The Nature of Action and Apparent Evil

From Session 145 in Volume 3 of Seth's Early Sessions:


"Part of what I am about to say may sound callous, but you should see that such is not the case. From the viewpoint of the concerned and conscientious ego-self, truly there appears to be great and disastrous evils that overflow like poison the cup of human existence.

"When he sips of it, as you sipped of it, and as all conscientious human beings sip of it, then indeed the taste is bitter. It is not too farfetched however to add that all, or many, medicines have unfortunately a foul taste, and that the child who sips such a medicine finds it difficult to believe that such a distasteful brew can do him good.

"Basically, all action is. Basically there is no evil action. All is unfolding. With the limited perceptions that the ego has itself adopted, the whole is not visible, and it sees what it will see. Within your field, within your moral field, you must indeed strike out against that which appears evil to you.

"This is a responsibility laid upon you by the code of limitations which the ego itself has adopted as part of its own nature. You may find it most difficult to follow me here without any strong affirmation. However, as you do not blame, as you do not morally blame the wind for the tumultuous hurricane, and as you do not punish the wind, so you must somehow manage to understand that a wrongdoer, in your eyes, is no more or less to blame than this. It would be foolhardy to ignore the results of such activity. Nevertheless, I tell you now that there is much you do not see or know.

"You see perhaps havoc within the physical field, and this is indeed to be faced and dealt with, and set straight, as aid is given to the victims of a hurricane. But you are familiar only with the results of action as they appear within the physical field, as long as you insist upon viewing your physical universe with the eyes of the ego-self; for the ego-self attempts to cut itself off from that action of which it is a part, and in so attempting it loses contact with this larger reality.

"This loss of contact applies only to the ego. It does not apply to those other portions of the self, and it is through the inner self, through inner consciousness, that to some degree the nature of action can make itself known. And when it is made known it will be seen then that which you call evil represents a falling short of value fulfillment in a particular, or in any particular, case. There are always, as I believe you realize, those who court injustice and persecution. There are always those who persecute. There are those who murder, and there are those who seek to be slain.

"They seek each other out for many complicated reasons. This whole subject is difficult but I will not simplify matters, as I could. I would prefer to discuss it most thoroughly. Nothing here must ever be taken as a justification for evil, in humanity's terms. For many practical reasons at this point, it is necessary that man fight against what he considers evil, for he strengthens himself immeasurably by so doing.

"It is also true however, in a completely different framework, that evil is of his own creation, at least evil as he thinks of it. And if a crime is to be assigned in humanity's terms, often the victim is as guilty as the murderer, in basic terms, in terms of guilt that no court can weigh.

"We all have our roles. As we exist within various fields we focus upon these roles to the exclusion of much else.

"That part of us as you know which deals with these roles is the ego, which lives intimately the role which was assigned to it by the whole self, of which it is a part.

"The health and psychic condition of an individual is not primarily determined by the ego, however. It is only when the ego is allowed too much power that the individual is deprived of much of the inner vitality of the whole self. For the ego is acquainted with only its role. It can find refreshment only within the limitations of the reality which it was formed to meet; and when it looks about with the best of intentions and sees disasters and terrors, it does not now that these others also play their roles, and that the roles are temporary.

"It becomes bitter and mortally frightened, with no place to turn, and it sickens the body, and shrivels, and concentrates more and more upon the morbid aspects of its environment, until it cannot even appreciate the splendid accomplishment of itself, and the joys that are peculiarly part of the ego."

... "The inner self is aware of other realities. It is aware of the ego. Remember here the difference between consciousness of self and the ego, for the difference is important. The ego is but part of the self, part of the conscious self, but focused in one direction.

"The inner self, feeling itself part of action, is aware of facets of reality of which the ego is ignorant. It knows that roles can be reversed. There is so much here to be explained, and so many questions that must be answered. For I tell you, at the risk of being misunderstood grossly, that there is only one reality, and value fulfillment, which you may, if you like, equate with goodness.

"There is no such thing as evil, except for the phantoms which man has made. He sees hate in his own heart, what he call hate, which is but fear, so he projects it into another man's face and says the man hates him; and he may slay the man. But the hate never existed, that is, what mankind thinks of as hate never existed.

"Hate is unreasoning fear. Fear is caused by lack of understanding, by lack of value fulfillment. Hate is that which is not love. Love is fulfilled, or fulfilling, value fulfillment. It is action that knows itself, and that glorifies in its parts, that is separated to know itself, and in knowing itself is no longer separated.

"Hate is that which fears to join, and hence is separated, and that is all.

"If all men could learn to love, in terms of which I have spoken, then there would be no need for any kind of punishment within your field, and the word would vanish from your vocabulary. The subconscious is not the cause or the carrier of hatreds.

"The difficulty here is of an ego's refusal to assimilate subconscious experience.

"The ego may assimilate only a part of a given experience. Sometimes it will not assimilate or accept an experience at all. Remember here again that there is a difference between the ego and the consciousness of self. It is not necessary that the ego assimilate all experiences that are open to consciousness of self. Ego must have at hand, however, those experiences that are significant for manipulation within the physical environment.

"Any gap of assimilation here can be most unfortunate, and sometimes disastrous. Consciousness of self, if you recall, is self-consciousness that still retains self as a part of action, self that perceives its existence within action. Ego, originally a part of this consciousness of self, splits off as previously explained, and attempts to dissociate itself from action, indeed to view action as a result of itself; that is, to view action as a result and not a cause."