Recognizing the Evil Among Us

“The wolf in sheep’s clothing now goes about whispering in our ear that evil is nothing but a misunderstanding of good and an effective instrument of progress. We think that the world of darkness has thus been abolished for good and all, but nobody realizes what a poisoning this is of man’s soul.” Carl Yung

When we understand the reality of our world today—how millions of people are deliberately being made to suffer—and that all of that suffering is entirely unnecessary, we can only wonder at the motivations of the powers-that-be. Many are becoming aware of the fact that this doesn’t happen by chance, but by deliberate intention. By who? Who could be so, well, evil??

Somehow we have lost sight of the realities of life. There is a tendency to think that everybody is a relatively decent person trying to do the best they can under the circumstances, and indeed, the top 5% sure seem to be better at dealing with the circumstances than the remaining 95%. We project our concept of self onto the people of the world and expect that everyone is doing their best still it is not a perfect world. That is, there is the tendency to think that we are all the same. Wrong. Very Wrong.

In Spiritual Economics we explain how human consciousness is affected by association with the material energy. This influence is known as the gunas in the Sanskrit language. The three gunas, or “consciousness determinants” as we prefer to translate the word, are sattva, rajas, and tamas, which are roughly translated as goodness, passion and ignorance. Each quality has its characteristics and results.

The Vedic worldview also explains the four great ages or epochs of time, called yugas, that progress one after the other as do the seasons. During the progression the influence of goodness wanes while the influence of passion and ignorance increase. The present age is called the Kali-yuga, and in this age the influence of sattva, or goodness, is almost completely lost and the influence of tamas, or ignorance, is predominant. The word “ignorance” is only a rough translation of tamas, and there is more to the word than our English understanding of “ignorance” conveys. Tamas also means darkness, particularly mental darkness, or the inability to see and understand. It also means illusion, error, and gloom. Are you beginning to get the picture?

The idea is that in this Age of Kali, of which we have already passed 5,000 years, is the time that the earth is given to the demonic for their purposes. Each age has its purpose. The Golden Age, or Sattya-yuga, is the time when the godly persons have use of the earth. In the next yuga sattva is reduced by some 25% and the quality of people born on the earth is reduced as well. At the end of Kali-yuga all goodness will be lost and the cycle of the ages will begin again after a partial destruction of the universe.

We are many thousands of years away from that end however, and there is still some sattva left. Those who have some measure of goodness are appalled by what they see going on in the world. Not knowing quite what to do they keep their heads down hoping that they can muster through it all. Of course the death rate is still 100% so we can only survive for so long. In the mean time we wonder what the hell is going on?

Hell indeed. There are many ways that that question can be answered. We are preparing our next book “Change the Karma!” to explain it from a spiritual level. From a more mundane or material level the answer is: too much tamo-guna and not enough sattva-guna. It’s a zero-sum game—when one goes up the others decrease. The result of this imbalance is stated clearly in the Srimad-Bhagavatam, the graduate study of the infrangible truth (11.25.19):

With the increase of sattva-guna the strength of the godly increases. When rajo-guna increases, the godless become strong. And with the rise of tamo-guna the strength of the most wicked increases.

Many people recognize this. They realize that evil is not simply some superstition and that there are indeed evil people in this world. In Spiritual Economics we explain the varieties of human consciousness, and we devote an entire chapter to explaining the demonic consciousness. This is not some fantasy created to label people we don’t like. It is one of the fundamental features of this material world, and it is explained in very clear terms in the Bhagavad-gita. There Lord Krishna, the speaker of the Gita and whom is accepted as the Supreme Lord, explains that there are two kinds of beings in this world—the divine, or those willing to follow the guidance of God, and the demonic, or those who are opposed to God and instead want to try to become God themselves. That is, they want to be the supreme enjoyers and proprietors of this world. They want it ALL! This is the explanation of the demonic from the Bhagavad-gita (16.7-24):

Those who are demoniac do not know what is to be done and what is not to be done. Neither cleanliness nor proper behavior nor truth is found in them. They say that this world is unreal, with no foundation, no God in control. They say it is produced of sex desire and has no cause other than lust. Following such conclusions, the demoniac, who are lost to themselves and who have no intelligence, engage in unbeneficial, horrible works meant to destroy the world. Taking shelter of insatiable lust and absorbed in the conceit of pride and false prestige, the demoniac, thus illusioned, are always sworn to unclean work, attracted by the impermanent. They believe that to gratify the senses is the prime necessity of human civilization. Thus until the end of life their anxiety is immeasurable. Bound by a network of hundreds of thousands of desires and absorbed in lust and anger, they secure money by illegal means for sense gratification.

The demoniac person thinks: ‘So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will increase in the future, more and more. He is my enemy, and I have killed him, and my other enemies will also be killed. I am the lord of everything. I am the enjoyer. I am perfect, powerful and happy. I am the richest man, surrounded by aristocratic relatives. There is none so powerful and happy as I am. I shall perform sacrifices, I shall give some charity, and thus I shall rejoice.’ In this way, such persons are deluded by ignorance. Thus perplexed by various anxieties and bound by a network of illusions, they become too strongly attached to sense enjoyment and fall down into hell.

Self-complacent and always impudent, deluded by wealth and false prestige, they sometimes proudly perform sacrifices in name only, without following any rules or regulations. Bewildered by false ego, strength, pride, lust and anger, the demons become envious of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is situated in their own bodies and in the bodies of others, and blaspheme against the real religion.

Those who are envious and mischievous, who are the lowest among men, I perpetually cast into various demoniac species of life. Attaining repeated birth amongst the species of demoniac life, such persons can never approach Me. Gradually they sink down to the most abominable type of existence.

There are three gates leading to hell—lust, anger and greed. Every sane man should give these up, for they lead to the degradation of the soul. The man who has escaped these three gates of hell performs acts conducive to self-realization and thus gradually attains the supreme destination. But he who discards scriptural injunctions and acts according to his own whims attains neither perfection, nor
happiness, nor the supreme destination. One should therefore understand what is duty and what is not duty by the regulations of the scriptures. Knowing such rules and regulations, one should act so that he may gradually be elevated. [read this entire chapter of the divine and demonic nature online.]

Not only do they want it ALL, they don’t want you to have anything. Seriously. Isn’t it clear that they are doing their best to drive people to destitution? Formerly in the so-called third world countries, and now in America and Europe. All in the name of the economy, of course. “There is actually nobody to blame but the blind forces of nature acting despite our best efforts.” Bunk. They have created a system that allows them to rob you, me and everyone without our even being aware of the fact. Did you read Ellen Brown’s recent piece wherein she explains that some 40% of every item purchased goes to debt service? And who does that money go to? Yes, the people the have taken control of the world by establishing their money system everywhere, and making war on those who don’t participate—the banksters! And that is not counting everything else they extract in the form of taxes, rents, profits on the products that we buy, etc. And yet they are not satisfied with that—they want it ALL!

If we really want to understand the economic problems of this world it is absolutely necessary to understand human consciousness. It is not the interest rates that are the problem, or the derivatives, or the un-repayable loans, or the politicians, or even the bankers! And here’s the kicker, it is not even these people that do these actions, because after all, they are spiritual beings too, just like you and me, BUT their consciousness is not like yours or mine.

What is the actual problem then? The consciousness of evil— the tamo-guna—that increasingly pervades this world. The one’s who are mired in evil thrive on this demonic energy. It feeds their consciousness. They get energy from it. They get power and strength from it. And they use that against the people of this world.

Let’s make no mistake—the reality of the situation in this world is not at all different from the classic good v. bad, light v. dark tales of the past. These are not tales—it is the very nature of this world, and we are living the struggle right now! It is actually a spiritual battle for the future of this planet, and economics is being used as a weapon of mass destruction, to destroy the ability of the people to respond.

There is a way to fight back, but marching in the street will accomplish nothing. It’s all laid in my book, the subtitle of which is: “Understanding and Solving the Economic Problem.” Get it. Read it.