During a recent ACIM TEXT Conference Call, where ACIM Students from across the continent joined to read the ACIM OE Text, a question came up: What is evil? More CALL information
After the Call ended, all of the Call participants of the Monday through Friday early morning Text Conference Call were given the option to take some time away from the call, to go within, to listen to Guidance, and to ‘give away’ as they heard.
The following is what some of the participants shared:
QUESTION:
“So, I guess my question is: What is evil?”
ANSWER:
A: [RHETT] I believe evil is simply what the egoic mind plays with and loves when it is left unrestrained and hidden from True Love's Light. Evil loves to take without giving back. It's appetite is insatiable rendering peace for its host impossible. It lives to judge, divide, separate, compare, diminish. It thrives on the lowering of others and THINKS it flourishes when positioned above others. Yet its offerings live only in the plane of the body, its temporal nature its biggest dilemma. And, ironically... evil doesn't really exist. It is merely the prime ingredient of a bad dream in the sleeping mind of God's Son, who forgot to laugh at his own crazy, mad idea that he could be happier if separated from God.
A: [RĒJA JOY] Evil is an illusion. It shows up as our misperceptions of what is REAL. It is False Evidence Appearing Real. In other words FEAR. In regards to FEAR, the Course tells us that the EGO is literally a fearful thought. When we look with Christ’s VISION, aka Forgiveness then illusion, fear, ego, and evil, disappear into the nothingness from which they came. In the text reading for April 30th we read: “The real world can actually be perceived. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing else. For if you perceive both good and evil, you are accepting both the false and the true and making no distinction between them.” ACIM OE CH 10.71 Which brings to mind the introduction to the Course: “Nothing Real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”
A: [CARL] Whenever I hear the word evil I generally think "evil" is "live" spelled backwards. To "Live" is to experience God working in my life. Anything that is not of God is "evil" which would be what I perceive as the illusion. When I see behind the illusion I am truly "(A)live" in the Real World.
A: [PAULA] To me it's short and simple..."Evil is everything that is not of God."
A: [REV PAMELA] Nothing.
A: [CHRIS G.] Evil: A state of judgment by the mind that helps to perpetuate the separateness. It's used as a reference to actions, done by or to other humans, that seem impossible in our minds. How can someone kill or do grave harm to others? It must be seen as evil and seen as something separate from us.
A: [ROSE] For me, it's very clear from Lesson 110 “I am as God created me.”
2 “If you remain as God created you, fear has no meaning, evil is not real, and misery and death do not exist. Today's idea is therefore all you need to let complete correction heal your mind and give you perfect vision which will heal all the mistakes that any mind has made at any time or place. It is enough to heal the past and make the future free. It is enough to let the present be accepted as it is. It is enough to let time be the means for all the world to learn escape from time and every change that time appears to bring in passing by.” ~ That's it in a nutshell for me. Nothing but Love exists and when I focus on only Love I will remember nothing but Love.
A: [CANDICE] I think it's a good sign that I haven't given the idea of evil any mind space for quite a while, but since you asked, when actions that look terribly evil show up in the world, I see it as confusion and as a prompting that if there is anything in my mind that is not peaceful, it needs to be brought up for healing.
A: [CHRIS S.] HA! Trick question!! Only LOVE is real!! :o)