"Can you tell me what, from your judgment and experience, you consider to be the source of suffering and unhappiness in the world?" A wave of movement went through the audience. I looked around and saw mostly young people, while a few academic-type older men sat in a first row. People looked at one another, waiting to see who would answer, and then I heard Masha's low voice pronounce with a slight giggle, "Is it evil?"
Vladimir looked at her momentarily with the same unusual attantion I noticed in his eyes before, then continued, "When you say 'evil', it is a powerful statement. But this statement also distances you from the source. It's like you cut yourself off, or cut off everything which is good in yourself from the nature of evil, and you think that through that, you can achieve healing and protection.
"In reality, it is vice versa. When you distance yourself from the source of suffering, when you name it as opposite to what you want to be (I assume that you all want to be good, don't you?), you lose a chance to change it. Because it continues to live inside you, as part of you, making you make many of your choices, but you refuse to recognize it, so you remain in ignorant bliss and you continue to suffer.
"We call the source of unhappiness and disease 'trauma'. And we believe that there are live representations of trauma in all of us. In our tradition, we call them 'spirits of trauma.'
The Master of Lucid Dreams
Olga Kharitidi