Question: I once read that if you choose evil, you are not really free. I thought it was an interesting idea. Would you enlighten me?

Sri Chinmoy: First of all we have to know what evil is. Anything that limits us, anything that binds us, is evil. Evil will come to us in the form of pleasure, and when we surrender, when we yield to the pleasure that evil brings, we are caught. The evil that wants to make us its instrument for its own purpose makes us feel that we are helpless and ignorant, and that is the reason we accept it.

Sometimes we may have no freedom in our outer life, but in our inner life we have freedom, a considerable amount of freedom. We can pray, we can concentrate, we can meditate even in a prison cell. But when evil possesses us, at that time our inner freedom goes away, and our outer freedom also deserts us. At that time we are bound to seek the fulfilment of our desires or evil impulses.

Everything has a nature of its own. The very nature of evil is to bind; the very nature of divinity is to liberate. The nature of scorpions is to sting. We cannot expect them to behave differently. Therefore, we must not give them the opportunity to sting us. We have to stay away from them at all times. If we stand in front of a scorpion to exert our own freedom, it is foolishness.

We have to feel the necessity of staying only with something which constantly liberates and illumines us, and that is Light.