasps nest, or perhaps cockroachs or something else we see as a pest, are we not in fact doing what they did, only not taking human life, but taking a life or lives none the less.

In the future, will the generations on the planet now, be looked at as monsters because of the damage we do to this planet?

Is it not just perpspective?

Namaste

Rob

Dave, yes. I concur with this. Because there is no judgment, how can there be good or evil?

finality

Another moment of synchronicity. I was going to start a new thread on the subject of good and evil...and here it is already started!

If there is balance in all things, is there not light and dark? And shades of grey in between? Perhaps "evil" is the wrong word to use, but it would certainly feel appropriate to me to apply it to someone like Hitler. But then I do ponder the meaning of evil and whether it can be evil in the popular use of the word if it is, on some level that I'm not equipped to see, necessary.

With love,
Lesley

Dear Roxy,
I do believe that genocide & other such atrocities are a reflection of evil.

peace & joy,
holobon

I like the insect statement (I escort my little bug buddies outside, they may be slightly traumatized but they're alive). And it does make me wonder how people can be so furious when it comes to human lives but more or less turn a blind eye when it comes to creatures that are often found less than desireable in the pressence of the only animal that likes to pretend it isn't.

Otoharo!

Lesley, my experience has been that until I made my choice, there continued to a dicotomy. Once I made my choice, there is only my path to God, the Universe.

finality

Roxy,

Hi.

Imagination? From where does imagination arise?

:)

The Inquisition carried out, under the auspices of and participaton by the Catholic church what was, in many eyes, rather not in the best tradition of a 'just and loving god'.

There are those, however, who feel god is more into wrath and vengence.

So, what is good and what is evil?

There are white witches and black witches. So where does one place grey witches? Areer there 'neutral' witches?

:)

For myself? Evil is at least partly comprised of the countless thought forms (and the accompanying energy) that survive and are perpetuated by humans over the millenia, from generation to generation. Contents of The Shadow not being the least abundant source of such thought forms (and their accompanying energy)

:)

Cheers,

RC

Not long ago, after we had been away from my parent's house for a couple days, we returned to find that no less than 8 huge spiders had spun gigantic webs across their back porch. You literally could not get out the door without running face first into a 10 food wide web. I caught my Mom charging out the back door armed with a lighter, fully intending to set fire to the creatures! Yikes!

Now, I freak out when a spider crawls on me, but I recognize that they have an important role to play in nature. I had to bodily insert myself between the webs and my Mom. "Mom! Don't do it! They eat the mosquitoes!" She looked at me like I'd lost my mind, but I convinced her to gently knock the webs down with a broom so the creatures could go to the nearby trees to spin their webs again.

Dear Conflagration,

We were taught as we grew up that man was superior to animals & that the welfare of humans always superceeded that of animals. That is a powerful belief that still permeates this culture.
So many years ago, the shock of discovering that a gorilla could communicate with sign language was an eye opener.
Getting past these old teachings is not easy especially especially when one is surrounded by those that live those old teachings. It takes a long time to change beliefs & culture. Sometimes you just have to wear people down little by little until they open their eyes. Not everyone has instant epiphanys. The process of facing up to the fact that one has been treating living creatures without decent regard & respect changes one's entire picture of themself and the surrounding world.
The world needs more role models.
I will be happy to send my cockroaches your way!! Please send directions!! :)

peace & joy,
holobon

Otoharo!

RC, there is no judgment. So who defines good, and who defines evil. Human beings do. That is the imagination.

finality

Otoharo!

Celt, I am glad you stood up for our friends.

Otoharo!

Celt, I am glad you stood up for our friends. A friend of mine did not want to see spiders in his house (his wife did not mind at all). At first he asked them to move out of the house. A few days later, He told them, they cold remain in the house but to stay in places where he could not see them. They cooperated.

finality

Otoharo!

Holobon, I use to live in Florida before I knew better and did all I could to rid my house of them. Some friends of mine were of a different opinion. the man's job was to find ways to deal with mosquitoes. He designed the black box (I think it was called) that would draw the females and sterilize them. Even so, he did not want to kill roaches. His wife was also right in the middle of changing public opinion. Their house was overrun with roaches, they climbed all over the silverware and dishes in the cabinet, etc. It was rather hard to be there and know that my teenagers were over at their house almost daily. Now I have learned how to get cooperation with all creatures. Except slugs. Slugs don't care and will not negotiate.

finality

I will easily admit, that although I always move spiders outside, the thought of cockroaches climbing all over my dishes and kitchen, uggh.

However, where do you draw the line - what about bacteria, amoebas, and parasites that cause disease? Should we refrain from sterilizing our water?

Blessings,
DesertWolf

Well to my dismay my girlfriend still lets the rental company spray once a month. : (

As for myself lol I had an interesting incident with a cockroach.Well two incidents one was spiritual the other one I learned first hand cockroaches can bite (comedic incident really). Sometimes it's instinctual but usually half way through the bug smash I can pull back and be like " ack what was I doing". I can pretty safely say that I don't intentionally kill insects anymore. I do , as I said, occasionally start to take a swat without thinking but for the most part I just let them do their thing we see one every now and then not like some big infestation. My girlfriend is like "Okay,Dave, do your thing there is a spider and i'm not jacking with it." Usually I respond with ," Oh it's cool hun , it's just here to eat the other bugs you complain about." And then she gives me "the look" and I escort it outside. She did smile at the praying mantis on our door the other day that made me happy.

You can do what I did. Explain to Cockroach that you are sorry you cannot have his children in your home due to the reasons you gave. He asked me to place food about 25 feet away from my house and to cleanse it with Reiki as an offering to him . I did so and I don't recall seeing a cockroach in the past 2-3 months since I did that.

Ooops forgot. The other condition he set was that I don't kill any of the roaches I see. And gave me a time frame for which they would be gone (was like 4-5 days or something) and they were indeed gone.

Well since I don't seem to have developed the ability to converse with cockroaches yet... You wanna come out to the beautiful southwest and broker a deal for me...LOL

I know of a great little vortex just an hour and a half away....

Its still summer here, only 105, sunny, low humidity...

Oh, and I have friend who has some problems with red ants in her neighborhood, she can't let her little ones in the backyard when they're around.

Blessings and bribery, (and maybe a little laughter)
DesertWolf

We generally dislike spraying, but this summer the wasps and hornets were so thick, something had to be done. It had gotten to where we couldn't step outside the door without running the risk of a sting.

I wish now that I'd tried what finality did - simply ask them to stay out of our yard. :(

finality,

Hi.

I am not quite sure of your point, but......

I 'imagine' some would say that the process of defining anything as good, evil, etc is judgement.

I also 'imagine' that hyenas do not define things and events in their lives as 'good' or 'evil'

Cheers (with a really terric, non-judgemental cherry on top),

RC

LOL I think our heat index today was like 101. Actual temp I dunno. Umm HOT.

Just talk and listen. Best advice I can give.

Just for a change I'd like to disagree.

Good and evil are judgements, and quite necessary ones. Acts like genocide, murder, rape are all evil. By any standard, these are not good things to do or to have done to you, and this is the case whichever belief system you follow. The judgement comes from choosing to live within a human society, and submitting yourself to human justice, and we quite rightly punish people who commit these evils.

But then religion often intervenes and dictates what other things are "good" and "evil", and this is where most arguments begin - depending on which religion you follow, being in public without your husband is evil, being gay is evil.

On a universal level though good and evil are more difficult to define, because the universe is indifferent and infinite. Being murdered might not be a good thing to happen to you today, but if it means a faster journey to a better reincarnation and an escape from a hideous life who's to say that it wasn't a "good" thing from a wider perspective. The universe doesn't punish or reward, it just is.

Sal