Hidehiko Ochiai, a modern Zen master in karate, is an example of one who taught the absence of evil intention

In asking us not to choose sides, the Company of Heaven is asking us something that a Zen master might ask a student.

The Zen master requires of the student the absence of evil intention. It’s absent when the student breaks through to a higher plane of being from which one can defend, but in which there is only love in the action, not evil intention.

Consequently, there are no “sides.” There is only stimulus-response.

Kick comes in. Respond.

Fist comes in. Respond.

Without evil intention.

***

I’ve had such a lot of trouble with this one because I’m committed. I’m committed to freedom with peace and dignity. I’m committed to defending others against harm. I’m committed to the Mother’s Plan, while having the temperament of a warrior.

And so I ask myself: How can I be committed and not take sides?

If we’re to figure the puzzle out, we have to look at levels of consciousness.

What happens for the Zen master’s student is that, keeping his instruction in mind to let go of all evil intention, they break through one day to a higher plane of consciousness, to what Zen adepts call “quiet mind.”

The mind may be quiet, but the heart flows with love. The student experiences themselves as a fullness of love that can never be denied again. And they’re now entering – or trying to enter – into action from that fullness of “empty” mind.

Being in that love, the student can be said to have reached a place of absence of evil intention. That’s a higher level of being than we normally operate from.  Higher Fourth Dimension? I don’t know. Fifth? Ditto. It doesn’t come with a road map.

It’s rare before Ascension that a person experiences a higher plane and the experience lasts.  Ascension itself is a full and permanent heart opening. Before that we have temporary experiences of all kinds – temporary heart openings, realizations, visions, etc. – which leave their mark. Our hearts may remain open for a time but eventually only to a lesser degree.

Whatever the case, no evil intention can live in that love when it arises. Let me put it another way: As long as we’re in the experience of that love, no evil intention is able to arise in our minds.  (1)

***

When the Zen student acts, therefore, they act without ego involvement or judgment, without their accompanying act and script.

This higher plane they’re on sees them leave the ego-mind.  That’s what they broke through on. (1)  They act without an “act.” They talk without a “script.”

That’s what makes their action clean, with no residue: They act and it’s complete when it’s done.

In asking us not to choose sides, the Company of Heaven is putting us through the same training, the same discipline as a Zen student.

Act, yes. Honor your commitments, yes. See matters from the point of view of the ego-mind? No.

It doesn’t have to be elegant. When we see an evil intention arise, just drop it as you would a stone. That’s all it takes.

Simply refraining from ill-intended action without being in that state of higher love feels artificial. And it is. But it’s one step closer to being in the state itself.

There’s more chance of a realization when one acts from the discipline – even if mechanical – than if one does not. It may “grow on us.” It may “become second nature.” Our guides may give us an experience – if we ask for it. Etc.

And it’ll certainly benefit those around us because what I just described is another exit route from the cycle of conflict. (2)

Footnotes

(1) One can leave the ego-mind all at once, as in a breakthrough experience, or gradually, as with a new parent or a new teacher, for example.

One of the differences between a feeling and a divine state is that many things can disrupt a feeling – “You made me mad” – but nothing can interrupt a divine state unless we choose to allow it to. Another difference is that a feeling happens inside of us while we are immersed in a divine state.

(2) See Leaving the Cycle of Conflict at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Leaving-the-Cycle-of-Conflict-26.pdf