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RECONCILIATION.
its admirers; hence, Satan is said to be constantly engaged in seducing mankind in different forms. Those whose ideals are confined to material happiness may, thus, be said to worship the Devil. Now, inasmuch as the worship of matter is frought with harm and spiritual degeneration, and leads to hell, the devil is said to lead men into hell, which, for that reason, is called his kingdom. However, evil lies in the pursuit of matter, not in matter itself. When we look at the allurements which it throws in our way, in the shape of the attractions of the senses, and forget that but for it there could be no world at all, we begin to fear the gentle Mother of all as if she were a monster of Evil. Forms must exist, because matter exists; but if we allow ourselves to be tempted by them, it is our own fault, not that of matter. Man, in his shallow conceit, is only too anxious to throw the blame for his own misdeeds on some one else, and since his unwholesome dread of supernatural agencies does not permit him to accuse the being whom he places at the head of the affairs of the world, there is no one else to be made a scape-goat of but intellect or matter. Evil, however, is a relative term, and lies only in our inclinations and pursuits, not in intellect or matter.
Jain Education International
1045
That apart from our own inclinations and pursuits there is no such concrete existence as Evil, is beautifully brought out in the allegory of the Emancipation of Israel from the bondage of Pharaoh, the Egyptian. The same Lord appears to both Moses and Pharaoh, yet in one instance, he works for good, and in the other brings about the ruin of a whole nation. The idea which the narrator desires to impress on our minds is that the Lord is neither
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