GOOD AND EVIL AND FREE WILL

The fundamental element of human destiny is free will.

Human beings are free to choose between good and evil.

One of the greatest mysteries of the universe is the hidden role that evil plays in the context of evolution.

The fact that good and evil exist in the universe is proof of the existence of human beings’ freedom of choice. In other words, it testifies to the will to exercise free will.

Evil has a primary role in Creation to test human beings and make them realize the necessity of returning to their origins.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.        John 1:4-5

The light does not eliminate the darkness, but the darkness does not overcome the light. This world is destined to remain shrouded in darkness until the end of time, but it can shelter and share the Light that is the Kingdom it promises and to which it leads.

Tsim Tsoum is a Hebrew concept meaning withdrawal. After creating the material universe, God withdrew to grant it freedom. He created us free; freedom is inherent to human nature. Adam and Eve were given the freedom to taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge, a fruit that brings intelligence, a tool that allows human beings to choose their path. Nature’s purpose was to create a physical body capable of housing the spiritual body. This dual being, Adam, has the ability to develop the divine soul in order to return to the original divine Kingdom. To do this, he must awaken the spark of life hidden in his heart beneath the ashes of oblivion. The Serpent sheds its skin, changing its form and thus seems to be reborn to itself. It is an allegory of the cycle of incarnations and initiation, which brings death to the old and rebirth into the new. The Serpent is an allegory of intelligence and clairvoyance. It awakens and gives the first impetus to the faculty of questioning. It leads Adam and Eve from the divine world of origin to the lived world; this is the story of the deliberate, planned, necessary separation of God and humanity. Humanity must separate itself from God to exist independently, participating in its own creation. It is the vitality of freedom, which can only arise from an emancipatory separation.

Evil is good in formation. The tree of knowledge is not that of good and evil, but that of the accomplished and the unaccomplished. Evil is energy diverted from its becoming. There is no evil, only the task that goes unrecognized. Sin is spiritual poverty, a deliberate resistance to divine reality, a conscious choice to oppose spiritual progress.

Darkness is not evil: it is made of potential energies called upon to provide their information to build the whole human being.

The sword of God is double-edged: one edge is linked to the light that guides humanity on its journey toward unity. The other is linked to darkness and penetrates the multiplicity in which God has a servant: Satan. Satan’s ontological function is to present to Adam the energies he has yet to fully realize, so that he may recognize them, name them, work with them, and release their light-information. Evil takes root in doing, not in creation. Satan is the Seraphim of intelligence who presides over the trial of growth for every being. He works with the Lord in close intimacy to lead humanity from the image to the likeness of God. Faith, the activity of the spark of spirit in the heart, reveals God in the soul. This revelation allows us to see in nature, in « evil, » the same God that faith has unfolded in the soul. Revelation thus succeeds in building a bridge between the material and the spiritual, between the creature and the creator, between humankind and God.

God cannot be found through nature alone, but once He is found in another way, the study of nature becomes compatible with a higher and more spiritual interpretation of the universe.

The word Nadir means the lowest point. Passing through the nadir is not a fall in the sense of a darkening. It is at this lowest point that certain qualities must be acquired and that the great goal set by the Logos must be attained: to fulfill God’s plan for the world and humanity.

Why endure the ordeal of darkness? It is to find the Light after having strayed down many false paths; to overcome evil through the Light, found and conquered by oneself; to restore the original state. This is the essence of all mysteries. When humankind grasps this, the curve of its development turns upward toward its origin. Emerging in ignorance, it returns with knowledge; departing as a lost son, it is now the prodigal son returning to his homeland. A manifestation unfolds throughout the universe for the salvation of the Monad, enabling human consciousness to have a wealth of experiences on the downward path, passing through a nadir. In other words, through an « Old Testament » period full of dangers and suffering, to achieve the turning point in Christ and to ascend into the « New Testament. » Human beings must acquire values ​​and experience, becoming the instruments of their own fulfillment, which leads them back to the Divine Kingdom. Throughout this development, evil is merely an incident; only the unique, absolute Life remains. What we call natural birth, the birth of the physical body, in the journey to the nadir, represents the ever-renewed possibility of acquiring a fullness of experience and of restoring oneself. God does not want automatons in His service, beings who know only good. This is why each Monad is led to its nadir so that, like a tree, it may find sufficient depth for its roots and then, after nourishing itself on earthly elements, rise toward heaven. It is at the lowest point of nature that the One Good is hidden: in the heart of every human being. “I will put the law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Jeremiah 31:33-34

Paul (Thessalonians): “Through the body, I am in relation to nature below me. Through the soul, with other human beings, my fellow humans around me. Through the spirit, with God above me.” Body, Soul, Spirit: 3 systems, one being. The human being is a spirit united to a body and, through this union, becomes a soul which is the center of 3 lives: That of an intelligent and free self, the life of the soul or psychic life. That of sensations and organic activities, or physical life.

That of aspirations and heavenly communications, or spiritual life. Existence, Free Will, Holy Love—these are the three lives we possess in reality or in potential, and whose flourishing is the goal of human life. Adam brought the development of physical life to a close here on Earth and opened that of the life of the soul. Jesus Christ brings the development of psychic life to a close and inaugurates the advent of spiritual life. Paul (Corinthians): « First the psychic state; then the spiritual state. »

The physical body, in its form born of nature, is in principle only a bearer of the divine image. For wandering in the material world has damaged it. But the awakening of the spark of the Spirit in its heart gives it the strength to become a child of God again. Consequently, transfiguration begins, the development of the spiritual being within it. But this is not an automatic process. The person concerned must collaborate with the utmost interest, in an intelligent and deeply personal way. They must explore their own path step by step. And as soon as the natural self has faded away, the newly born soul reclaims the place that has belonged to it from the beginning.

“A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers.” Luke 10:30.

It was by voluntarily descending from their natural state and renouncing the bliss of Paradise, which is called Jerusalem, meaning “The Vision of Peace,” and by going to Jericho, which symbolizes the world of the senses, that they were thus wounded and stripped bare. They had to live through this experience to develop their consciousness because, as Jacob Böhme says, “the monad must be confronted by an adversary to prove its worth.” This is Satan, “Evil,” whose very meaning is “adversary.” Having come from above, bearing the mark of the Spirit, she gathers a wealth of experiences here below to finally return to the original Kingdom, enriched by her expanded consciousness.

“No stone can be polished without friction, no man can perfect his experience without trials.” Confucius

Words of Ostad Elahi, Iranian Muslim:

Light only becomes tangible against a backdrop of darkness, good only has meaning in the face of evil, and the perfection of the soul cannot be achieved without it to do only in the body and in the world. The pure soul requires confrontation with matter, resistance to the causal world, for knowledge to become possible. Truth is revealed only at this price. The human being is Adam exiled on earth, a celestial soul descended into the body. They must realize themselves body and soul to attain their perfection. The rejection of the body and of life in society purifies the soul but does not allow it to perfect itself because, through this rejection, it is deprived of the complete experience of its own humanity. It cannot progress or truly know itself as it is. Respect for the body as the sanctuary of the soul. The body plays the role of the soul’s legs, and without legs, one cannot return home.

The Urantia Cosmogony:

The presence of good and evil in the world is in itself positive proof of the moral will of the human being, the personality that identifies these values ​​and is capable of choosing between them. The possibility of evil is necessary for moral choice, but its manifestation is not. A shadow has only relative reality. Potential evil acts as a stimulus for decision-making in the realm of moral progress at the lower levels of spiritual development. Evil only becomes a reality of personal experience if moral thought embraces it. Spiritual evolution is an experience of the voluntary and increasing choice of goodness, accompanied by an equal and progressive decrease in the possibility of evil. The ability to appreciate truth paralyzes the possibility of the emergence of evil and even the concept of potential evil. The soul that knows God casts no shadow of suspicion of evil. Obstacles encountered on this planet must be faced by considering them part of the experiential education provided for the growth and progressive perfection of evolving souls.

Lucifer, a name meaning « Light-bearer, » is the equivalent of Prometheus in Greek mythology. He stole divine fire to give it to humanity, enabling them to consciously advance on the path of spiritual evolution, thus transforming the most perfect animal on Earth into a potential god. For this « crime, » he was condemned to be chained to a rock, a symbol of the material world. Every day, an eagle comes to devour his liver, the seat of the human soul. And every day the liver regenerates, representing the cycle of Incarnations.                            This torture stems from the conflagration caused by his Thought discerning Good from Evil, yet remaining enslaved by the passions of his earthly Adam. Hercules encounters him during his wanderings and frees him from his chains. Prometheus, having accomplished his mission, ascends to Olympus. Departing as a demigod, he returns as a god. It is therefore a reward, not a punishment. Every human being is a potential hero and must accept the Light brought by Lucifer: knowledge, Gnosis. But one must not stop at the illumination of the Luciferian mind but progress to Jesus Christ, who is the liberator. However, illumination allows access to the wisdom that leads to redemption.

The soul must partake of the tree of good and evil, the tree of knowledge, even at the cost of its paradisiacal state. The exile in which the soul finds itself—a result of what is called the « fall »—ends with deliverance or recreation, when the soul regains knowledge of its own divinity and Christ is born in the human heart.                                                                                                                           « From a fragment of myself, I fill my universe and I abide. » Bahgavad Gita.   Then paradise is reclaimed, but this time in full consciousness. The microcosm returns to its world, the divine world, enriched by the fruits it has harvested through the soul’s descent into the material world.

« Adam and Eve had to leave paradise, but that’s alright, because in their hearts an even greater paradise will be born. » John Milton, Paradise Lost.

BALANCE

The symbolic Libra, a zodiac sign, perfectly characterizes the human being. Like Libra, we have two scales: one material, the other spiritual. He must harmonize these two tendencies within himself, balance his two sides, and this work must be done in earthly consciousness. Human beings are the first beings on Earth to constitute the link between spirit and matter. Within them, the descent of Spirit into matter and the return of matter to Spirit take place. The descent is accomplished with the help of the spiritual Hierarchies at work within their consciousness, but for the ascent, it is the human being themselves who must take action. It is in Libra that they appear complete and self-aware.

It is here that the descent of spiritual forces ends and they connect with the instinctive mentality of the animal, and it is here that the evolution of truly human consciousness begins. Before ascending to the spiritual planes, this consciousness must first make contact with the lower planes, come to know them, and master them.

The passage through the nadir is not intended to catapult humankind into darkness to suffer all kinds of misery and play its part. No, it is meant to confirm humanity in the unshakable certainty of the manifestation of salvation. The journey through the astronomical cycles constitutes the divine manifestation intended for the salvation of the creature. The entire system of the monad must open itself to this single certainty, so that the true God within God may emerge from it, and not some kind of automaton, working with clockwork precision and populating the universe by the billions. The Logos reveals itself through its creation, in order to manifest itself. This is why each monad is guided toward its nadir so that, like a tree, it may find sufficient depth for its roots, and then rise toward the heavens.

The soul, having become more autonomous, has felt the forces of good and evil as living within it. The struggle against evil becomes internal. Human beings possess free will; they have the ability to choose good—that is, what aligns with righteous evolution—or evil, which hinders and prevents this evolution. The forces of evil belong to the divine realm, and their influence on humanity was necessary so that it could develop freedom and thus integrate it into creation. Through contact with evil, humanity can develop a sense of what is good.

« Evil is there to allow humanity to know good, and at the same time, by giving us the possibility of choice, it brings us freedom. In good alone, there is no freedom. From the presence of evil arises the possibility of freedom. Evil is in its place. As soon as you see evil, it no longer exists in reality because evil is only an illusion. But if you don’t perceive it as it is, it is a force, a reality. » Selim Aïssel

The descent into matter was not something negative for humankind. Under the influence of Lucifer, a beginning of freedom emerged.

It began to become possible for him. By remaining in the spiritual world where all is strength, beauty, wisdom, and truth, he was destined to be nothing more than a reflection of God’s image. Without Lucifer, he would have remained in a state of unconsciousness. It is because Prometheus/Lucifer bound himself to the human soul that humankind, descending to Earth, was able to open its senses to the physical world, to perceive and understand it, and that it was subsequently able to receive those other gifts from Lucifer: writing, the arts, and science. Lucifer, evil, draws humanity into an incarnation too deeply rooted in matter, but at the same time gives it the means to rise again from that matter. It must free itself from Luciferian influence, but by transforming Lucifer within itself, and this through the work of Christ. Thanks to Christ’s action, the primordial Adam did not become entirely Luciferian. A part, his celestial or higher self, remained in the spiritual world. This part of Adam is the celestial Adam, the Adam Kadmon of the Kabbalah. At the moment of the « fall, » an impulse from Christ, the God of Love, who is the God of our world, saved the celestial part of Adam, his higher self, from the negative influence of Lucifer. The part of Adam that had been influenced by Lucifer is the earthly Adam, representing the lower self. He must rekindle the fire of divine thought that lies dormant beneath the ashes of oblivion.

Words of Jesus to his disciples in the Secret Epistle of James:

« What is your merit if you do the will of the Father and if it is not a gift from him to be tempted by Satan? But if you are oppressed by Satan and persecuted, and you do the will of the Father, I declare that he will love you and make you my equals, and it will be credited to you to be loved by his providence through your own choice. »

To know himself, God the Spirit must confront the resistance of matter. He projects himself into manifestation, into duality, down to the nadir of matter, before ascending back to unity, having conquered death and gained consciousness, having consciously abandoned evil to choose good. The gods and angels must pass through the human state. They would have no merit in remaining in good. Similarly, for the seeker of truth, it is not possible to take refuge in A cave, a monastery. He must confront the world and overcome its contradictions through his aspiration.

The Song of the Pearl

This Gnostic tale describes the descent and ascent, the destiny of every spirit.

The king’s son is sent by his father to find and retrieve the unique Pearl. Before his departure, his tunic is taken from him, but a treasure is entrusted to him. He must abandon his domain, but divine law has been placed in his heart. He must descend to Egypt, which represents the material world, the exile of the Jewish people as described in the Bible, and retrieve the pearl guarded by a Dragon (or Satan). Arriving in this land, he indulges in earthly pleasures, falls asleep, and forgets his mission. But God the Father does not forget the work of his hands and sends him a message to remind him who he is and what his mission on Earth is. These words awaken those engraved in his heart, and he now knows who he is and the purpose of his descent into the world. He then manages to retrieve the pearl by lulling the Dragon to sleep, the forces of nature subdued. Then, with his treasure, the pearl he conquered through his will, he returns to his Father’s kingdom. There, his tunic is restored to him, enlarged and embellished to suit his new stature. He has become his Father’s worthy son. Mission accomplished!

Adam, Paradise, original sin, the Fall, expulsion from Paradise: this is a chronological order that corresponds to the human mind. Yet all of Creation occurred at once, including Satan, the adversary, who allows the spiritual entities who came to live the human experience to develop. Paradise is our future perfect, the state attained after the fulfillment of eschatology.

The heart of God beats to its rhythm and regularly sends a ray of Light to help his creatures find their way back to their original home, Buddha, Jesus, and all the other « messengers. »

In conclusion, we believe that Christ, Satan, Lucifer, and others do not exist as individual beings, but rather represent different aspects that manifest in our microcosm during our journey on Earth until our reintegration into the original Kingdom.

Gnostic Words of Christ Jesus by André Wautier, Ganesh Editions

The Ardor of Elevation by Peter Huijs, Rozekruis Pers

The Kiss of God by Annick de Souzenelle, Albin Michel

Original Egyptian Gnosis by J.V. Rijckenborgh, Rozekruis Pers

Words of Truth by Ostad Elahi, Albin Michel

Discovery of the Bucegi by Radu Cinamar, Atlantes Editions

Let Us Not Remain What We Are by François Esperet, Robert Laffont

On the Division of Nature by John Scotus Eriugena, PUF

Biblical Studies by F. Godet, Hachette