The Role of Satan in God's Creation - Part 5

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Why evil has a place

in God's plan

 

(p.138) The delusion-wizened mind of man sends forth a boasting, hollow

challenge to Omniscient Divinity that if he were the Almighty he could create a

much better world than this. He would banish from this earth devastating

diseases and accidents; mental weakness and pernicious emotions such as

revengefulness, anger, greed; industrial avarice resulting in depression;

natural disasters of earthquakes, floods, droughts, famines; boredom, despair,

old age, painful death--all of the ruinous tragedies of life.

 

He would create a world with a joyous struggle free from the pain of travail, an

ever newly happy state of mind for all men, sans mental idleness and boredom. He

would make the body invulnerable, changeable according to the commandments of

one's will. He would have our bodies tailored in the workshop of materialization

and self-rejuvenation.

 

He would create a variety of occupations with a vast scope of activity, all

leading to infinite, unending, pleasurable satisfaction. (p.139) Good citizens

would be materialized by will from the ether, as God created the first man and

woman. All beings would go to heaven and become angels after they had

successfully finished their earthly entertainment.

 

Such a world is easy to fancy, for the soul is always whispering to man its

native perfection, even while the ego engages him in gambling with the

enticements of a distorted earthly duality. An ideal existence is not

impossible, but it is for a different time and realm reserved for those who have

graduated from the learning assignments of earth life. For the ordinary man in

his present stage of evolution, a life without difficulties would be of little

value. No lessons of growth would be learned, no transformations of inflexible

natures into godly consciousness, no compelling incentives to seek and know

one's Maker.

 

Regardless, the time-worn, unresolved conundrum persists: Did evil have its

origin in the plan of a good and perfect God? The Lord Himself answered prophet

Isaiah: " I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me: I

girded thee (invested thee with thy powers and attributes), though thou hast not

known Me....I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create

evil: I the Lord do all these things. " [1] The illumined 'rishis' of India

similarly perceived: " ...Joy, sorrow, birth, death, fear, courage...these

diverse states of beings spring from Me alone as modifications of My nature....I

am the Source of everything; from Me all creation emerges. " [2]

 

 

Dualities of good and

evil are inherent in

creation

 

Spirit alone is perfect. Everything in creation, being delimited, is imperfect.

The very beginning of creation gave rise to the law of duality--light and

darkness, good and evil--the law of relativity necessary to divide the One into

the many. By the storm of vibration, God's thoughts of multiplicity brought

forth the waves of manifestation: His 'lila', or divine play.

 

Spirit's desireless desire to enjoy Its Bliss as many selves was unnecessary to

the complete and perfect Spirit, just as a father through no vital necessity may

desire the joy in playing with his child. Spirit's desire was therefore an

imperfect stirring in the perfect Quiescent Bliss, a thought vibration to

accomplish something when that accomplishment was not necessary.

 

As introduced earlier, Spirit, being the only Substance existent, had nothing

other than Itself with which to create. [see Discourse 1.] (p.140) So in Its

infinite consciousness Spirit differentiated--in thought only--between Itself

and creation evolved from Itself, just as the varied images in a dream assume a

semblance of reality in their relative existence as separate thoughts made of

the one mind-stuff of the dreamer's imagination.

 

In order to give individuality and independence to Its thought images, Spirit

had to employ a cosmic deception, a universal mental magic. Spirit overspread

and permeated Its creative desire with cosmic delusion, a grand magical measurer

described in Hindu scriptures as 'maya' (from the Sanskrit root 'ma', " to

measure " ). Delusion divides, measures out, the Undefined Infinite into finite

forms and forces. The working of cosmic delusion on these individualizations is

called 'avidya', individual illusion or ignorance, which imparts a specious

reality to their existence as separate from Spirit. [3] Individualized selves

possessing the instrumentalities of a human body and mind are gifted with the

power of free choice and independent action.

 

Even though God has created the universe out of delusion, He Himself is not

deluded by it. He knows 'maya' as naught but a modification of His one

Consciousness. The colossal dramas of creation and dissolution of planets and

galaxies; the birth, growth, and decline of empires and civilizations; the

countless miniature plays of individual lives with their subplots of health and

sickness, riches and poverty, life and death--all are happening in God as the

One Dreamer-Creator, a chimerical perception of change within the Eternally

Changeless. One part of the Infinite Being ever remains transcendent, beyond

vibratory dualities: There He is the inactive Absolute--Spirit. When Spirit

vibrates Its consciousness with thoughts of diversity, It becomes immanent as

the omnipresent Creator in the finite vibratory realm of infinity: There God is

active as the creative Vibratory Holy Ghost with its immanent Christ

Consciousness.

 

Notes:

 

[1] Isaiah 45:5,7.

 

[2] 'God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita' X:4-5, 8.

 

[3] See also page 150.