I got into a heated argument last night with a good friend. We were planting a tree in the yard and we disagreed on how deep to place the roots in the ground. Our views were diametrically opposed. Both of us were unwilling to budge from our position. Tension escalated, pointed words were exchanged, it wasn’t feeling good at all, until…I finally woke up from the dream!

How ridiculous! I protested, shaking my head to snap out of the night-illusion. Where did that impossible drama come from?

I quickly filled my thought with love and goodwill to neutralize the negativity which was alien to my normal disposition. I affirmed loved for my friend, and the heaviness felt from the dark mesmerism rapidly dissipated.

As I pondered what to learn from the experience, I could see that it was another lesson on the vital importance of defending thought from external aggressive suggestion.

I remembered the verse from Job that states, “And the Lord said to Satan, ‘From where do you come?’ Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.’”

To the human mind, it would seem that evil is a constant mischief maker, wandering about the chambers of the human consciousness, catching people off guard with ill-will, resentment, anger and battles of self-will. If we are not alert to God’s infinite ever-present love, we open ourselves to malicious influence and being used by evil’s devices for creating discord.

The belief of Satan going “to and fro,” is what incubated the dream I temporarily entertained. To prevent it from happening again, I prayed to widen my understanding of infinite divine Love whose omnipresence excludes the possibility of a conflict from ever starting in the first place.

The scene of fighting that last night’s dream played out in my mind was so preposterous I was quickly jolted back to my senses. It was utterly stupid. The battle appeared out of nowhere, and didn’t exist anywhere. It was all illusion.

And the same rule applies to any battle between humans, I decided, anywhere in the world. Fights “appear out of nowhere.” They do not have a legitimate basis to exist and continue. They are the effect of illusion entertained, not dismissed.

Battles result when people are not alert and awake to the omnipresence of divine Love. They get fooled by evil’s suggestions, become pawns to evil’s ways, and participate in crime’s against their neighbor and humanity as a result. It all feels so justified to the mind wrapped up in the error, but it is not. It is the work of “Satan going to and fro.”

God created a universe of Love for us to inhabit. This is the fact. Discord, conflict, fighting, battles, war, have no premise in divine Love and no place in God’s kingdom. Satan is powerless and a non-factor in the presence of divine Love.

The more we stay alert to this reality and guard our thought against “Satan going to and fro,” the more harmonious our relationships with other people will be, the faster God’s kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven, and the sooner peace will prevail among all mankind.

“Evil thoughts, lusts, and malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected lodgment, if virtue and truth build a strong defence.” Mary Baker Eddy