Some years ago someone asked me, "What about absolute evil?" The answer is this: with Confucius we say that sin is due to ignorance, and with Pythagoras that evil is due to the absence of good. Ignorance leads to selfishness, and extreme ignorance leads to extreme selfishness, which in turn leads to extreme evil. Now, all these are relative conditions and pass away in time as the person learns his lessons through the series of experiences and corrects his mistakes during the reincarnations. There cannot be an absolute evil because there is only one Absolute Power, one God, one Supreme Being; and it is this which inspires the highest goodness known to man when he discovers its presence, through the Overself, in his heart. In that sense only I said there was an absolute good. The pairs of opposites exist only in the finite, relative, and limited world. There is no opposite to the Supreme Power in the timeless and infinite world, no Satan with whom God is in everlasting conflict. But, on its own level, Mind knows neither good nor bad. There is only IS-ness.
-- Notebooks Category 11: The Negatives > Chapter 1 : Their Nature > # 17
