God and Asuras

When I first started to study Sanatana Dharma, I encountered a concept which at the time was sobering but the more I think of it makes sense. That being that God made the devils or Asuras and loves them just as he loves us. Accordingly, Shiva grants them boons and eventually will take them into the realm of self realization. OK, I have always been taught that they are in competition with God and that the demons are god's forever enemies and that they can never come back into favor.

Can someone explain this apparent contradiction and if God is all good and they are all evil, how can God stand to look at them which is another thing I was taught that God cannot stand to even look at evil.

Or, is the Abrahamic concept of the whole good and evil idea so different from the eastern one that I am comparing apples and oranges?

I welcome any discussion or clarification of this.
Thanks,
Jon

Namaste MS,

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mystical Soul

When I first started to study Sanatana Dharma, I encountered a concept which at the time was sobering but the more I think of it makes sense. That being that God made the devils or Asuras and loves them just as he loves us. Accordingly, Shiva grants them boons and eventually will take them into the realm of self realization. OK, I have always been taught that they are in competition with God and that the demons are god's forever enemies and that they can never come back into favor.

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First of all, let us be clear about God,god or sura and asura. God is One .God is Omnipotent and Omniscient. If anything can exist without God wanting it to exist will render God less than Omnipotent. So, any existence of Satan or Demons in conflict with God's wishes is against the very idea of God. From God comes everything. All Good and Bad things/entities come from the same God and went back into the same God. How ?

God has two aspects. Nirguna and Saguna. In Nirguna aspect, God is utterly peaceful / blissful without any forces of action (gunas) in play. However, the same God has Saguna aspect where He is with forces of action at work due to desire of becoming "many" from "one". This desire is the seed of all creations and it takes the help of Nature (Prakriti) (Nature of God which creates and maintains the world) and its three gunas (Sattva, Raja, Tama) for the creation to take place. God doesn't directly participate in whatever happens in creation. God acts with a phenomenon called ChidAbhAsa (reflected Consciousness) into Prakriti and by that whole creation comes into action. The three gunas act within the Prakriti bound under the Laws of Prakriti. Sum-total of Sattva, Raja and Tama is a Constant (Sattva+Raja+Tama = Constant) and if one is increased the other two diminish by the same amount i.e. really speaking, the three gunas in essence are not different from each other but can get converted into other gunas depending upon circumstances. In other words, from God's point of view, Good and Bad are just play of gunas and is not such a big deal.

When the three gunas interact and work, they create entities and their characteristics based on the ratio of Sattva, Raja and Tama guna which go into creation of that entity. Which means that if Sattva guna i.e. all good qualities are maximised in an entity, Suras or gods are created. If Tama+Raja gunas are maximised at the cost of Sattva guna, then Asura or demons come into in play. When the Sattva and Raja+Tama are not at extremes as in gods (Suras) or in demons (Asuras) then human beings come into play.

Sattva, Raja and Tama Gunas increase or decrease in a being depending upon Karma (action/past impressions stored in its conditioned consciousness) of that being. A human being can become a demon or god depending upon his actions. That is how PrahalAD who was born to a demon became as good as God by inculcating all good qualities in him. That is how Kansa who was a human being became as good as a demon due to his association with excessive of Raja and Tama gunas. Even today, if you watch people around you, you will find that some people are no better than demons and some are as good as the gods. So, it is just the gunas which make a being god or a demon or a human being.

As far as God is concerned, demons, humans and gods are His children. He is the source of all the three and also the end. He loves them equally because they all originate from Him alone but they are rewarded or punished as per Laws of Karma by Prakriti. Any being which becomes capable of breaking the shackles of gunas becomes GunAteeta and becomes free from births and deaths, virtues and vices and attains oneness with God.

OM

Namaste Vaasudevaye, thank you very much for your thought provoking response. I am going to read it a few more times and try to digest it better. I really want to learn more about theology thanks again for your enlightenment.
OM

Hello,

Namaste. If I may attempt a very short response...

Nobody on earth (or in Underworld) is essentially 'godless'. God loves sinners and saints alike. God also loves sinners because they too have the 'atman' or soul in them which is essentially a part and parcel of himself (made of divine matter). When the sinners pay for their sins (which the loving god will give them in plenty), they will also redeem and get better and become more divine. When they become pure, god will not hesitate to give them good things in life and also give them the merit to merge into himself/be with himself.

Namaste Viraja, the more I study this the more it makes sense. If the demons would ask forgiveness they would be forgiven. I once read that in the end we will all reach enlightenment and that includes the demons. I think I have been so indoctrinated with the aspect of good vs evil is eternal that it was quite a jolt to think of it in a more realistic way,