I took a listen today to the Panel Discussion at the Grand Gathering (Oct 9, 2008 by scholars Douglas Brooks, Sally Kempton and Bill Mahoney) on Anusara.com. The last 5 minutes of the discussion interested me the most, a discussion on Evil. It takes a bit of doing to fast forward an hour to the question on Evil, but it is worth it. For those of you who would prefer I recount, here goes. Bill Mahoney, a Tantric scholar, explains that from a Western [sic Judeo-Christian] standpoint, evil is the result of disobedience, which lends itself to many rules and laws to enforce obedience. From the Tantric philosophic perspective, evil finds its roots in ignorance, avidya. Douglas Brooks, another Tantric scholar, adds that too much certainty of how life should be leads to evil.
I like the Tantric perspective in that the idea that evil stems from ignorance and too much certainty [sic rigidity] allows for greater compassion in the world. Once you realize that someone is coming from a contracted place, a place that is ignorant of their nature as free and divine, it is easier to access your own compassion. That is not to say that in the face of evil say threatening your very life, that you would try to reason with someone necessariliy or try to understand their perspective; no, in those moments you may want to just try to survive evil, though I suppose some very enlightened people may be able to be yogis through and through in every moment, most of us mere mortals would throw yoga out the window. But I digress…
What is evil anyways? To recap Dougas and Bill, the Tantric perspective is that evil results from forgetfulness of who we are. Freedom is our nature, not a goal to be attained, but already our nature. If we refuse our nature, it is avidya, ignorance/ unwise. Evil is a misalignment, a choice we make to misalign. Evil looks like narcissism. Evil is a submission to something other than yourself. And the best quote of all from Douglas Brooks is in closing, “Evil is the choice to misalign with what the universe is offering as Grace.”
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