Just as there is only Light and what we know as Darkness is either a dimming of the Light or else a limitation of our sight, so too Ignorance is a self-limitation of the Divine for the purposes of creating individualities needed to fulfil the original creative urge of ‘ekohambahusyam’, the One becoming the Many.
But once the step towards the self-limitation (ignorance) was taken, its extreme results, that is to say, Falsehood, evil, error became inevitable. These things are not final but intermediary phases between creation as it is today and as it is intended, and destined to become.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
(Follow-up Question:)
If they’re not there, but only wrong interpretations or deviations, how did it happen in the beginning?
It is a wrong perception and wrong action due to the self-limitation or ignorance in which our mind presently dwells that leads to the evil. When a snake bites under threat or a tiger eats due to hunger, we don’t call it evil. But human beings do so out of a wrong perception of threat and wrong actions motivated by greed. Man has been given the freedom to chose unlike animals, who are driven by instincts and hence their actions are not regarded as evil or crooked, even though there may be a play of deception as a strategy. But to hasten the evolution of Man towards his divine state and to make him grow conscious of the element of free choice (within certain limits, of course) has been introduced. It also helps distinguish those who are ready for the higher evolution beyond Man and those who have yet to go through the purifying suffering and the ordeal before they can evolve further. It is a perfect arrangement from an evolutionary perspective, if you see it this way. But if we look at it only from the point of personal suffering and selfish gains and losses, then we get dismayed.
(Follow-up Question:)
Is that why The Divine Mother consented to the Great Sacrifice and stooped to descend here into Darkness, Falsehood, Ignorance, Death to transform them into Divine qualities?
If the Divine Mother has made a mistake, then what guarantee can ever be of our thoughts and feelings about the ways of the Divine? Evidently, our understanding is limited, just as a baby in the womb has no idea that there is a ‘mother’ behind everything happening to him. When he is born, he begins to recognise the mother but does not understand the purpose of his birth. When the mother is a little strict, he may even complain about the mother and think that it was a mistake to come into the world. Yet through all the challenges and the stages, the mother is always there with him or behind him, supporting his journey towards realising his highest possibility. Much later, the child may recognise or he may not, yet the mother never abandons. Now, if you ask the mother as to what impelled her to conceive a child, her only answer would be love and to increase the joy in countless ways.
Now extend this analogy to the Divine Mother and our souls and you will have all the answers.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
