Christmas thoughts

When I was a kid, I was taught that the devil was a dangerous man. What he actually did was not really clear, we were just taught to be afraid of something ‘bad’. In my teenage years, I started to think that this whole concept of a bad man - with the name Satan – was a joke. A way to manipulate me. 

Recently, however, I have started to reconsider that maybe the concept of a “devil” is not as crazy as I thought it was. Maybe I was not smart enough to understand what my teachers taught me during my youth. Or maybe they knew it existed, but didn’t know how to best explain the concept to me. So they created a bad and ugly looking man – not a woman… - with the name “Satan”.

A few months ago the concept of “devil” became much clearer to me. It started when I saw young people using the name of God – they call him Allah – as a reason to behead people who believe in the same God, but who call Him by a different name. Suddenly I understood the concept of “devil”. I explained to myself that the “devil” is in fact a “state of mind”. If you allow your mind to be poisoned with thoughts that result in actions which create damage, then the “devil” possesses your mind.

“Creating damage” is a broad concept. It can mean cutting off the head of a fellow man; it can be destroying Mother Nature because of greed and on such a scale that we are all going to suffer from it, for instance by causing the over-concentration of CO₂; or it can mean damaging yourself by using an overdoses of alcohol or drugs. In all these cases the “devil” is in our mind and makes us do things that “create damage”.

There is a way to control this “devil”. And the only one who can do that, is you.

This is why Christmas is such a beautiful period. It offers you an opportunity to contemplate whether you also have a “devil” in your mind. Are you greedy? Are you thinking only about yourself? Are you destroying Mother Earth, the house we live in? Are you honest to others? Use Christmas to analyse your situation, and if you find that you have a “devil” inside you, send him out.

How can you send this “devil” out? Well, the contrary of “devil” is “God”. “God” is our concept for “good”. If you let “Goodness” manage your mind, automatically the “devil” will disappear. Talk with the Universe and let it enter. If your heart is a desert, then plant trees in it. Make it green and healthy. Do you think my words are crazy? Then remember this: everybody is spiritual. You have a spirit, and so do your companion, your wife and your neighbour. We all have it. The shortest way to their heart is a smile. Bring yourself with a smile in the heart of the other. And let the smile of the other enter into your heart too. Listen to their worries, their arguments, their view on life. You will see that if our good spirits combine, there is no place for “devils” anymore.

Happy Christmas!

Pieter Hoff, 

The Green Musketeer