The bottom line of every challenge we face is "which path shall we choose, fear or love and trust?" Do we make the very natural mistake of fearing evil or loving and trusting good?

Recently, at a State High School, the students were learning to meditate. Parents were allowed to take part. When the meditation began, two women began quite overtly praying. Later they explained that meditation is evil, and that if the children still their minds the 'devil' can get in and take over. In essence, these women's fear of the devil was greater than their love and trust of God. Yet, as their belief creates their own reality, it would be foolish of them to meditate until they had overcome their fear. Remember, if your beliefs were no greater than a mustard seed nothing would be impossible to you. Not even conjuring up 'devils' as individual and collective thought forms.

As for meditation being evil, "Nothing of itself is evil, but if you believe a thing to be evil, that thing becomes evil" ... Jesus of Nazareth as quoted by Paul. Eventually we will all come to realise that all the joys and all the terrors of this physical world are created by Man. No gods or devils inflict them upon us. The physicists like Fritjof Carpra, author of 'The Tao of Physics', are just realising that "patterns of matter that we see in physics are reflections of mind". The mystics have known that for thousands of years, yet we still see without perceiving and hear without understanding; which is why Jesus said he would have to speak the truth in parables.

It just does not occur to those who put their concept of God outside of self and all other creation, that we ourselves create or attract our own experiences; physically and psychically. Murder, famine, war violence, gods, ghosts and demons. They all begin as thoughts objectified and made potent by our emotions. "You cannot observe a thing without that thing being altered by the observer."... The Uncertainty Principle of quantum physics. Devil worshippers objectify their own thought forms and the thought form of a demon is given great potency by the way the worshippers respond emotionally. The 'devil' does, indeed, have a psychic reality, but it is man-made. Wherever there is poltergeist activity you will find in almost all such cases an unhappy, angry teenager or child unconsciously creating the phenomenon. In rare cases the child may be doing it consciously.

So, it would be foolish to contest the beliefs of the women who feared the 'evil' of meditation and the devils 'power'. That is their truth. It may not be skilful truth but it is theirs nevertheless. It might help to wonder what Jesus was doing for forty days and nights alone in the wilderness, if not in union with God through meditation. It should also be remembered that Jesus himself taught creative meditation. These days some call it creative 'visualisation' in order to circumvent the dark age fears of meditation.

Here is the teaching... "If you pray with the very real conviction that you have a thing already, IT WILL BE YOURS." And again, "Whatsoever ye desire, if you BELIEVE that you possess it already, it will be yours."

"All phenomena are originally in the mind, and really have no outward form, therefore, as there is no form, it is an error to think that anything is there." ... Ashvaghosha, C.80 AD.