Love is the Absence of Apathy

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We did not "create" George Bush consciously or personally. He is created by the great collective, which creates both good and "evil" to test us, to see how strongly committed to the good that we actually are. It is easy to mouth the correct words, to talk of Love, compassion, sisterhood, and other high ideals. But the virtual reality of the cosmos forces us to "put our time where our mouth is," to invest timenergy in actually doing good works.

Those "good works" include opposition to evil in all its many forms. For the idea that we "create our own realities as reflections of our selves" is fine, metaphysically. But socially, it is dangerous, for it can lead to apathy, complacence, and final inactivity. If it leads to petrification and paralysis, it is perilous, and freezes us up spiritually. It makes of us social and spiritual "dead zones." Oddly, people who experience such petrification are full of selfpride, for they feel that they have "seen the truth," and so, are "superior." Actually, they are as deluded, lost in illusion, as any hedonists.

For although they are realizing a great truth about the nature of this world as Mind-creation, they have not heard the more important message of real spirituality, which is Love. For Love does not encourage us to sit and study the world, but actively to reach out, actively to serve Love. Those who shrug, and give knowing looks, filled with pride because they "know what is going on," are agapocidal, or Love-killing. In their so-called "wisdom," which is actually the path of fools, they become antispiritual. This path can lead to only spiritual catastrophe!

You are right, of course: the world is Mind-created. But you are wrong if you think that we are not to act, with every nanopsychon of our energies, against evil. If you saw a little dog, or child, suffering, you would obey Love and give her assistance. You would not just tell yourself that her suffering was "really" about you, and then, go within and try to heal yourself. You would reach out the hand of compassion.

This also applies to social evils. We dare not selfrighteously say that the "world is all about me," and then, become totally selfinvolved, dominated by ego, and work on improving the self only. For the self is aided best by aiding others, as the self is loved best by loving others.

The arrogance and egotism of the selfish path exposes it as unspiritual, indeed, antispiritual. Of course, we want to continue to work on the self-- not on improvement, but on erasure. Of course, that is primary. But we never improve by dismissing the need for practical action. Apathy is not growth, but its opposite-- death.

Evil, of course, has no "absolute" reality. But our world is created, dreamed up, by the Mind in the form of a complex illusion called "dualism." This means that, for all practical purposes, we must choose between good and apparent "evil." This is, in fact, how we define, and stay on, the path of goodness. A necesary --
absolutely indispensable-- aspect of this life is the rejection of evil and the embrace of the good. So, Love calls us all, in this illusion-world, to speak against, work against, and act against "evil" wherever we find it.

Jesus said, "Resist not evil." That is because, by "resisting" it, we give it power. So, we do not feed it energy, as if it were real. We do not resist it, but we must oppose it. "Oppose" comes from the same root as "opposite." So, it is not enough mechanically to "resist" evil, but we must undergo interior transformation so that our energy is fed into evil's opposite, nd that is Love. Love is Reality, and that is the opposite of illusion. Even criminals are changed, ultimately, only by Love.

But when you love a child, for example, you must often correct her course. Without such corrections, she cannot learn reading, writing, math, social skills, communication-skills, or many other necessary techniques to be independent.

Society also requires periodic corrections. That is why, historically, the women and men of Love have always spoken out when they felt that Love was being neglected, abused, or violated. They were responding to the demands and commands of Love. We today have a similar calling: Love calls upon us to oppose, often loudly, Its absence. But we are not so much "anti-evil" as "pro-Love," although the average person cannot see the difference.

So, Love does not call upon us to live like zombies, or dead people. It triggers the fires of enthusiasm, and awakens us, actively and practically to love others. It pushes us to express that Love; and a teacher also has the added responsibility of explaining (often defending) that same Love. Love does not "kill" people, but "resurrects" and awakens them to new, enthusiastic activity. (The word "enthusiasm" originally meant, "God within.")

The wise and enlightened sages and masters-- Jesus, Solomon, the Buddha, al Hallaj, and so many others, were activists-- not because they did not trust God, but because they knew that God, as Love, acts through human beings. We cannot be lazy, selfrighteous, apathetic, or complacent and still claim to be following the active Way of real Love.
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