Resist not evil.
This is essentially a discussion I inadvertently omitted from the previous post, Just the person, which see. Some recent event clarified the imagery, and so brought it back to mind.
Air is transparent. It allows all visible light to pass right through. It casts no shadow. Glass is transparent, too. So is water.
Most other things I can think of are opaque. They don’t allow visible light to pass right through. They cast a shadow. One could say they block light, but that’s not really so. The fact is, in terms of colored objects, they reflect some visible light and absorb all the rest.
Except for black and white objects. Black objects absorb all visible light; white objects reflect it all.
A red object reflects red light and absorbs all other colors. A green object reflects green light and absorbs all other colors. I don’t, and wish I did, understand how this happens at the atomic and molecular level.
Similar things occur in human interactions.
When someone comes to me displaying hostility toward me, I have options. I can reflect the hostility, becoming defensive and hostile myself and telling the person she or he is wrong. Or, I can absorb the hostility, becoming sad and guilty and telling him or her that he or she is right.
These are the only options most Americans today know of.
A third option is to become transparent, and let those energies pass right through me — and let them exit my experience.
I will sustain no damage.
Related: No worse for wear
If someone were to shoot me, and my flesh put up no resistance to the bullet whatsoever, it would pass right through me, and I would sustain no damage.
This is what Jesus meant by “resist not evil” (Matthew 5:39).
This is like what I must do in meditation.
If I am sitting in silence and some untoward thought comes, an untoward shift in affect (emotion, feeling) has always occurred first. If my attention takes hold of that thought or feeling, I am in for the reflect-or-absorb scenario described above. I need instead to let it pass right through me — and let it exit my experience. A challenge in my spiritual growth right now is to accept that foul emotions do sometimes come up within me — one does sometimes fart or poop spiritually — and just let it go.
There is a fourth option.
Microscopic germanium particles fluoresce under “black light.” Details here.
Some materials fluoresce: they absorb energy of one wavelength, change its wavelength and send it back out. The spiritual equivalent of this is called “sublimation.” All free-willed creatures, including us, have the ability and right to change light into darkness and darkness into light. One can change curses into blessings. Jesus describes this at Matthew 5:44.
Related: Coming abstractions
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