Below are quotes from " THE BHAVAGAD GITA - God talks to Arjuna" by Paramahansa Yogananda; verse 15, page 548, 549,551,552,553
"""""...........................
THE OMNIPRESENT COMIC BEAM creates, for entertainment, the dream pictures of men, their virtuous and sinful activities on this dream earthly stage.......
The devotee should understand that the purpose of God in creating the world and Delusion is to develop perfect beings. This pastime is God's hobby......
To encourage perfection, the Lord gave men free will _ and a challenge! He subjected them to the inner wholesome temptations of His goodness nd to outer unwholesome temptations of Nature....
When man skillfully uses his divine gift of free choice and discrimination to respond to the temptations of virtue and not of evil, he attains the necessary victory. He is " out " in the game of life
A man with extreme bad karma may be immersed in delusion for many incarnations, but not forever, because he is eternally God's. A man who forgets his real Self for numerous lives becomes so riddled by suffering that he cannot stand himself or his own habits. As soon as he tries earnestly to improve, he discovers the path to divine joy.
......God does not take into account the sin or virtue of man. Man himself by his actions reaps the results of his good and bad karma owing to the proper use or misuse of his free will.
In India, the most popular quotationfrom the Gita: " Wisdom is covered by ignorance, that is why people are deluded"
................""""
the Omnipresent Lord knows that He is the creator of evil as a test to encourage human beings to shunsin and thus recover theri inner divine nature.
By creating a film of light-and shadow images and passing it thru a movie projector, a director manipulates the one beam that projects the pictures of both the villain and the hero on the screen; the villain was included to make people disgusted with his ways and, by use of discrimination, applaud the great hero. For the same reason, evil exists to turn people's attention to the better ways of virtue.........
Why evil is a necessary and inherent part of God's creation...
After learning the lessons of admiring the hero in preference to the villain, one realizes that both good and evil men are creations of the One Beam; as shadows, they have no intrinsic difference. Thus analyzing good and evil, one should try to rise above both, realizing that sin and virtue cannot affect the nondual changeless soul that is made in the image of God.......
Good and evil must ever be complements on this earth. Everything created must bear some guise of imperfection..............
How else could God , the Sole Perfection, fragment His one consciousness into forms of creation distinguishable from Himself? There can be no images of light without contrasting shadows. Unless evil had been created, man would not know the opposite, good. Night brings out the bright contrast of days; sorrow teaches us the desirability of joy.
He who is enticed by delusion to play the villain's part must suffer the villain's sad karmic fate, while the hero receives the hallowed reward of his virtue.
One who looks from the cinema booth thru the beam sees the villain and the hero both as pictures. When one is united with God, then and then only he sees no differences between good and evil.
People in the audience who are affected by a gripping picture feel a distinct difference between the villain and the hero ! But a discriminating viewer realizes that the role of the villain was created to enhance the nobility of the hero by presenting a contrast of good and evil
When the picture is over, he is thru with it; he is no longer affected by any involvement of his feeling with either the villain or the hero. He has risen above his temporary interest in the picture, and he knows that the villain and the hero have no intrinsic meaning; they were only different pictures issuing out of the beam bearing no true relation to himself
Conquering evil by good and then rsing above both, man realizes that this world is only a divine motion picture, vastly entertaining ""
Comments