35. Question: Why did God curse men with the lower vital?

Sri Chinmoy: God did not curse man with the lower vital. God gave us the dynamic, energetic, all-conquering vital to use for a divine purpose. But God also gave us limited freedom, and in the vital world we did not use this freedom properly. We entered into the world of ignorance-pleasure. God is like the father who gives his child a penny because he wants to see what the child will do with it. If the child uses it properly, then the father gives him a nickel, a dime, a quarter. When God gave us the vital, He wanted us to expand the vital, not use it to dominate others or to destroy others. He wanted us to spread the wings of dynamic energy so that we could put an end to the life of ignorance. But instead of putting an end to the life of ignorance, what do we do? We consciously cherish the life of ignorance; we wallow in the pleasures of ignorance. On the one hand, we are crying to come out of the sea of ignorance, and on the other hand, we are just jumping into the sea of ignorance.

From the highest spiritual point of view, everything exists with God's approval and sanction. But we have to know that God, being the Author of all good, originally gave us only good, divine gifts. He gave us a little freedom so that we could also be like Him — good, divine, supreme beings. But instead of that, with our limited freedom we tried to destroy His creation, the everlasting, ever-illumining creation. The lower vital movements which we indulge in only increase our ignorance and bondage until finally we are devoured by them. God wants and needs us to use our capacities, potentialities and possibilities in a divine way so that at every moment we can make progress.