People often ask, “If God, the creator of world, is good,
why does evil exist in the world?”
Evil arises not from Krishna’s omnipotence but from the
soul’s independence.
Though Krishna is omnipotent, he still gives all souls free
will so that they can choose to love him and therein relish existence’s supreme
fulfillment. After all, only free individuals can choose to love. But the souls
can abuse their independence by choosing to not love Krishna but to enjoy
matter instead. The Bhagavad-gita (13.22) indicates that due to such desires,
the materially enamored souls get entrapped in matter. Impelled by material
desires, the souls engage in evil deeds and are subjected to others’ evil
actions, as per the inexorable law of karma.
Evil arises not from Krishna’s omnipotence but from the
soul’s independence.
The next verse (13.23) underscores Krishna’s role in the
souls’ actions: he is the sanctioner, not the ordainer. He doesn’t force or
instruct or even want souls to get entangled in matter or to act destructively.
When they choose to do wrong, he allows them to fulfill their desires till
their karmic bank account runs out. Others may seem to be victimized by such
destructive actions, but the victims actually reap the results of their own
past karma.
Though the souls have got themselves into this arena of
evil, Krishna is too compassionate to abandon them here. He accompanies them as
the Supersoul in their hearts and guides them towards his loving devotion,
which is the way out of all evil. Devotion empowers them to curb and counter
the evil within them – their tendency to misuse their independence. It also
enables them to tolerate and transcend the inevitable evil that may befall them
due to their past karma. And most importantly it takes them entirely beyond the
arena of evil, the material existence, to Krishna’s all-good eternal abode.
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