Dualism and Devils

(Granger): I suppose we need to comment on the concept referred to on earth, and in all good denominations, as "Satan". Satan, the High-soul who rebelled against God and brought on a revolution in Heaven. The Devil is usually considered to be the same personality after he got thrown out of Heaven, and was cast down into Hell with all his angels.

You see, we have a dilemma here. If we say Satan, in all his raging fury, does not exist, we will be branded immediately by religious and church groups as being that very same old devil trying to cover up and disguise himself as a group called "The Starters". And you dear fellow (the writer) ...they will say you are possessed of the Devil! A few hundred years or so ago you would most certainly have been invited down the street to a nice big bond-fire with yourself as the centre attraction. There are those present in this group (The Starters) who left life on earth in just that way, and are reluctant to get involved in any discussion with the good people on earth even today, on such a subject. However, we have an obligation in this book to present the scenario of life and consciousness as we understand it to be, so let us proceed.

Before we talk about devils and Satan, we must talk about the idea called "dualism." Dualism is a concept of the spiritual universe that is based on the idea of there being an opposition throughout consciousness against the Source of Consciousness. Simply put, dualism says that God is opposed by Satan and his troops. Many books have been written and many more sermons preached on this concept. The Bible makes reference to Satan and the Devil. Much has been written in other religions supporting the idea of rebellious opposition to The Source of existence. Well thought out papers have been written around this subject. The bottom line is this: Is there a form of dualism in reality, in consciousness, or is there not? If the answer is no, then why does such wide support exist throughout the earth and history in favour of this concept? Where does such belief in the concept come from and why does it exist? Before we jump with both feet into our explanation we need a lesson in history. We promise to keep it short and easy.

A Short History Lesson

Early man, as his brain developed powers of reason, began to suspect that there was more to life than meets the eye. He began to think that someone was controlling forces of nature in ways he could not comprehend. Having no means of carrying out objective research, he began to develop his own various explanations for why nature was at times very good to him and at other times treated him with such disregard for his needs or, so it seemed, deliberately went out of the way to cause trouble. Out of ages of trying to cope with his dilemma came the ideas of gods, both good and bad, or at least happy and angry.

In early history, before written language, various civilizations of a primitive but well integrated structure began to develop more complex social orders. They carried their history and beliefs, as they knew them, through those who were trained to remember and to speak to the tribes or nation. History became fused with folklore; sometimes a story was told to illustrate or explain a concept, until gradually the fable or story became accepted as an historical fact. Into this background, developed over long periods of history, man began to introduce written languages. These languages, over long periods, began to change in meaning. Often the same word took on a very different meaning from its original and intended idea.

As man came down through the ages, he waged wars without ceasing on his fellow man and dragged home captives and slaves ...along with whatever else he could lay his greedy little hands on. Through these captives and slaves, he came to accept ideas from other tribes and nations. These ideas became blended with his own to change even more the meaning and records of history.

As time went on man became more clever. He got ideas about buying-off the gods with gifts and sacrifices. (Obviously he has not overcome that idea yet.) He began to build altars and statues to the gods, known and unknown; he tried to keep them all happy. Clever fellow, he fooled himself here again. He got to the point many times when he could not distinguish between his own statues that he had just built with his own hands, and the god it was suppose to please in the first place. Being ever so resourceful, he then made little statues to carry around to remind him of the big statue, which was suppose to remind him of the god he had created himself in the first place. By that time he was getting so confused he had to hire holy-men to keep track of all this and to explain it to him. These holy-men, or consultants, did not want to fool around and lose their positions so they had to come up with some very strong medicine to keep everyone in line. They began to create pits of fire and brimstone into which they could throw in the offending member of the tribe as a living sacrifice. No one fooled around with the holy-man and got away with it.

The religions of history were based on ideals of fear rather than on love. There was very little love in these old religions, believe me. Until the time of Jesus, and other teachers of like mind, love had little or no place in religion. Now you may say, if much of this older religion was founded more in fear than in love, as much in folklore and stories as in facts, when more enlightened teachers, such as Jesus, come into the earth why did they not set the record straight? There were reasons for not changing from what was written.

The devils-of-history cannot be got rid of; the hell-fire-and-brimstone cannot be got rid of; the fury of an angry God cannot be got rid of; the judgement before a God of wrath cannot be got rid of; the vengeance of a terrible and just God cannot be got rid of. For one very simple reason these ideas cannot be got rid of. That reason is that the mind and emotional state of man is not, even yet, ready to get rid of them. Believe me, that was the mission of Jesus in the earth, to present a new and fresh style of thinking for man. But the mind of man is not ready to accept the concepts of God, not even today.

We want to make our contribution, to encourage an opening of the mind to the vast rich resources of all consciousness. But we can suggest only; we cannot demand or insist that any individual stretch his or her mind or change his or her outlook on life. No one will fall into the pits-of-hell if he or she does not agree with our ideas, but we are sure he or she could play a part to raise the level of consciousness in the earth. History, like the individual, gets no benefit out of just spending more time in the earth. The only way life can improve is through the opening of individual minds. No religious order or group, no society for improvement, will raise the level of man's development. Only the free and open mind and will of each man and each woman, exercised through his or her brain and effort, will improve life. We are glad you stayed with us through our little lesson in history. Now we are ready to proceed with our explanation of the quandary called dualism.

Comment: ["Dualism" may sometimes refer to concepts other than the one used here. For example, the view that in the Incarnate Christ there were not merely two natures but two persons, a human and a divine, is referred to as "Dualism". In philosophy, dualism presents the view that the mind and body are distinct from each other; the mind, unlike the body, is not physical and is not governed by physical laws. Descartes, the philosopher, presented a view, referred to as Cartesian dualism, that proposed the mind is the person's self, and can survive the death of the body.]

(Granger): The central theme of dualism is that God (let us agree to use that term here, and the reader may use his or her own term) is not entirely alone as the source of consciousness. For every up there is a down; for every hot there is a cold; for every yes there is a no. If God says, "do this" the Devil, or the opposing force says, "do something else." Man is caught in the middle and must choose whom he will serve. Now that is, of course, an oversimplification, but it does get the basic situation on the table. If you believe, as we do, that all life, all being, all energy comes forth out of a single source, then you could be called a Monotheist. If, however, you believe that all life is controlled by two sources, be it god and devil, Yin and Yang, light and darkness, good and evil, if this is the basis of your belief, then you may be called a Dualist. We might add, if you believe that no one anywhere controls anything, and that all things just evolved on their own, out of nature, if that is your belief, then you might like to call yourself an Atheist. If you don't know what to believe but would like to explore the merits of the various sets of ideas, then you may think of yourself as being wise and open minded. Let's get a name for you too. We will call you a Free Thinker. By whatever name, we invite your participation as we pursue the related ideas this morning.

Dualism is a very old concept. It originated out of the ancient civilizations of China and Persia; it developed with the Israelites; it sparkled with the early Greeks; and it continued to evolve with the Christian religion. It permeates almost all religions, many philosophies and cults, and the civilizations of history. All the earth in all of history is steeped in this idea. Why?

First of all, we need to observe the nature of what is often considered to be opposing forces or states of being. The idea, for example, of heat and cold as opposing states of being is false. Cold is simply an absence of heat; one simply represents a lack of the other. Darkness is not the opposite of light; darkness is simply the absence of light. We use the term "darkness" to indicate a relatively lesser state of light. Neither does the concept of the powers of light versus the powers of darkness, as being of essentially different sources, have any meaning in reality.

All living things and energy and awareness comes out of a single source. There is no secondary power with an independent source of creative energy. There is no Satan or Devil, nor power of darkness as opposed to light, that is independent of God or the Supreme Source of All Being. This is not to be taken as simply our opinion. This is the factual reality of the nature of consciousness. All of consciousness is ultimately of a single source. Now if this be true (and it is not only true, it is the very essence of truth) then how does the almost universal concept of the idea referred to as dualism come about? What is the nature of an idea that sprouts like a weed throughout a garden?

Let us examine the more complex concept of good versus evil. At first thought you may say, "What about that idea? Surely good and evil can't be the same thing." Of course not. But let us look a little deeper. The father who in all sincerity allowed his child to be offered up to the Ganges River as a living sacrifice was, in the eyes of the Christian Missionary, performing a terrible evil. However, in the eyes of this man's High-soul, this man's heartbreaking obedience to what he believed to be good can never be put down to being an evil act. The mind of the man is mislead. Let there be no misunderstanding here ...he is doing a very wrong thing. But the motive out of which his act is committed is an obedience, in the face of love for his child, that is almost beyond human comprehension. The mind of the earth looks at the act, but the spirit must look also at the motivation behind the act.

What we have here is an act of obedience in which the intent to do good has gone crooked. The straight stick has been bent. And those who did the bending may be more in the wrong than the one who performs the act. What we need here is education of a mind to comprehend the true nature of life. Do not charge off to slay the devil! Sit with the man, to reason through the love that shines in the nature of all life. Present the concept of freedom of thought. This man is the victim of crooked thinking; he is certainly not an evil man. Nor is he being directed by any evil force or power. Believe me, a misdirected human mind needs no other source of evil.

Someone will say, "Very well, but what about the man or group, who wilfully out of hatred, plunders and destroys, slaughters and kills, rapes and destroys; for no gain whatsoever inflicts destruction of an obscene nature? Surely this comes out of an opposing source of evil." You may say, "Don't tell me this comes from God!" No, we do not tell you that this scene comes from The Source of Being. However, you must understand the formidable potential to destruction, as well as the golden stairway to higher consciousness, contained within the gift of freedom of the mind of man to choose. Freedom of choice has been given to man, and what is given is given. It is not withdrawn at the sight of danger, or hatred, or obscenity, or destruction.

Ultimately all High-souls will restore, through the freedom of the minds of the personalities sent out from each soul, that which has been taken or damage done. And the purpose of each soul will eventually come to fulfilment. But the High-soul gives out freedom allowing the mind of each personality to choose. And man must carry the burden of his own choices.

Each one: each man, each woman, each child will create the way he or she will choose to follow. The capacity of a human mind gone crooked, filled with the juices of its own hatred, flowing with the vileness of its self-generated pollution needs no help from any devil, or Satan, or force of evil. But remember, the same mind has the same potential for good. Do not lose sight of the awesome potential of a free mind. In simple essence, what God gives out is not pulled back. Man, of his own freedom of choice, created the evil along with the good that fills the earth today. Tomorrow will be the result of man's choosing today the paths he will follow. The freedom of choice, the freedom to choose, will not be withdrawn.

The potential, the power, and the influence of the human mind to create and to build up massive energy patterns for good or for evil in the earth is hardly, if at all, understood even today. We can not present adequately the material necessary to encompass this subject here, but we must record that the sources of evil as well as good in the earth are created out of the minds of men and women in the earth. The evil of minds past, as well as the good, does not collapse on the death of its creators. "The evil that men do (create) lives after them." This is true of the good as well as the evil. Dualism is not the source of good and evil in the earth. Man's mind is the source of good gone crooked; the freedom to hate festered; the choice of greed allowed to boil over. Do not let the sun set on your greed, or hatred, or desire to damage the well being of your fellow man. This thought practised in unison throughout the earth for one year would cleanse the earth of its evil, and devils, and powers of darkness.

We need to clear up one point here before the theologians (real and self-appointed) have your head! The Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness is not just a story; it is factual in history and needs explanation. [The story of the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness may be found in Matthew, chapter 4; Mark, chapter 1; and Luke, chapter 4.]

Jesus was of a high order of consciousness expressed as a man in history; he had a mission and a purpose; but he was as much an individual, a personality with a will, a mind, and a freedom to choose, as any individual. In the temptation story he was confronted by Satan. What does that mean? It means that, like all men or women, he had an ego, a personal pride, a desire to achieve, a wish to be recognized; also he was well aware of his ability and high consciousness. He knew how to take over and rule the land, even how to cope with the Romans of that time. It was essential that he should exercise his freedom of choice; without freedom of choice we are all zombies ...he, you, or me. The temptation story was written in the symbolic language of the time. The great ego had not yet been identified. "Forty-days" simply represents a long period of time in the writing of that time in history.

For real values of "dualism," see Two Hands Clapping.