There is no evil
By Karmayogi
All the philosophies of
the world have failed to explain the existence of Evil. The Vedas and
Upanishads too failed there. The Upanishads said All is Brahman. Having said
so, it amounts to saying that Evil too is Brahman. Sri Aurobindo devotes a full
chapter of about forty pages to explain the origin of Error, Falsehood and
Evil. Brahman has not created in the world anything but Ananda. But evil,
cruelty, tyranny, etc. are realities of life. He says evil is real to the ego
and has no inherent reality in itself. For one who has come out of ego, there
is no evil to be seen. Wars are horrendous for us where millions of lives are
destroyed. Once you come out of ego, you see war is Nature's method to
hasten the process of evolution and the souls of those who die, die in bliss.
We know of the positive and negative. We accept the positive and denounce the
negative. Sri Aurobindo says that there is nothing negative. Positive and
negative are two parts of a single whole. Experience of the negative gives the
keener and fuller intensity to the positive to enjoy the whole. Experienced
people in business say unless you have lost money, your experience is
incomplete. To us, the convict is a person to be avoided, because he is
negative. During the 19th century, England and other countries
sent their convicts to Australia. Today Australia is one of the
richest nations in the world. It is the convicts who built up a prosperous civilisation.
Singapore is rich. Originally,
it was Indian convicts who built up Singapore. If convicts are
evil, we must accept that good comes out of evil.
If you are past forty, try to recollect in your childhood children unanimously
branded as evil. Today you will find most of them, maybe all of them, better
placed in life than the children described as Good. Indian wisdom enjoins on us
NOT to inquire into the origin of a Rishi or a river. Valmiki was a dacoit.
Robert Clive was an evil youth. He founded the world's largest empire.
Sri Aurobindo's yoga is a yoga of transformation. He calls Evil the
greater good. He wants man to surrender to God so that God can transform the
‘Evil' of the world into Good. He who can see the Truth here and
live up to it can rise to the great heights of life, as he will recognise the
deepest evil in himself.