Late Night Chat with Jeff: the place of evil and suffering, Jan 27, 2025, live on Baba Zoom

Dear folks of Baba,

Some of you have expressed the wish to discuss the phenomenon of evil and suffering in this life. It is one of the essential challenging questions facing most caring and empathetic people living in this world: why do people have to suffer pain and be the victims of cruelty? If God is love, why do these things have to happen? Many people during World War II lost their faith in God after witnessing atrocities perpetrated before their very eyes. Such cruelty is not just of the past, but is going on in the world even now. There are explanations that Baba has given and can be inferred from things He has said that will satisfy the mind to some extent, but it is in the deepest heart which has endured much pain and suffering that love, not the mind, answers this question. It is a deeply-felt knowing. All the Masters have said: through great suffering we come to "accept what is", however painful and disagreeable it might be.

What are some of the explanations that Baba has given? He has said, “Evil is a lingering relic of an earlier good." We can infer from Baba’s description of the evolution of consciousness that souls are always coming in from the animal kingdom to become human beings. They arrive, of course, with love, but also with many untamed impulses. What was needed for a tiger to sustain itself is through attacking and devouring other creatures. That same trait when manifested in the human kingdom is considered evil, unacceptable. New souls entering human form, as they act out their dormant animal impressions, are naturally destructive and sometimes even cruel. We, as Baba lovers, were once just in from the animal kingdom ourselves, creating tremendous havoc no doubt! But in the overall context of our evolution and involution, everyone, through the experience of good and evil and our ever-growing love, will one day become Divine.

The negative and evil things in this world often serve the purpose of waking us up. Bhau Kalchuri, one of Baba’s intimate mandali, used to say, “Sometimes it takes a nightmare to wake us up from a pleasant dream.” Through the ups and downs of life, some in the extreme, we are pushed to go deeper, beyond where we are right now. Sometimes very negative things happen to people, but often as a result of what they have done in a past life. For example, Beryl Williams, a long-time Baba lover who grew up in Jamaica and New York City in the 1920s, 30s and 40s, suffered intensely from the prejudice that she frequently faced in being black. In Myrtle Beach where she first met Baba, she asked Him why she was born black in this life. He replied, “Because in the past you were very cruel to black people.” This was not a punishment, but an opportunity to experience the other side of prejudice so that she would be less likely to express it toward others in the future. Much to the shock of others, Bhau would say, “No one is really innocent.” The deeper theme of creation is designed to awaken compassion in us. Many of the sufferings we have endured over the course of countless lifetimes really make us more loving and compassionate.

I have jokingly said that if I had the triune attributes of God—Creator, Preserver and Destroyer—this world would be a veritable junkyard, because I would emphasize creation and preservation and go light on destruction. And what a mess this world would be; vast warehouses would have to be constructed to hold all the things I would preserve! Destruction unfortunately has its place. Winter, with all its damage, cannot be eliminated from the cycle of seasons without upsetting the balance of nature.

Murshida Ivy Duce, the head of Sufism Re-oriented, once asked Baba the most crucial question, “Why should misery perpetually exist on earth in spite of God’s infinite love and mercy?” He replied, “The source of eternal bliss is the Self in all. The cause of perpetual misery is the selfishness of all. As long as satisfaction is derived through selfish pursuits, misery will always exist. Only because of the infinite love and mercy of God can man realize, through the lessons of misery on earth, that inherent in him is the source of infinite bliss, and all suffering is his labor of love to unveil his own infinite Self.”

It all depends on how we view what happens to us on this earth. It can be viewed as a place of horrific injustice (there is ample proof for that), or it can be seen as a place where love is breaking through its limitations to become divine. There is a well-known saying, “Suffering is inevitable. Misery is optional.” It all has to do with how we interpret evil and inflicting suffering on others, but this does not mean we condone these in ourselves.

How do you react when what happens violates your most cherished values and ideals? How does your heart experience the suffering and evil that you witness?

In His Love,

Jeff

To join future live events, see www.babazoom.net.