Swami Paramananda
Swami Paramananda Quotes about Evil
He who has not turned away from evil conduct, whose senses are uncontrolled, who is not tranquil, whose mind is not at rest, he can never attain this Atman even by knowledge.
The idea of reward and punishment also springs from this law. Whatever we sow, we must reap. It cannot be otherwise. [...] If a person spends all his life in evil-thinking and wrongdoing, then it is useless for him to look for happiness hereafter; because our hereafter is not a matter of chance, but follows as the reaction of our present action. [...] We should, however, never lose sight of the fact that all these ideas of reward and punishment exist in the realm of relativity or finiteness. No soul can ever be doomed eternally through his finite evil deeds; for the cause and effect must always be equal. Thus we can see through our common sense that the theory of eternal perdition and eternal heaven is impossible and illogical, since no finite action can create an infinite result. Hence according to Vedanta, the goal of mankind is neither temporal pleasure nor pain, but Mukti or absolute freedom; and each soul is consciously or unconsciously marching towards this goal through the various experiences of life and death.
The Hindus do not blame an invisible Providence for all the suffering in this world, but explain it through the natural law of cause and effect. If a man is born fortunate or wretched, there must be some reason for it; if therefore we cannot find the cause for it in this life, it must have occurred in some previous existence, since no effect is possible without a cause. All the good that comes to us is what we have earned through our own effort; and whatever evil there is, is the result of our own past mistakes. As, moreover, our present has been shaped by our past, so our future will be moulded by our present.
Evil can never survive, though for a time it may seem to triumph. It is only a question of our endurance and patience.