Sachchidananda 'The Life Divine' Book I,Ch.9, 10, 11, 12 (The Mother Insitute of Research - MIRA) - Track 1106

We find that both good and evil are related to each other, out of good evil arises, out of evil good arises, and good is partly evil, and evil is partly good. All things in the world as such, it's a multicoloured existence it is not black and white that this is good and this is evil. If you examine the world you find it's a multicoloured existence, in which the same colours give some kind of tone of another colour. For the original must be itself mixed, if it is not, why should individuals strive for complete elimination of pain and pain is evil, it's always mixed with pleasure. How is it that the human beings have a tendency to eliminate pain altogether; if it is always a mixture and if the whole humanity is the result of that action, which is a mixture then how is it that human beings want to eliminate pain altogether.

If the very constitution of our being is a mixture, why is it that that we want to eliminate one element out of it that will be impossible to explain. Human beings should be able to say that let me have some pleasure and some pain; I like both of them together. To take any pain makes the experience and you will say that I want to eliminate it altogether, this is a tendency in our being we want to eliminate pain altogether. Not only that but there are religions like Jainism and Buddhism, which don't accept the existence of God but they maintain that ultimately you can arrive at a point, where evil, pain and suffering can be completely eliminated. If there is a possibility of a complete elimination, it means that the Ultimate should not be a mixture, it must be without any mixture then only you can attain to it, there must be somewhere something, which itself doesn't exist. So, if at the root there is no mixture, the question is how does this mixture come about? At what point, what is the law, what is the method by which this mixture comes about, and these nontheistic religions have no answer to this question.

The answer is that we find that the world is full of mixtures, secondly that these mixtures can be cured and there is a process by which the cure can take place, and ultimately you arrive at the simplicity where this mixture doesn't exist. If you ask those questions which I asked, they say that these are questions which should not be raised, they don't deserve to be raised. All you can say that they are not answerable and then you're turned back. And you are asked, you want an answer or you want a cure; choose between the two. If you want an answer from me, I’ll simply say it is unanswerable but if you want a cure, I can give you the cure. So, why do you worry about the answers, this is the logical position that they take. When the thorn is in your flesh, you don’t ask the question, what is thorn, and what is flesh, what is pain and how did it come about? You simply want to take out the thorn and throw it away therefore, you have a problem in your life and I only want to give you the remedy.

 Buddhism and Jainism tell you the remedy you take it out and it can be effectively taken out. And both Buddhism and Jainism do give you the medicine by which gives a cure, but the intellect of man raises the deeper question. It is true that you have remedied me, my thorn is come out but if I knew, what was thorn, what was flesh, how do they come into conjugation with each other; maybe I could have found out a better remedy than the remedy that you are proposing and maybe the kind of bliss that I'm going to, or I'm getting now, could be of a different kind of which we were not aware of at all because you have not enquired into this question. So, if I enquire into this question and find out really the origin of all this, may be that the remedy that I will come to, will be a greater remedy than what you are proposing.

This is where the Vedantic answer comes up, to say that things exists by themselves that they are there, just take them for granted is not a satisfactory answer to this, there is a need to go deeper and find out deeper answer to this question. We come back again to the proposition that Reality is one without the second; Reality is good, Reality is omnipotent, Reality is just and yet there is the suffering, and yet there is this evil. All the answers that have been given so far are all unsatisfactory answers. Is there a satisfying answer, if so, what is that satisfying answer? This is the problem; I think I'll stop here today because we only wanted to enunciate ‘The Problem’. Next time, we shall see how this problem can be further refined because even this problem as it is presented so far, and all the arguments that I have delineated, they still have some kind of wooliness they are not yet fully spun out as fine as they are to the groovy shell against rain further and put the question much more bluntly and much more forcefully because it is only when the problem is put forcefully that the real answer can be found. So, that is the task of the Chapter Eleven and then the answer is to be found in chapter Twelve.