“We all complain of the senseless order of life, which is at variance with our being, and yet we refuse to use the unique and powerful weapon within our hands — the consciousness of truth and its expression; but on the contrary, under the pretext of struggling with evil, we destroy the weapon, and sacrifice it to the exigencies of an imaginary conflict.” – Leo Tolstoy

Whenever and wherever you struggle with evil you dull your ability to cut through the more intractable questions you will inevitably face in life. Good and evil, like light and darkness are not, in truth, opposites. Evil, like darkness, is simply the absence of light — in this case, the light of truth.

To resist evil is therefore to struggle with the unreal. It is, as Cervantes so beautifully described it, the process of tilting at windmills. This is an important recognition when you also realize that struggle with indicates subjection to. As history shows, true happiness and lasting fulfillment rarely, if ever occur as a result of subjection to the unreal.

This may be hard to swallow, but when you look at it, the overwhelming majority of man’s institutions are built upon the premise of resisting evil. Which government, nation-state, or church, for instance, has not been caught up in the effort to defend all that they judge to be “good,” while rallying against what they deem to be “evil?” Wars on terror, crime, drugs, poverty and fights against viruses, cancer, whaling, Monsanto, political opponents and the devil ensue on this basis as generation after generation of people with undoubtedly good intentions rally against what they have deemed to be evil.

Evil cannot be overcome by evil. There is no end to fighting fire with fire; it is a self-perpetuating loop. The way out is lit by the light of truth and the only way out is through the cultivation of a deep and clear personal relationship with truth.

So how do we gain a better understanding of truth?

As history shows us, it takes more than earnestness, diligence and passion to develop a consciousness of truth. You do not need more information, more educational degrees, or more religion to acquaint yourself with truth. In fact, all truth emerges from one fundamental Natural Law and it is easier to cultivate this relationship than you might think, provided you begin the process correctly.

So where must anyone desirous of knowing the truth begin? The first step is as obvious as it is overlooked. Your consciousness of truth widens and deepens the moment you stop resisting evil.

Why is it that children and sages are possessed of the same quality of innocence? In innocence there is no struggle, no internal conflict. Innocence is an aspect of the radiant glow of being; being is the evidence of the union of inner truth and outer expression. Innocence is not naïveté, it is state of alignment: as above so below, as within so without. It is the state that Jesus referred to when He said: “I and the Father are one.” The Buddhists refer to this as a state of “oneness.”

The first quality of being that is lost when struggling with evil is innocence. So, to return to innocence, to restore or expand your consciousness of truth, you must cease resisting evil. Stop resisting evil and you will soon restore sanity and balance to the dystopia that shrouds reality.

Isn’t that what we’re here to do anyway? We are here to bring order out of chaos. Resist not evil and your awareness of truth will blossom in all its fullness.