Fighting Evil Within Ourselves

Recently, I had breakfast with an old friend and retired Methodist minister. During our time together, my friend mentioned how difficult it is to resist evil and to hold to those values and truths we’re taught. He quoted Matthew 10:16, where Jesus sends his disciples out to the nation of Israel, warning them of the troubles they might face, and saying they should be as “wise as serpents; innocent as doves.” How, I wondered, could one accomplish that state of being? What would that mean?

Wisdom might be gained by living a long life, thoughtfully and studiously, but perhaps the disciples would not be long-lived. And, how might they remain (or become) “innocent as doves?” I decided that Jesus could only have meant that they should undertake and continue that internal struggle against all the worldly temptations they would (and we all do) face, all the time. I began thinking about the term jihad, not in its most frequent misuse by the English-speaking press, but in the more traditional way.

“Within Islamic belief, Muhammad is said to have regarded the inner struggle for faith the "greater jihad", prioritizing it over physical fighting in defense of the Ummah, or members of the global Islamic community. One famous hadith has the prophet saying: "We have returned from the lesser jihad (battle) to the greater jihad (jihad of the soul)." Muslim scholar Mahmoud Ayoub states that "The goal of true jihad is to attain a harmony between islam (submission), iman (faith), and ihsan (righteous living)." Greater jihad can be compared to the struggle that Christians refer to as "resisting sin", i.e. fighting temptation, doubt, disbelief, or detraction. The greater jihad is about holding fast against any ideas and practices that run contrary to the Muhammad's revelations (Qur'an), sayings (Hadith) and the examples set by how he lived his life (Sunnah). This concept of jihad has does not correspond to any military action.”[1]

“Martin Buber [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber], in his book Good and Evil, raises the question, What should be the ‘point of attack for the struggle against evil?’ And his reply is ‘The struggle must begin within one’s one soul – all else will follow upon this.’” [See Fox, Matthew, SINS OF THE SPIRIT, BLESSINGS OF THE FLESH. New York, Harmony Books. 1999, p. 2] How interesting and affirming that this Jewish philosopher seems to endorse the concept of “greater jihad.”

And it’s not only in the Abrahamic faiths that we find this concept. Hermann Hesse wrote, in his novel Siddhartha (1922), a story about Buddha's rebellion against tradition and his quest for enlightenment.

”And he found: "It was the self, the purpose and essence of which I sought to learn. It was the self, I wanted to free myself from, which I sought to overcome. But I was not able to overcome it, could only deceive it, could only flee from it, only hide from it. Truly, no thing in this world has kept my thoughts thus busy, as this my very own self, this mystery of me being alive, of me being one and being separated and isolated from all others, of me being Siddhartha! And there is no thing in this world I know less about than about me, about Siddhartha!"[2]

I conclude that wisdom and innocence must be the inevitable result of our constant struggles to resist temptation, and to find the harmony that comes from faith and righteous living. Would you agree?

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