Why Has God Created a World in Which There Is Suffering? part5
Wed, 01/30/2008 - 13:38 — admin
The material world is an opportunity for the souls who do not want to serve to not do so. It is the place where they can try to play God (i.e., the central enjoying agent) instead of serving Him. In the realm of matter, the soul can attempt to find happiness in a practically infinite variety of ways. Since the soul is by nature the servant of the Supreme Soul, however, she cannot find actual happiness while pursuing pleasure away from His service. This is because in so doing, she is acting against her nature. Thus, no matter what she achieves, accomplishes, experiences, or possesses, she will never become perfectly satisfied. When we see that the world is peopled with beings who are not perfectly content or immersed in absolute bliss, it should come as no surprise, then, since this dimension of God’s kingdom was not designed by Him for that purpose. He has made full arrangements for the pleasure of the living beings, not in the material dimension, but in the spiritual world.15 Only those who see only the material sphere can be so bold and ignorant as to declare that God is incapable of creating an abode of pure, unalloyed, and uninterrupted bliss. Not seeing beyond the material sphere, they are unable to see this world in its proper perspective, and are therefore unable to see the purpose behind it. Just as one who sees only a prison and not the society outside it may mistakenly think it has been designed as a place for enjoyment, similarly, those who know of no other existence than this earthly one may mistakenly think that it has been created as a place of enjoyment. In truth, this is not correct, however. This world has been created not as a place of enjoyment, but as a place of attempted enjoyment. Although perfect happiness cannot be achieved independently of God, God has kindly provided a place where those who want to try to do so, can.
MICHAEL: Is it God’s kindness that He allows us to come to this world and try to find perfect happiness here, when in fact it is not possible-or is it cruel and deceitful of Him? If He were actually kind, wouldn’t He have prevented us from coming?
TEACHER: To prevent the individual souls from leaving His service would be to strip them of their free will, which in turn would remove all chance of a loving relationship between God and all souls. Therefore, the Supreme Lord does not prevent us, in the name of kindness, from exercising our free will, even though it means we turn away from Him in the process.
Out of kindness and concern for the living beings, God has designed the world not merely as a place of attempted enjoyment, but in a manner that gradually brings about their rehabilitation. Ideally, a prison is not meant to be a place of punishment, but a place of reformation.
Many people believe that a person is the brain or some part of the brain. You may be one of them. If so, the following should boggle your mind:This concept is also present in Christianity, although it is no longer a popular teaching. The analogy of Adam and Eve enjoying in the Garden of Eden and then being expelled due to the abuse of their free will is still present in the Bible,14 but is rarely interpreted in this light. In the early days of Christianity, however, the idea of the fall was widely accepted on a line not unsimilar to that given by Plato. Origen, one of the early church fathers, described the process in his book First Principles.
Recent studies on the turnover of the molecular population within a given nerve cell have indicated that … their macromolecular contingent is renewed about ten thousand times in a lifetime.*
In other words, the matter making up each brain cell is completely renewed every three days.
Your brain — that mass of matter which is contained in your skull today — is not the same brain that was in your skull last week.
Science of Identity Foundation – Siddhaswarupananda
*Paul Weiss, “The Living System: Determinism Stratified,” in Arthur Koestler and J.R. Smythies, eds., Beyond Reductionism (London: Hutchinson, 1969), p.13.
The material world is an opportunity for the souls who do not want to serve to not do so. It is the place where they can try to play God (i.e., the central enjoying agent) instead of serving Him. In the realm of matter, the soul can attempt to find happiness in a practically infinite variety of ways. Since the soul is by nature the servant of the Supreme Soul, however, she cannot find actual happiness while pursuing pleasure away from His service. This is because in so doing, she is acting against her nature. Thus, no matter what she achieves, accomplishes, experiences, or possesses, she will never become perfectly satisfied. When we see that the world is peopled with beings who are not perfectly content or immersed in absolute bliss, it should come as no surprise, then, since this dimension of God’s kingdom was not designed by Him for that purpose. He has made full arrangements for the pleasure of the living beings, not in the material dimension, but in the spiritual world.15 Only those who see only the material sphere can be so bold and ignorant as to declare that God is incapable of creating an abode of pure, unalloyed, and uninterrupted bliss. Not seeing beyond the material sphere, they are unable to see this world in its proper perspective, and are therefore unable to see the purpose behind it. Just as one who sees only a prison and not the society outside it may mistakenly think it has been designed as a place for enjoyment, similarly, those who know of no other existence than this earthly one may mistakenly think that it has been created as a place of enjoyment. In truth, this is not correct, however. This world has been created not as a place of enjoyment, but as a place of attempted enjoyment. Although perfect happiness cannot be achieved independently of God, God has kindly provided a place where those who want to try to do so, can.
MICHAEL: Is it God’s kindness that He allows us to come to this world and try to find perfect happiness here, when in fact it is not possible-or is it cruel and deceitful of Him? If He were actually kind, wouldn’t He have prevented us from coming?
TEACHER: To prevent the individual souls from leaving His service would be to strip them of their free will, which in turn would remove all chance of a loving relationship between God and all souls. Therefore, the Supreme Lord does not prevent us, in the name of kindness, from exercising our free will, even though it means we turn away from Him in the process.
Out of kindness and concern for the living beings, God has designed the world not merely as a place of attempted enjoyment, but in a manner that gradually brings about their rehabilitation. Ideally, a prison is not meant to be a place of punishment, but a place of reformation.