The Atma Jyoti Blog

Part 1 of an article by Paramhansa Yogananda from the August 1932 East-West Magazine

“And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil.” (Luke 4:1, 2)

It Is Childish to Say Evil Does Not Exist

Many modern scriptural interpreters, unable to understand why Christ Himself introduced the idea of the existence of Satan, have tried to explain away the old conception of a devil by saying it is obsolete, that evil does not exist, or that God does not know evil. Such interpreters, unable to solve the problem of how it was possible for evil to originate in God, who is only good, have gone to the extreme of denying the existence of evil. In the first place, let me say that the denial of the power of evil has some good points, although it is childish to deny the existence and temptations of evil in this world of seeming duality.

Even if the conscious evil force of Satan does exist, it could not influence human minds if we did not mentally accept it. It is better to know all the lures of evil and the ways to combat them than to be blind and deny their existence. Knowledge only, and not indifference, can produce final emancipation. The great drama of Cosmic existence has endowed man with free choice and the power of reason. Man, the image of God, has the same liberty of free choice in his sphere as God the Father has.

Why Does God Not Free Man Immediately?

If God is Almighty and knows that we are suffering, why does He, being Almighty and eternally blessed, allow weaklings to suffer from the temptations of evil?

The answer is, that after receiving independence, the Cosmic force began to fill Creation with patterns of imperfections, displacing the perfect patterns of God’s first plan. God then destroyed all Creation, as described in Genesis, but seemingly He found Himself illogically using His Almighty power in arbitrarily destroying Creation. Also, He seemed to be contradicting His own laws, inasmuch as He destroyed the power of Satan after once giving him independence of action. Then God created again and reinstated the original power of independent free choice which He gave to Satan and to all Creation. God could destroy Satan even now and free us at once from the thraldom of earthly miseries, imperfections, broken hearts, and death, by using His Almighty material force, but He would not do that because that would be taking away our independence.

Since God gave independence to man and Satan, He can free them only through teaching them the right use of their own power of free choice. God is not enjoying His eternal blessed state in selfish happiness, but He is suffering for our miserable tragic existence, delayed evolution on earth, and belated return to the paradise of all-emancipating wisdom. He is continuously trying to use the superior force of Divine Love expressed as the parental, friendly, filial, all-surrendering pure love to coax man to forsake his cooperation with evil, which helps and strengthens it to destroy him.

Man Must Make His Own Choice

Man stands in the middle, with God on one side and Satan on the other side, each ready to pull him in whichever direction he wishes to go. It is up to man to signal God or Satan as to which direction he wants to be pulled. Man is perfectly free to act without being influenced by God or Satan, but whenever he does act right, or has a pure, ennobling thought, that is the signal to God, and he is automatically pulled toward God, but as soon as man thinks or acts evil, he is automatically pulled toward Satan. However, being essentially an image of God, man can never be eternally drowned in the hades of evil.

Eternal Hades Is Impossible for Man

No matter how persistently sinful man is, he can never suffer eternal punishment. Evil promises happiness and results only in unhappiness. As soon as man realizes this, then he begins to wish for emancipation and for God. This wish for goodness and freedom serves as a portal through which God is again invited to come into the life of the prodigal son and lead him to the abode of freedom. Even fathomless evil cannot destroy man’s soul, for he is essentially immortal and eternally good.

Evil Is a Temporary Parasite

All evil is a passive graft, a temporary parasite on the tree of life which can be amputated by the knife of wisdom possessed by man.

Whenever man initiates good actions, he is proceeding toward a paradise of Bliss, hidden in the womb of eternal futurity.

God Coaxes Through All Good–Satan Tempts Through Evil

God is coaxing us with an array of limitless good happenings and is influencing us for our own welfare, whereas Satan is tempting us with pleasant-looking but fleeting happiness-producing patterns of evil. Satan’s patterns are temptations because they are deceptive contrivances created to consciously delude us by promising us good and giving us evil instead.

According to the dual conception of good and evil (God and Satan), it becomes easy to understand why there is so much good, together with so much evil. The sky and earth are full of the productions of God’s patterns of perfection and Satan’s patterns of imperfection to influence man. The beautiful sunshine, clouds, and rain are created by God to benefit man. Cataclysms, earthquakes, and floods were created by Satan to make man uncomfortable.

An eternal display of goodness is materialized in Nature and the life of man, proving that God is trying to impress man and influence him to use his free will and return to the abode of Bliss. Satan, through deceptive, apparently pleasant contrivances of temporary happiness-yielding acts, greed, and lust is trying to keep man tied to this misery-making limited earth. Jesus, as a manifestation of God, came to speak of the eternal kingdom of Heaven, upon whose threshold no sorrow can tread. Jesus taught that permanent happiness can only be found in God. Satan deludes man into seeking permanent happiness in impermanent material things.

Next, Part 2: Immortality vs. Death

More by Yogananda:

• How to Develop Intuition
• Ten Bits of Wisdom from Paramhansa Yogananda
• How to Get Your Prayers Answered