248. Why has God created some souls in a pure state and others in a state of cruelty? Why does He make some do bad acts and prevent their becoming good? When can I have perfection?

You can have perfection and immortality through long struggle. The mortal in the relative plane does good and evil acts. Evil also is a negative good. Out of evil, sometimes good comes. Everyone learns lessons in this world and evolves. God is only a witness. He does not make men do evil acts. Man has intellect and free will. Man, out of his egoism, does actions according to his own sweet will and reaps the fruits of evil actions. When the Sattvic material or purity increases by practicing virtuous actions, he becomes divine. God is not responsible.

249. You say that forgiveness should be practiced. Being not the final authority in my office, I cannot save my subordinates from getting punished. If I conceal their offences or mistakes, I will not be doing my duty properly and this may one day get me into trouble. When I forward the reports of my subordinates, they are punished and I feel sorry for it. What should I do in such cases?

You can forgive the minor mistakes of your servants and subordinates. This cannot bring in any trouble. Keep your conscience clean. Warn them whenever they commit mistakes. As you are in the Vyavaharic field, you will have to punish those who commit serious mistakes. But, be unbiased. Have fear of God. If poor servants are fined, give them some money from your own pocket. Love them. They will not commit mistakes in future.

250. May I enquire how the power of concentration increases?

Concentration increases by curtailing your wants and desires, by observing Mouna for two hours daily, by remaining in seclusion in a quiet room for one or two hours daily, by practicing Pranayam, by prayer, by increasing the number of sittings in meditation in the evening and at night, by Vichar, etc.

251. How is it possible that a Creator, so full of love, created a world and a nature where animals can live only by killing other animals that have to endure terrible pain and suffering? Nobody can give me a satisfactory answer. If men kill each other, it is sin; they need not. But, animals cannot live without killing the other animals for food. What do you say? We are anxious for your opinion.

God's love for the created universe knows no bounds; He cannot be held responsible for the experiences of created beings. God does not punish or reward anyone in a personal way; it is one's own actions, sinful or good, that works as the cause of experience here.

As the human being is endowed with moral sense and as he is invested with the consciousness of doership and responsibility, he imposes this sense of morality and responsibility of action on sub-human beings also. The defect, therefore, lies in man and not in the animals which act without any consciousness of ethical conduct, and spontaneously, free from the responsibility connected with doership or agency.

No action can produce a retributive effect unless it is done with the consciousness of personal doership and responsibility. Man shall be punished by retributive justice, for man has the freedom to act and he is responsible for what he does. But animals have not been endowed with such a freedom and power of understanding and reason; so what they do is just the expression of the instinctive natural promptings in them and this is included in the scheme of the universal nature. Nature is beyond moral laws. Moral conduct is only for man, meant to restrict his behaviour and lead him on to universal consciousness through gradual ascent along the evolutionary ladder.

All things born must die. And there should be some immediate cause for the destruction of things. This cause of destruction may be another animal, an earthquake, a thunder-stroke, flood, disease, storm or any such thing. These should not be clothed with moral and ethical values except when these are connected with human agency.