Question: Do good and evil really exist?

Sri Chinmoy: From the highest spiritual point of view there is no such thing as evil. But in the field of manifestation, the experiences that we get in our day-to-day life can be described as good or evil. On earth there is good and evil, but in the highest and deepest world of the spirit, there is no such thing. Good and evil do exist for us when we are in ordinary earthbound consciousness. But when we go beyond duality, beyond knowledge and ignorance, beyond this so-called truth and falsehood, we also go beyond good and evil.

The ultimate Truth is beyond the mental conception. Good and evil are located in the front of the mind. When you go beyond the mind, at that time you see that this good and evil are not the ultimate Truth. What is good for me may be bad for somebody else. What is evil for one person may not be evil for somebody else. The poison of the snake is very bad for us, but for the snake it is not.

Again, from the philosophical point of view, what some people call evil or sin, we think of as ignorance — the constant play of Maya or illusion. He who is caught in this play is different from the liberated soul who is freed from this illusion of reality. It is by meditation that we can free ourselves from ignorance, from illusion, and transform our human nature into the divine nature.