The urge to commit evil exists within all of us, but even that is part of us, a life force to be reclaimed and transformed, rather than rejected. When we can get in touch with and accept every part of ourselves, we won’t continually have to be at war within ourselves.
If a thief comes in the night and we cry out and scare him off, nothing is accomplished beyond the moment, and we must remain in fear. But if we do not alarm the thief, yet let him draw near enough so that we can get hold of him and bind him, then we have a chance of reforming him.
In the same way, our own stubbornness can be transformed into determination, and our struggles with each other can dissolve into intimacy. However, each of us must confront ourselves in order to accomplish these transformations, the turning of the self.
We must come to own the evil within us.