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For God there is no evil

Visakha dasi : I was on the flight between Philadelphia and Berkeley with Srila Prabhupada when the captain of the jet came out of the cockpit. He sat down next to Prabhupada, and the two of them had a very animated, joyful discussion. I could see Prabhupada was relishing the conversation. So I was filming this, and I was curious what they were discussing. But, of course, I couldn't hear it, and I was too shy to ask Prabhupada what did he talk about after it was over. So I resigned myself that I guess I wouldn't know. But it turned out that when Prabhupada arrived in Berkeley, during his arrival address he mentioned the conversation and he said the captain was very intelligent and he asked several questions. One of the questions was, "If God is all good, then why is there evil in the world?" Prabhupada said, "For God there is no evil, there is only good." And he gave the analogy, "Just as my back is as important to me as my chest, if there is pain in my back I take care of that, I don't ignore it thinking that the chest is more important. So evil is like the back of God and it's not different from His front, which is compared to goodness." Then the captain asked, "If everything is good from God's point of view, how can there be evil?" and Prabhupada gave another example. He said, "It's like the sun. On the body of the sun there is no shadow. We create shadow by turning our back to the sun. So similarly, evil means when we turn away from God." So then the captain asked a third question. He said, "How is it possible to attain peace?" And Prabhupada said, "To attain peace, we have to understand that God is the supreme proprietor, the supreme enjoyer and the supreme friend."


Reference: Following Srila Prabhupada-A Chronological Series by Visakha Dasi