We Have to be Very Careful What We See in Others
Transcript from an Open House with Ananda Tara Shan, 26 March 1987

It is not too good if you think too much about the Lord of Darkness and his co-workers and companions throughout the week. It’s best to think about the Light Brotherhood.
 
There is another question here also about dark forces, and that is this one, showing the sticker here, ‘I’m a crazy maze master’ it says, and it says here, ‘I happened to see young people wearing the sticker during Moomba.* Is there anything one could or should do about it, it’s obviously the dark forces.’ And that is what it is supposed to say and it looks like this, orange and black.
 
I would like to say that we shouldn’t talk too much about what is dark and what is light, what is evil and good. Because if we think too much about the darkness, we attract it to us, and as we are also darkness within us, this quality is strengthened within us. It’s much better that we try to see only the light everywhere in the world and so we attract the light forces to us, which strengthens our positive side, our positive nature. 
 
It’s not very good to try to see evil and good in people, in nature, in man, in festivals, in conferences, in cities, because it strengthens negative aspects. Better to know that the darkness exists and that the people of light try their very best to neutralise the darkness, transmute the darkness, by living, righteous living, and using meditation, by sending positive thoughts and feelings to people. Healing is a means of neutralising darkness. 
 
The more we think about the powers of darkness, the more we are also incorporating these forces into our being, and because we are not light enough in ourselves [until we reach] a very high extent of initiation, we can become imbalanced. That is why when I come across people who say ‘evil here’ and ‘evil there’ – they see evil behind every leaf and tree – they very often have too much darkness in themselves and they project this darkness onto everything.
 
The Dark Brotherhood and the Brotherhood of Light work side by side, testing man in his evolution towards the light.  And it is true that the forces of darkness work to destroy matter on Earth, destroy the light, but we should concentrate our efforts in utilising the powers of the light and seeing only the light in our fellow human beings and in what happens to the world. 
 
It is something that we have to decide to do sooner or later when we walk on the path of light. We have to decide that we only want to see the soul light qualities in every human being, however mean and malicious they might appear to be. And sometimes it is easy for you to do so, especially if you are in balance that day and you are happy and content with life. Because if you are discontent, imbalanced and in any way unhappy, it is much easier to see the darkness in life and darkness in one’s environment and darkness in oneself. 
 
The major important thing is therefore to try to contact soul, let soul be the qualities we look for in others and we will also strengthen this aspect in other people.
 
It is true that a disciple of the Hierarchy has to be realistic and has to sort of know what he’s doing, which forces are darkness, which forces are light, but then you also have to be able to discriminate perfectly – for that you need soul contact.
 
Very often people are accused of dark, evil, black magic, and these poor people are very far from being anything they are called to be and it is not positive to treat other people in this manner. We should strive to see people as having difficulties in life, and sometimes when they have major difficulties, they appear dark, and other times when they are carefree and happy, they appear light – it’s the same person. So we have to be very careful what we see in others, not to strengthen the negative in them.
 
 
 
*Moomba is a large free community festival held annually in Melbourne.