अपि चेदसि पापेभ्य: सर्वेभ्य: पापकृत्तम: | सर्वं ज्ञानप्लवेनैव वृजिनं सन्तरिष्यसि || 36 || |
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“Even if you are considered the chief sinner of all sinners, you can still cross this ocean of material existence in the boat of divine wisdom”
Commentary:
This particular verse is very important because Lord Krishna gives divine assurance to the most fallen, immoral and even demonic type of person. He gives hope and assures that all is not lost as long as one is willing to take just one step forward on the spiritual path. This verse is filled with utmost love and compassion of the Lord as a Mother and Father. Every person is His child, made of the same five elements of nature, having the same powers, living on the same earth and breathing the same air.
Why does a person then behave as if possessed by some evil? This question is asked by Arjuna in verse 3-36. Lord Krishna says it is because of Kāma (desire), Krodha (anger) in the next verse and continues on the topic. If God is the Omnipresent Source, then He must be the creator of evil and also its sin-producing qualities of ‘kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada and matsarya’. To think that the mighty God has not created evil but only the good in the world and to deny the existence of evil is ignorance.
Why did He create evil? God created both good and evil as characters in the play of duality. Absolute God as Spirit beyond vibratory creation has divided His consciousness in two aspects, giving rise to duality through His power of delusion – light and darkness, day and night, happiness and sorrow, success and failure, man and woman, positive and negative, health and disease, love and hate, good and evil….the list goes on. Therefore evil has a place in creation and its duty is to actively persuade humans to fall to a despicable state of mind and perish in ignorance.
How does evil manifest sinful actions through humans? Evil lurks around every corner and quickly manifests when a person yields in a specific moment to an uncontrolled impulse within. When a sinful impulse is not nipped in the bud, it becomes a habit that continues in future births. No one plans diligently to be in prison or suffer in life. The spirit of evil first tries to effect through your own thoughts. If you persist in growing spiritually, it will manifest objectively in front of your eyes. It will manifest your deepest sub-conscious temptations and egoistic desires.
Why doesn’t the Omnipotent God kill evil permanently? Although God has the power to completely annihilate evil, He does not do so because He is bound by His own laws of duality in creation and also He gave free will to humans. Evil has its own purpose and without its existence, man would not exercise the powers of his soul to win the battle of his life and become divine again.
Whenever there is more evil, God requests and assigns one of His own children, who has already achieved complete self-realization and suitable for the job, to inhabit a body and establish Dharma so that more good prevails in the world. God is beyond duality therefore to escape His powerful Maya, you need to develop a personal relationship with a Guru or any of God’s manifestations with a sense of urgency, not to intellectually infer but to experientially feel actual divine vibration.
Krishna says,”Get away Arjuna, from My ocean of misery”. This harsh reality of duality must go on in this format for a long time, however the wise escape the cycles of Samsara through devotion and sadhana.
If God is patiently willing to forgive His most dishonorable child, then as mere mortals how many times should we forgive others if they are willing to change? When we forgive others even once, we are forgiven ten times by God.
All is not lost as long as one makes a sincere effort to change.