World of Philosophy

Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan

Page 400

vikriti and sanskriti differed from one another. It is only sanskriti that checks the tendencies of prakriti and vikriti and helps man to create and nurture a culture and civilization to support and assist posterity to progress and become more perfect. God cannot be blamed if man misuses the freedom that God has bestowed on him.
For the advaitin, evil exists only in the context of an individual's thoughts, attitudes and actions. Rta, the cosmic law, governs the order in the physical, social and moral world. Happiness is the result of living according to the principles of rta and evil/suffering is the consequence of going against it. The law of karma governs everything and good or evil is as per one's conscious or unconscious making. Man's ignorance about his self leads to evil. The only way to deal with evil is by destroying the ignorance of knowledge of the nature of Ultimate Reality (Brahman). Come of out maya (illusion) and avidya (ignorance) to know the true nature of one's self that is not different from the supreme Self. So long as we live in the empirical world governed by maya and are influenced by the temporal factors, we will continue to suffer. Once we transcend to the highest spiritual level, the identity of the individual self with the cosmic self will be realized. This is the true knowledge denoted by "Tat tvam asi'. Therefore evil is illusory and unreal.
Buddhism accepts suffering as one of the four 'noble' (fundamental) truths, but also suggests that it can be removed. Buddhism believes in 'kshanikavada', momentariness of the world and its things. Nothing is permanent, everything is constantly changing. All living and non-livings things are temporal, for the time being, and everything is what it is because there is a cause for it. The doctrine of dependent origination says that every consequent can be traced to a definite cause. So if evil is to be removed, then its cause has to be identified and eliminated. The only reason why we suffer is because we are attached to this life and things that are all impermanent and we knowingly cling on to these. Not the actual loss, the very thought of losing what we are attached to (persons, animals, material things, money, wealth and other possessions) makes us unhappy. Buddha spoke of the fourteenspoke wheel that gave rise to birth, life, death and rebirth. The most significant spokes in the wheel are desire, thirst and attachment and the wish to be born again. Break the spokes and the wheel will stop moving. So, the only way to stop suffering is to come out of the cycle of birth and death. Nirvana is the state when there is no more desire or attachment, a state of no-suffering, equanimity and bliss. One can attain it by following the ashtangamarg, the eight-fold path of righteous living.
Jainism believes that man is a conscious spirit, a spiritual soul that shines brightly by its very nature. But its sheen is lost or reduced due to pudgala or karmic matter. This pudgala is the source of wrong-doing or evil. The soul is like a sheet of glass, but our karmas allow dust/dirt to settle on it
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