"Let's not jump the gun," He replied. "Let me give you another example.""OK.""Imagine you have two candles. One is lit and the other is not.""OK...""Now, what happens if you take the lit candle to the extinguished one?""It lights it up," I replied."Good. And what happens if you take the extinguished one to the lighted candle?" He continued his questioning."It lights up again.""So in this case, no matter which candle is brought to which, the end result is the same. Two burning candles.""But it is not quite the same," I protested."Be patient and see where I am leading up to.""OK," I agreed."In this example we end up with the same result regardless of which one approaches the other, because the force of fire or light is an inherent force. An inner force that is radiant and life giving, in this case to the flame. Whereas darkness has no force of its own."I was simply following his argument without responding.He continued, "In the battle of good and evil, you must recognize good as the life giving inner force, the inherent energy of creating. And evil is simply the absence of this force, just like darkness is the absence of light.""I understand," I nodded."But you must also realize that because we are given the freedom of choice, we are free to either choose this inherent force, which we call good, or choose to block the flow of this energy, which we call evil.""So what you are saying is that evil of itself has no power to resist good," I repeated him."Exactly."47Thus Spake the Real Zarathushtra"Then why is there so much evil and destruction on this planet?""That is because we block the flow of energy by our misguided choices, and redirect them to destructive ends.""How?" I asked."Imagine you have a flowing river, and you build a dam in front of it to stop its flow. As a result you end up accumulating a lot of water behind the dam, and if you continue to block the flow, then eventually there will be too much pressure for the dam to withstand. And then you have a massive and destructive flood.""That is pretty dramatic...""All right, imagine you have a pipe carrying gas. If you block this pipe, then you will have a build-up of gas, and it will continue until either you release the pressure by allowing the gas to flow or by blowing up the pipe.""I see." I continued his examples, "Actually, my father passed away from a heart condition. I suppose it is the same with heart attacks. You reduce the flow of blood until you finally block it and then you have a heart attack.""Yes. That is one example of being destructive. But do understand that death does not destroy the person, it will only move that person out of the four dimensional world. And the whole process is far more involved than the mechanical description you just gave."I suppose there are some things that need time to be understood. So I changed the subject back to where we were and asked, "You said by our misguided choices we block the flow of energy. So do you mean to say that `we' are evil?""No. We are not evil. Because our essence is the same as Ahura's. We are infinitely good, at least potentially.""Then you have to clarify it for me," I asked."We are not evil. The `choices we make', when they are not aligned with the Law and Truth, are evil. And because we give our choices power, we can either give them the power to create or destroy."I was pensive.He continued, "You must also realise that energy or power is not evil either. Only our choices can be good or evil. So the thought or information that is not in line with the Law, becomes evil. And since through the energy our thoughts become words or deeds, then our communications or actions can become evil.""As in verse 48:4?" I handed him the open book."Yes, `By making our thoughts better or worse, O Mazda, our words, deeds and conscience shall surely follow.'""So what you are saying is that evil is in the mind.""Precisely.""Isn't that the same as what all these motivational speakers and preachers of the power of positive thinking are trying to say?"48Thus Spake the Real Zarathushtra"Remember, a timeless truth is truth in any era and by any name," He responded."Yes. I remember." I continued, "So let me see if I understand. What you are saying is that evil does not have any power of its own. The only reason it manifests in the four dimensions is because we give it power."He simply nodded.I continued, "And the only way we can give something power is if we think of it in the first place. In other words, evil is in our minds only.""Yes!" He said emphatically."And if we simply correct our thoughts and keep them in line with the Law and Truth, then we can only create good.""You got it!""But wait a minute!" I qu