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Swami Nirmalananda Giri (Abbot George Burke)

Evil Spirits and Satan: Where Do They Come From?

evil spirits

Q: Where do evil spirits come from? The Christian Bible acknowledges them–Legion, for example (Mark 5:9; Luke 8:30).

It is important to understand that in all relative existence there are only the Supreme Spirit, God (Brahman), and the seemingly infinite number of individual spirits (jivas). The individual spirits live within God, which whom they are eternally one, yet distinct from him in a manner only the perfectly liberated spirits can comprehend.

There are not different kinds of spirits, but as spirits enter into relative existence and begin evolving through higher and higher forms, there is differentiation in the energies of which their various bodies are composed. For example, the body of a bird and the body of a human being are vastly different, but the spirit in those bodies are the same: pure consciousness. I recommend you read Robe of Light on our website for a detailed explanation of this and its purpose.

Types of unintentionally negative spirits

There are spirits that harm human beings but have no wish to harm. Some of these are spirits that wander into the world from other dimensions and wreak havoc, but with no negative intention. They just do not understand the world in which they find themselves and are not aware of the effect they are having on human beings.

Also very undeveloped spirits without understanding may harm human beings because they do not understand the nature of a human being. Undines, water spirits, often inspire swimmers to swim far out into the ocean in a kind of euphoric trance and then not be able to swim back, so they drown. The undines want the humans to join them and live in the water. But their influence causes them to die.

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Who Are the Ideal Householder Yogis?

Q: Someone told me that the Indian scriptures say if householder yogis only engage in sexual relations at night they are actually brahmacharis. Is this so?

I have come across this in some “scriptural” books myself more than once. Nevertheless, this statement is not only false, it is foul. Do not believe it. I have read the dharma shastras on the rules for the grihasta life and they are far more stringent I can assure you.

But since you mention “householder yogis,” let me assure you that all such talk is usually just empty air. Three men are held up as examples of “householder yogis” to the world: Sri Ramakrishna, his disciple Durgacharan Nag and Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya. Let us look at their examples, which are holy indeed.

Sri RamakrishnaSri Ramakrishna

Sri Ramakrishna was first of all a monk, a member of the Puri branch of the Swami Order. Ramakrishna was his monastic name.

His family and the owner of the Dakshineshwar Kali Temple decided that celibacy had made his brain overheated and that if his brahmacharya would be broken then he would be “normal.” So first of all, the owner of the temple took him to a house of prostitution in Calcutta and left him there until “it” would be done. When he went back he found Sri Ramakrishna seated in samadhi while being worshipped by the prostitutes who upbraided him for daring to attempt defilement of such a holy man.

His family had gotten him married for the same nefarious purpose, but the bride was a child at the time. So after the Calcutta failure it was decided to send Sarada Devi, his now-adult wife, to live with him in the temple and end his brahmacharya. What they did not know was her exalted spiritual status.

One night he asked her: “Have you come here to bring my mind down to the lower planes?” “Why would I?” she replied, and they lived together in unbroken virginity. He worshipped her as Kali and she worshipped him as Kali. After his mahasamadhi she carried on his work as a supreme jnani and yogeshwari. Read their biographies and their spiritual discourses, especially The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, and decide who in India or America are really householder yogis.

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