A Spiritual Perspective - How to deal with good and evil persons

  

Some persons that we run into in our journey through life are neutral, neither good nor bad in any substantial manner. Yet, there are also others we may encounter who are intensely evil or immensely good, who did much harm or much good to us respectively or at least tried to. It is not that they always succeeded because eventually what happens to us has to do with our own fate. The difference between good and evil persons is that an evil person will easily harm others for the sake of their own self interest, ego or pride, whereas good persons often sacrifice their own self interest to do good to others. Evil persons also tend to impose their will on others and will easily do to others what they would not like done to them. Therefore a cruel person is an evil person. Good persons on the other hand appreciate the freedom of others to choose and tend to be compassionate to all life most of the time. Having said that, it must be recognized that some good exists in evil persons too just as some evil exists in beings that are in the main good. Here the reference is to the tendency that dominates a personality most of the times.

Some of these good or evil persons that we encountered in life were perhaps encounters of a brief kind, those that crossed our paths briefly, yet others would be of the intimate kind, our spouses, parents, children, siblings etc. with whom our interaction may have been a long drawn out one. While the obvious thing to do in life is cultivate association with good persons and move away from evil ones and while one can do that with associates, even a  a spouse by severing that relationship because it is one in law, it is quite impossible to do that with parents or children and the bond being a biological one can never ever be broken completely. It may only be minimized when one becomes an adult or children become adults as the case may be. Some ask how can parents or children be evil? That is not a sensible question because evil persons can also have children and are children of some other humans.

The question then arises as to how to deal with emotions that ensue out of such good and evil encounters? I too have encountered both kinds in life. In fact my very father did much evil to me all through his life from my birth to his grave. It was not that he was not affectionate or did not try to do his duty as a father. It was simply that he was made that way and he did that with all my brothers and sister as well as others he encountered in life, very deviously and discreetly, trying to maintain an impression through it all, that he was a good man. That was his very nature. If he did not do much more harm to each of us individually it was because he or we were busy elsewhere for periods, away from each other. My mother often remarked that I escaped his evil doings in childhood because he was much too busy trying to ruin my elder brother at that time. However, in later life after my elder brother emigrated abroad and a younger one joined the army, he did get much opportunity but being older I was able to ward of some of that evil some of the time. On the other hand our mother, a godly soul with a pure and divine heart, did much good to all of us, brothers and sisters, including my father as well as many others all through her days on earth. It was just her nature to do so. It was our mother who saved the  life and careers of my father, brothers, sister and my own from imminent doom at various times through her works and efforts. while also making our daily lives full of joy and goodness, a very hard job since our father worked so hard to make it miserable.

This is how I have learned to take it all in life through much reflection and much spiritual deliberation. The important thing to understand is that what is substantial to us is our own selves and the Lord or the Universe. Those are the only things that shall remain with us through many life times and it is He who is our eternal Father and Mother. He ensures that whatever happens to us in life is exactly what we deserve and is good for the growth of our soul. Humans or others, including Nature that brings about good or evil in our lives are mere instruments. Therefore, it is really not worth it to hold any deep or long lasting anger against those who harmed us. They were mere instruments to unfold the evil that was our due. Holding that anger imprisons our souls and harms us while letting it go in forgiveness or otherwise if not worth forgiving, such as discarding useless trash in the garbage bin,  leaves the Lord free to deal with it in an appropriate and just way.

On the other hand, we must be grateful to those who do good to us because gratefulness strengthens our soul and to be grateful to those who did good to us is to be grateful ultimately to the Universe our Eternal Father and Mother to whom we owe everything including our souls, for when the journey ends, everything whether it be secret or insignificant shall be brought into judgment, before we embark on the next lap of our eternal journey, when the next train is assigned to us along with its supervisory staff, and the uniform that we shall be made to wear for it, perchance it shall be like that of an insect that crawls upon the earth or one like that of the gods that rest in groves of awesome beauty and fly upon wings or even one like that of a King or Queen that rules upon the land, all this, after the dust shall return to the earth as it was and the soul unto God who gave it.