Evil!

I was going for a spongebob version of mermaid man saying evil because it is hilarious. Anyways, I have been talking to some relatives about another relative of mine who seems very very nice. She would hang out with another relative who I despised for no reason at all, yet she also despised me for the same reason. We never ever knew why it was. Maybe a past life because the moment I saw her, it was horrible. Anyways she is one of the people I already knew that was pretty bad. Another cousin who should not be named either was an extremely nice person, yet she did not seem that vibrant. She was popular in school and everyone liked her. We thought she was the nicest ever, yet I figured out from another relative that she uses that to manipulate people to get her way. So very strange was when I would think back and she would do the same to me! To think I actually liked her! She seemed so innocent, yet in her own home, she would do that to her sisters when they told on her. The mother would not listen to the sister and the person that told on her would get in trouble. I think this is true evil. To think she has been doing this all this time and no one really noticed. I want to know your thoughts on this and if you are confused, ill try to make it clearer unless you're clairvoyant then I can't make it any clearer than this (bad pun). Also if you have any experiences with people like this one. I should warn her one day should she change her ways because she is like a person that is too good to be true.

First, define evil. To me (and this is not a dictionary definition) an evil person is someone who takes pleasure and delight from hurting others, for no reason at all. The behavior can vary, but if the intent is to hurt someone else, that's evil.
One of the things we, in this (and other) societies do is define evil as whatever we don't approve of, and that blurs the meaning.
I have known people who seemed to be evil (that is, always turned things around to cause confusion or pain) but when you got deep down, there was also a perceived reason for it, or just mental illness. And that is not evil, because in my book, evil does for it's own sake.
Most of the people I have known that are like that are usually reliving (and re-staging) an event that was traumatic in their life. There is the girl (that I knew) who was mistreated and abandoned by her father (long story, not so simple) who then abused every single boyfriend and husband she ever had. Your story reminded me of her because she always manipulated everyone around her to try to hurt the 'man' in her life. If you knew her early history you can see that she is simply rearranging the same stage so that she can have her revenge. It's sad, because this has ruined her daughter's life, but she is more 'sad' than evil, because this all stems from her inability to resolve her issues with her father, and because of this, will always be unhappy.
I have found that the majority of people that are like this has a similar story, and it's the sort of thing that people 'inherit', behavior that causes further behavior down the line, which becomes ingrained, because people lose touch with the reasons they started behaving that way to begin with. And so it goes.
But evil? No, I don't think so.
If I were going to guess, I'd say your 'friend' is mentally ill, and possibly feels like she has no control of her life. So the most rewarding way for her to have some power is to screw with others. The fact that she seems 'sweet' makes me think she's got passive-aggressive tendencies. But maybe she's just sadistic. That her mother listens to her and not her sisters is very telling- she's probably not very well liked in her family.

Personally I don't really believe in evil. I don't think it exists. Not in the way most believe it does. For me evil is just a label. Other than that, I think what I believe about evil is summed up in my sigtnature below, which is a quote from Ultimate Journey by Robert Monroe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SiriusTraveler

Personally I don't really believe in evil. I don't think it exists. Not in the way most believe it does. For me evil is just a label.

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Ditto. There are things that I, personally, would call evil, but really, it's just a label I attach to certain things. I could go into why I experience it that way (it has to do with the Unity of Consciousness and how the victim and the perpetrator are, in fact, one and the same Consciousness, playing a game with Itself), but I don't want to confuse the issue. Evil is not a "thing", nor is good a "thing". And I will add here: In my experience. (And for the record, I have, indeed, experienced all manner of things that people might fairly call "evil", so I'm not just spouting off from some ivory tower. I've been a victim of crimes and abuses of all sorts, as well as a perpetrator of same, because I was not self-aware enough to refrain from those patterns.)

I also agree with CFT about the psychology of manipulative people, etc. Some people develop this trait because they find out early on that it works for them. There are a lot of behaviours that I think are destructive to relationships and ultimately disempowering, and I'd consider manipulative behaviour to be that in most cases, because it's rooted in fear and insecurity, and that's never a good place from which to act. A manipulator does it because they don't believe they can get what they need any other way. It's a pretty weak position and not a nice way to live. :(

I agree with you BW. We are both playing with each other because we are one. I always thought of materializing bodies and making them minds and placing them within the same community and going to school together. I would always wonder what they would do and to me, I know they are all one person which is me and there is God up there laughing at himself knowing we are all him and he is all us and he is also playing a game with himself. Its a funny thing I never really figured that out myself. I always thought to myself that one day I will enter samadhi and just think pure thoughts, but maybe destroy samskaras then start ascending people and telling them about duality and how it is all one, an expression like Sirius said and like you BW we are just playing with ourselves.

IME people are manipulative because at the root of it, they are afraid. They feel powerless/helpless/out of control, so the manipulativeness manifests as self-protection and as a strong desire to control.

Personally speaking from my own experiences, I used to be incredibly manipulative because I felt so frightened of the alternatives and I felt seriously powerless. I eventually learned that my approach doesn't work in the long term.

I've worked hard on my manipulativeness, but recently I realised that I still have a war going on in my mind against whatever/whoever has upset me, and currently I'm using Byron Katie's techniques to address this problem.

With regards to evil, from my own perspective there is evil, and then there's evil on another level entirely. I used to think like most people do, murderers, rapists, paedos, yadda, yadda were evil, but since then I've come into contact with seriously strong negs that ooze pure evil, the kind that paralyze when they come near. So from that, I don't believe your friend is evil or even mentally ill, I think she's probably frightened underneath all of that niceness.

I've felt negs like that a lot, but she is also very nice yet she would try to manipulate people. Most don't actually notice it because she is too nice. Anyways I always get nightmares when I am in one room of my home. About every time there will be me getting transported to another room while I start getting paralyzed and fall into an endless pit. Fortunately I get used to this thing and wake myself up with my big toe.