Dancing in the Light (31 page)

“No, no,” Vassy went on, “this is philosophically extremely important to me. Don’t you think that evil was created for us to overcome?”

“I think,” said Kevin, “that what you are calling evil is really only the lack of consciousness of God. The question is lack of spiritual knowledge, not whether or not there is evil.”

“No, no,” said Vassy, “if evil is ignorance of God, then how to explain those people who consciously rebel against God? They consciously destroy God inside themselves with conscious knowledge. Therefore they are not ignorant of God.”

“It is impossible to destroy the God in oneself. It is immortal,” answered Kevin. “That is why people, primitives, who have never in this life encountered even the concept of God, cannot be condemned
as evil.” Kevin seemed to enjoy the novelty of someone seeking his point of view rather than using him simply as a human telephone.

“But,” continued Vassy, “there are very intelligent, knowledgeable people who are against God.”

“No,” said Kevin, “then they don’t really know God. Whatever your
concept
of God might be is what you yourself will end up being. If an intelligent person rebels against God, he is only rebelling against what his
concept
of God is. Ultimately, then, that person is rebelling against himself.”

Vassy chewed and thought for a while. I made a small salad with lemon and mustard dressing as the discussion continued.

“We are all
under
the law of God, is that not correct?” asked Vassy.

“No, wait a minute,” said Kevin. “We are not
under
the law of God. We are
as
the law of God. We
are
God. We have to totally accept ourselves—to accept the laws of self which are divine. Then we become God. And God and self are one—therefore we are basically total love. You do agree that God is total love?”

“Of course. But where is the place of evil in this scheme then?”

“It doesn’t exist. That’s the point. Everything in life is the result of either illumination or ignorance. Those are the two polarities. Not good and evil. And when you are totally illuminated, such as Jesus Christ or Buddha or some of those people, there is no struggle any longer.”

Vassy rose and began to pace around the kitchen. “No,” he said, “we are created to have struggle on this earth. There is no life without conflict.”

Kevin smiled. “Oh,” he said, “I can very easily picture a life without struggle. Very easily.”

“But no,” protested Vassy. “Even the body alone is such a struggle. For example, just to eat involves struggle. This discussion is struggle.”

“Sure,” said Kevin, “but that’s not what we were created for.”

“No, but struggle
is
some sort of conflict between two polarities. For example, I believe that nature was created to be undisturbed. I believe that an apple has some sort of pain when we eat it. And flowers have pain when we cut them.”

Kevin put down his fork. “Well,” he said, “if you can believe that, then it’s just as easy to believe that the apple is pleased to be eaten because it knows that it exists for the nourishment of other conscious beings. It is in perfect harmony with God and therefore understands that its purpose is to nurture life. Eating, therefore, isn’t necessarily a struggle because everyone benefits—the humans who eat it and the apple which fulfilled its purpose.”

I stood in my kitchen, munching on a carrot, entranced with the conversation, which sounded like a home-grown version of
My Dinner with André.
My thoughts were like a tennis ball, bouncing back and forth as I identified with each player’s point of view.

“I am stubborn,” said Vassy. “Everything you say is okay until there are three persons on a desert island and only one apple. The struggle and conflict is who will survive.”

“Depends upon the people,” said Kevin. “If you had three Buddhist monks faced with the conflict of survival through one apple, they would probably meditate and not eat it at all until they lost consciousness from starvation and simply passed from the earth plane. They would know because of their spiritual education that they were only losing their bodies and not their souls anyway. Therefore their higher knowledge would absolve them of having to engage in any conflict with each other. If you had three pirates faced with the same conflict, they would probably massacre each other, which would only manifest their ignorance of the immortality of the soul. My point is that this would be an example of the ignorance of higher knowledge, not evil per se.
Straggle and conflict is in direct ratio to the knowledge of God. The more knowledge one has of God and one’s own immortality, the less struggle there is. Therefore there is no evil—only the lack of knowledge.”

Vassy thought. Then he said, “Yes, but for me, I am only interested in this lifetime, in this short-term straggle with its mistakes and ignorance. I am not trying to change or understand the cosmos. I am only trying to overcome my ignorance in my struggle
now
—not in future lives, but
now.
So to me the short term is more important.”

“Well,” said Kevin, “I don’t see how you can approach the deeper truth in the short term without understanding the nature of the long term.”

“Of course the knowledge of God relates to the long term, but the real practice of life is
now
—in short terms. My karmic investment is according to my life
now.”

“Okay, but if you think in terms of God being both good and evil, you will end up manifesting both of those polarities in your life because you believe it is true. You are the result of your own thought. We all are. What we think is what we are. If you believe you are good and God is total love and God is in you, then your personal behavior patterns will express that belief.”

“So it is endless, yes?”

“Yes.”

Both men sat down on the couch while I brought them cinnamon coffee. Then Kevin asked Vassy a question that never would have occurred to me.

“Have you ever had an out-of-body experience?” he asked.

Vassy looked suddenly frightened. “You mean, have I experienced an astral projection?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, I have. Once. I was in a state of total peace. A state of nirvana during a period when I was practicing yoga and fasting. Suddenly I felt my
self rise out of my body. I saw myself sitting meditating on the floor. It was extremely frightening to me.”

“Why?” asked Kevin.

Vassy leaned back against the pillows, trying to frame his words to his recalled thought.

“I lost control,” he said. “I didn’t know where it would be going. I had no ground under me. No earth, no restrictions. I was very frightened. It was very strong experience, very fantastic. Since that time, I have been more cautious with my spiritual searching.”

Vassy took a long sip of coffee, seeming to brush away the memory of what he had just described. I thought it interesting that he felt a need for restriction. Kevin continued.

“Do you think you would feel less frightened if you experienced it with another person?”

Vassy looked over at me with an involuntary expression of longing on his face.

“I believe I could have that experience with Sheerlee. She feels every thought of mine. I can’t lie to her. She feels everything I feel.”

I reached across and touched his hand. What he said was true.

“I feel,” he continued, “the connection with my mother. I feel her prayers. I always know when she is praying, particularly when she is praying for me. And when I check with her, I have always been correct. Sometimes when she is praying during nighttime in Russia, I can feel it during odd times of the day here.”

Kevin was silent.

Vassy stood up. “Listen,” he said, “we Russian Christians are sure that anyone who is not Russian Orthodox Christian is possessed by the Devil—in one way or another.”

Kevin put some sugar in his coffee. “I try to educate people, but I don’t try to change people. If they fina higher spiritual knowledge too difficult to
cope with because they don’t want to give up their concepts of good and evil, then they usually join the Church. Within the Church they get the confirmation that good and evil do exist and they still get a touch of God. But it’s too bad that they give evil equal credence with good. Eventually everyone stumbles across some aspect of higher knowledge and they change of their own accord.”

Vassy put his hands squarely on the coffee table in front of him. “You are saying that the absence of struggle puts you closer to God?”

“Yes,” answered Kevin, “because you already
are
God. The discrepancy comes in not believing that. Human beings believe they are part evil—so they act accordingly. We are a product of what we believe, what we think.”

Vassy punched his head. “I have real difficulty with this,” he said exasperatedly. “Real difficulty. It’s very far from Christian understanding of God. It is difficult for me to be a part of this world where I
know
struggle with evil is required and believe that if I gave up that struggle I would be closer to realizing God.”

“That
is
the struggle,” said Kevin. “Struggle is the struggle. We are on this earth, in my opinion, to learn that we don’t need to struggle. That is the real enlightenment. The process of learning that there is no struggle takes struggle, but life itself is
not
struggle.”

Vassy punched his head again. “But I am trying to write a script and it is a struggle. Or when I make a movie it is a permanent struggle.”

“Yes,” said Kevin, “but if you relaxed more and just let the creativity flow, you would find your need to struggle decrease. But if you believe that creative struggle is necessary to a good script then you will create
struggle
instead of a good script. Or maybe you will create struggle
and
a good script—but you will never know whether it could have been better if you had not struggled.…”

I laughed out loud.

“Sheerlee doesn’t like me to explain my philosophy about good and evil.”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I’ve learned a great deal from this discussion.”

“Yes?” said Vassy. “What have you learned?”

“I have learned that it has been a struggle for me to watch the struggle you two have gone through in struggling to prove that struggle to understand only produces more struggle that is the most struggling struggle of struggles.”

“My dear,” said Vassy triumphantly, “may I have some vodka?”

Vassy and Kevin and I cleared the table. Kevin prepared to go into trance.

“Kevin,” Vassy asked. “Do you get ridiculed for this trance channeling you do?”

Kevin smiled patiently. “Oh, sometimes,” he said, “but usually the people who come to me are interested in higher spiritual knowledge or they wouldn’t be with me in the first place.”

“But,” I asked, “do they think you are only acting when the spiritual entities come through?”

“My dear Sheerlee,” announced Vassy, “I can tell you that spiritual entities exist. We know that in Russia. And as a director I can also tell you that they are not acting. No, they are not acting.”

“All right,” I said, “but I have been reading lots of literature on the subject and perhaps the channeler is picking up what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious. Maybe it isn’t really spiritual entities you are channeling, but more what your subconscious perceives.”

“Perhaps,” said Vassy, “but the information is usually the same wherever the channeling occurs. For example, reincarnation is the basic truth and everything else stems from that.”

Kevin calmly listened to Vassy and me discuss the authenticity of what he, Kevin, had devoted his
life to. He nodded with each point of view and each question. He didn’t feel called upon to defend himself but he was interested in how each of us related to the phenomenon.

Vassy leaned forward. “Can I ask about evil tonight from your guides?”

“Sure,” said Kevin. “Ask anything you want. That’s what I’m here for. Shall we begin?”

Vassy asked Kevin if he was comfortable and puffed up a pillow for him to rest his back against. I retrieved a glass mug from the kitchen and filled it with water, remembering that McPherson appreciated the pub feeling.

Kevin placed his arms gently on the armrest of the chair and quietly began to breathe deeply. I turned off the telephone and turned on the tape recorder.

The following is a slightly edited version of what transpired.

Kevin’s head fell to his shoulders as he went into trance. His breathing changed. In about five minutes there was a sudden shudder through his body. His head bobbed up again. His eyes were shut. His mouth opened and in a few moments these words came:

“Hail. State purpose of gathering.”

It was the John entity that had come through.

“We are two people here,” I said. “We would like to ask some questions. We don’t really have them organized. Is that all right?”

“Yes,” came the voice. “Proceed with questioning.”

I gestured to Vassy. He indicated I should go first.

“John?” I asked. “Is that you?”

“Yes,” came the answer. Very sparse, with no frills or further greeting.

“Well, it’s nice to speak with you again. I have a friend here whom I’ve met since we last talked and he is as interested in this stuff as I am.”

“Very well,” said John.

“So, I guess my first question is, is there a real need on our earth for spiritual enlightenment? I mean, would it decrease human suffering and pain if more people understood the spiritual dimensions of themselves?”

“That is correct,” answered John. “The collective consciousness of the entire human race manifests the reality of your earth plane. The influence of the mind of man creates disturbances in nature and of course your human activities.”

“You mean,” I said, “that the mind of man can influence nature, like earthquakes and flooding and things?”

“That is correct. Gravitational influences and planetary harmony are affected by the minds of beings on every planet. You are experiencing natural disturbances on your planet because the consciousness of the human race needs raising.”