The Divine Spark Resides Even in the Demonic Beings

The earth is the locus of the evolutionary principle. It is said that when the gods themselves want to grow and evolve, they must consent to take birth on the earth. It is therefore important to understand that the beings who take birth on the earth-plane are, for the most part, taking part in an evolutionary process and the growth of consciousness. There are of course exceptions, where typal beings occupy a specific rung in the development of consciousness and carry out the characteristics and principles of that rung, but that does not mitigate the ability of the soul to migrate over time across these various levels, absorbing experience at one level, and then moving on to the next one.

Similarly, it is possible for beings of the vital world, for instance, to take possession of an individual and overpower the individual’s own evolutionary development in a vital attempt to gain power and control on the earth plane. 

Our human mental framework is built to create clearly marked pairs of dualities, such as good/evil, happy/sad, etc. During the second world war, the being who identified as the ‘lord of nations’ was one such vital being that took possession of Hitler and used him as an instrument for dominance of human society, while the individual known as Hitler was systematically broken down and destroyed by those possessing power which he could not hold and sustain for long.

Valmiki, in the epic story of Sri Rama recounted in the Ramayana, sets forth a master demon who goes by the name Ravana, who is the primary enemy that Sri Rama needed to confront. His deeds were egregiously hostile and destructive, including the abduction of Sri Rama’s wife Sita and carrying her off to his stronghold of Lanka. We could easily create a story in our own minds of absolute good in the form of Sri Rama confronting embodied evil in the form of Ravana, but in doing so, we would be avoiding the subtle, yet essential backstory.

It turns out that Ravana was actually in a past lifetime a devotee of Vishnu, and a resident of Vaikuntha heaven, the abode of Vishnu. He had been cursed for some reason by some visiting sages and thus had to take birth as a demon on earth. His method of getting the attention of Vishnu and regaining his position as a devotee was to wreak such havoc that Vishnu had to incarnate and confront him directly and, bringing about his death, encompass his salvation and return to Vishnuloka. While Sri Rama, the avatar of Vishna, had to confront and bring an end to Ravana, he held the deeper understanding of the backstory and exercised understanding and compassion while at the same time prosecuting his war to bring about the end of Ravana’s reign of terror. Despite intense provocation he did not express hatred toward Ravana; rather, he did what needed to be done to preserve the world, restore harmony while at the same time, reclaiming the being who took birth as Ravana eventually as his devotee.

A disciple asks: ”Sweet Mother, does something aspire even in the most nasty people?”

The Mother notes: ”In the most nasty people?… yes, my child — even in the Asuras, even in the Adversaries, even in the monsters, there is something.”

“There is always a corner, a kind of rift, a sensitive point, which is usually called a weakness. But this actually is the strength of the being, the point by which it can be touched.”

“For even in the most obscure and misled beings, even in those whose conscious will is to fight against the Divine, in spite of themselves, in spite of everything, their origin is divine. And they work in vain, try in vain to cut themselves off from their origins; they cannot do it. Deliberately, consciously, they try all they can; but they know very well they cannot do it. Even the most monstrous being there is always a means to touch.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 6, Some Answers and Explanations, pp. 212-213