Daily Theosophy

Peter as well as the other boy had found something worth living for, for the first time in their lives. Peter was 17 and he was 16. They stayed together for two years. But the boy became addicted – something what Peter, despite all his craziness, had always avoided. The boy sank deeper and deeper. One day he was found on the street. Dead, by overdose.

(33)

(Peter’s turnabout)

Peter, now nineteen, understood that life could not go on for ever like this. He might even die. Probably his brains had been damaged so that he would never been able to think normally, and perhaps he would never have a good memory again, confusing things. He became severely depressive. He hadn’t lived with his parents the last two years. Peter had stayed with his friend most of the time, but they didn’t know that. As far as they were concerned, they consoled each other by praying together, and were given special permission to visit the church whenever they liked.

Peter went to his parents. His father didn’t want to see him. But his mother had always a spark of hope – and love. And he told her about his friend, that he was gay, that the friend had died by drugs, that he also had used many drugs and that now he himself wanted a new life. She cried. Finally she knew the truth – and however horrible, its was better than ignorance. They embraced each other and both cried. What she didn’t realize was that her interpretation of his words was wrong. She thought that all his problems had come about because he was gay. She understood that he had never dared to tell, and had rather escaped the normal world than admit that. It was, after all, the greatest shame for a Christian to admit. But in reality that was not the point for Peter – at least not at that time. As for him, he had just been trying to find himself, in a spiritual sense rather than personally. And, he sought, ‘perhaps I am now close to knowing who I am and what I want.’

His father didn’t allow him to stay home, but he met his mother regularly when he was out. They talked a lot – though she felt she could never really understand him. But he understood her. One day she took courage and said: “What about having a talk with the minister?” And that is what he did, alone. He was 20. He had lost. But thought that he had won. It had been too much for his soul. In one way that was good, because it protected him.

He thought that Jesus was guiding him – he was fully convinced of that, without any doubt. He thought he had heard Jesus’ voice talk to him. In reality Jesus had nothing to do with it. It was Peter’s own thought image, fed by despair, the social pressure of a decade and the convincing words of the minister (who had first ‘fully forgiven him’ for his spitting him in the face and scolding more than four years ago). Peter grasped this thought and told himself that is was Jesus himself. Maybe the real Jesus could have helped him.

Jesus certainly would have the power to influence somebody’s thoughts and actions. But that he never does. He may and can never interfere with somebody’s karma, break somebody’s history threads, because Karma comes from a higher source than even Jesus or Buddha or whoever. Jesus would never help someone personally, however much he prayed – and however much love streamed from Jesus heart. The fact is the Jesus taught the people very clearly what was ‘the path, the truth and the life,’ and that he himself was the example of that path. If we want to follow Jesus’ teaching, we should be completely self-sacrificing and unselfish, prepared to carry every burden for the sake of humanity. He would never ask anything for himself, even if he would live in dire circumstances. That was Jesus’ life which we should follow! Moreover Jesus had taught the people that once in the future they would do things greater than he himself was doing now. Because at one time in evolution, in a very far future, all people will be as wise and unselfish and great as Jesus was about 2100 year ago. And they will still evolve further. But how can anyone ever expect to be able to do things ‘greater than Jesus himself,’ if he does not work for many life-times to at least be come the equal of Jesus in nobility?

Jesus’ only desire would be to find and realize Truth, nothing less, and teach it. Truth is the highest religion. And, honestly, that what was ‘written’ in Peter’s pre-birth covenant. That is why I said ‘Peter has lost,’ – that means, for now. He couldn’t go further for now, in this life.

He finished his university studies with success, though deep in his character he knew that something was missing, but he did not know what. Anyway he decided to do good. Doing good, he was taught, meant fighting against what is evil in the world. He was not intelligent enough to understand by himself that good and evil are coming from the same source and are like different sides of a coin, or the top and the bottom of a plate. Moreover his psyche was damaged to an extent, due to his rough years – almost six rough years. Something was missing in his sound reasoning power. He understood that you can never destroy evil by good. He had met many good people in his life, trying to help him, but throughout these more than five years he had remained evil. Of course destroying something is itself evil, so then the good is not good anymore; but he didn’t realize that fully, and even less you can destroy evil with other evil (like starting a war), because that only doubles the amount of evil, and does not help anyone anywhere.

Remember that every evil thought and action, every violent thought or action goes in a circle, and after causing much harm on its way, returns to the person who thought that thought first. So if you destroy another person or suppress his mind, even when it is an evil mind, it will destroy you also sooner or later. Of course you can only “destroy” evil by helping it to become good. When evil has become good it does not exist anymore. The illusion is gone. Even the good does not exist anymore, because it has nothing opposite to compare it with. The best thing is to recognize the good that is in the heart of the evil and kindly stimulate that good. You need patience for that, much patience, may be lifetimes of patience to change somebody’s bad into good, but no doubt somewhere in future it will be accomplished. Every evil is only evil because it causes pain due to misunderstanding and unintelligence, but in the Heart of its heart, the good is also in the evil.

That is quite easy to understand: You can never lie if you do not also know what is true. You can never purposely make something ugly if you do not expressly ignore or deny the beauty in your mind. If you are angry that is either because you don’t want to listen to what is true (so you know that – but you are too proud to admit), or you can not get what you want, while at the same time inside you know that this never can bring you real happiness. You can also be angry because you see real injustice and evil around you, but are unable to do something about it. Then fight for justice and what is right and true, but don’t waist your energy by being angry. Being angry makes no sense, it only causes more suffering, though it always comes from knowing what is good. So when you know that, there is no more good reason to be angry. All wisdom of Jesus, or Mohammad, or Krishna, or Adi is there in your own heart. All you have to do is to listen to the silent good voice in there.

But these things Peter had not learned in his education. He had learned that the best way to help Jesus was to destroy everything that seemed to differ from Jesus’ ideas. So Peter, who had now developed a great skill in talking and preaching and had also learned the power of psychology of how to convince other people of his own ideas (of which he thought that they were the same as Jesus’ ideas), became an evangelist. When he talked fervently about the love of Jesus and the justice of heaven people liked to listen to him. When he told them about the pain of hell (which he thought would last forever) as a result of not doing in the right way what was prescribed by the followers of his particular group of evangelists, people would be afraid, and his listeners would tell themselves to do nothing evil anymore henceforth, but without a short time they would do and think the same things again as always, because thoughts run in circles.

To unlearn bad habits really takes considerable effort, but can be done best by acquiring wisdom, and wisdom you only get by thinking deeply for yourself, and not by ever blindly excepting what somebody else tells you or is written in a book. Peter preached fervently against drugs: “Drugs are invented by the Devil,” he almost shouted. And he seemed to be very excited when he proclaimed that he would never and never allow a homosexual to enter his congregation. He seriously thought that he was serving God and Jesus by saying that. Or did he shout against his own despair?

(34)

(peter and jesus)

Peter had deep within himself that quality of thinking for himself, but it had been suppressed by the minister’s and his parent’s behavior when he was about eleven. But