We come across many people who deliberately harm others and use others as a tool to achieve their selfish interests. However, it is also true that all people have a sense of goodness within them. Then why does it happen that some become demons while some become angels? It appears that it depends upon the "level of awareness" and "competence".
By "level of awareness", I mean the dimensions of life, we are aware of. Some are at a very low level of awareness, and remain concerned about the "survival" only. For survival, they can steal, murder, kill others, and break the rules of society. Some have a larger awareness about the existence of others and society, and yet their obsession with self is quite strong. They pretend to be concerned about the larger society and surreptitiously keep pursuing their self-interest. Some have still larger awareness and actually try to improve the lives of everybody around them and invest their time and energy to bring a difference to the lives of the weaker sections of society. Very few have the awareness of the reality of life beyond the frame of life and death and such rare people guide the society to break free of the frames of their present level of awareness. Similarly, the competence of the people varies from low to high.
People with the lowest level of awareness and lowest competence become quite insecure and out of their insecurities, they generally become full of negative emotions like jealousy. Since their awareness is limited they feel that people with money, powers, and positions are the lucky ones and since they do not have the capacity to get all these things, they develop a natural jealousy. Out of jealousy, sycophancy and conspiracies become their primary tools for survival. History is full of such examples and almost every empire in India was defeated due to such people. Then there are people who are highly competent but their awareness of life is quite limited and these people become high achievers in society and "use" others for their success because they have the capacity to manipulate others.
On the end of the spectrum, we have people with high levels of awareness, who have become aware of the larger truths of life. Some people gain that true awareness of life but remain weak inside because that awareness has still not been able to reform their unconscious self. There is a constant battle within these people. Sometimes the "larger awareness" takes over and these people open up and exercise their free will. In these moments, they stand for truth and take on any challenge. However, in their weak moments, the ignorance deeply rooted in the unconscious mind takes over and fear takes over. They know that something is not correct and yet they do not gather the courage to stand up for truth.
There are people with a high level of awareness of life and who constantly work on themselves and in the process their unconscious self also gets enlightened. Such people become saints and there is no inner conflict within. They work constantly to uplift society. They have infinite love and compassion for society because there is no fear or insecurity inside. There is no fear inside because each part of their self is aware of the larger reality. Fear is a product of ignorance. However, it's a long journey because the unconscious self is quite deep and has a very strong grip on our existence and our decisions. It's difficult to get there and only with great strength, somebody like Hanumana can reach there crossing the ocean of delusion. Even after reaching there, a bridge needs to be built so as to maintain awareness in each moment. Only when we do selfless work each day, selfless deeds like the "floating stones" will form the bridge over a period of time. There are so many demons waiting to trap us in "Nag pash" and we have to be ready for those fights. Ofcourse Ravana has many faces and we may feel that we have killed Ranvan, but it will come with a different face. Yes, there would be some old samskaras in the form of "Vibhishana" which will definitely help us kill the inner Ravan. We always have a choice whether we want to invest our time and energy for bringing awareness to the depths of our unconscious mind or we wish to live a life with a very limited awareness.
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