Why God Allows Evil: The Masochism of the Soul

By Ajit Krishna Dasa

Introduction

The question is familiar, almost worn out by repetition: If God is all-good and all-powerful, why does He allow evil and suffering? Why should a child be born into war, a mother bury her son, or a man be driven to despair by loneliness, disease, or betrayal? And if such things are real—and they are—then how can we claim that this world is governed by a benevolent and omnipotent God?

Most attempts to answer this question focus on justice, free will, or soul-making. They tell us that suffering is deserved, or that it results from the misuse of free will, or that it helps us grow. There is some truth in each of these, but none of them get to the root. They speak of how suffering functions within the world—but not why such a world was created to begin with. They rarely ask the harder question: Why would God allow such a world to exist at all, if He didn’t have to?

This article offers a different approach—a theodicy grounded in what may be called the masochism of the soul. By this I do not mean a modern psychological or sexual tendency. I mean the deeper truth that conditioned souls sometimes crave opposition and suffering, because only through being hurt, rejected, or opposed can they play out the roles they imagine for themselves—hero, victim, renunciate, savior, or martyr.

According to Vaiṣṇava philosophy, this world exists not because God needed evil, but because some souls did. They desired experiences that required it—glory, independence, control, admiration, drama, even sympathy—and for those experiences to be real, they required not just generic hardship, but other souls who would actually oppose, reject, or hurt them. And so, out of respect for their autonomy, God created a world suited to those desires. A world of duality. A world with karma. A world with suffering. Not because He delights in it, but because we insisted on trying to delight without Him.

The problem of evil is not resolved by denying that suffering is real or painful. It is resolved when we understand why souls want a world where it can exist—and how God, without compromising His goodness, gave them the freedom to taste exactly that.

This perspective is not simply another version of the free will defense, or of the soul-making theodicy proposed in modern philosophy. It goes deeper. It explains not just why suffering might help us once it already exists, but why a world containing suffering had to exist in the first place. No one has framed the problem of evil in quite this way before. What follows, then, is a unique theodicy: evil exists not because God needs it, but because we, in our self-centered desires, insisted upon it—even requiring that others oppose, hurt, or reject us in order to make our imagined roles feel real.

There Already Is a World Without Evil: Vaikuntha

The first thing to understand is this: God did not create evil out of His own desire. Nor is He required to. Evil is not built into the fabric of existence. It is not eternal. It is not necessary.

In fact, there already exists a world where evil, suffering, fear, and ignorance simply do not and cannot exist. That world is called Vaikuṇṭha—literally, “the place of no anxiety.”

In Vaikuṇṭha, no one dies. No one grows old, no one lies or cheats, no one competes for power. There is no envy, no frustration, no loneliness, and no exploitation. The living beings there are fully awake to their original nature as servants of the Supreme Person, and in that relationship they experience ever-increasing joy, variety, and meaning. Each soul is fully themselves—not lost in the false ego, not diluted into impersonal oneness, and not oppressed by others. God is at the center, and because of that, everyone is satisfied.

There is no need for heroism, because there is no danger.
No need for charity, because there is no poverty.
No need for justice, because there is no wrongdoing.
No need for religion, because there is no forgetfulness of God.

And yet, life there is full—vibrant with individuality, love, and joy. There is singing, dancing, laughter, beauty, art, affection, humility, and unlimited pastimes. In other words, meaning and joy do not require suffering. God has already demonstrated that by creating a world where meaning is sustained eternally without evil.

So the question arises—if such a world exists, and it is so perfect, why would any soul leave it? Why would anyone want something else?

The answer is not that they wanted more joy, but that they wanted a different kind of experience—one centered on themselves. And to play out those roles, they needed not only independence from God but also others who would oppose them, neglect them, or even hurt them. To feel heroic, they needed enemies. To feel socially detached, they needed betrayal. To feel pitied, they needed suffering.

This is where the actual problem begins—not with God, but with desire.

Some Souls Didn’t Want That World

If Vaikuṇṭha is a world of joy, variety, and freedom without suffering, why would any soul not want to remain there? The answer lies in free will.

Even in Vaikuṇṭha, love is never forced. The soul is eternal, conscious, and blissful, but it is also marginal—free to choose between serving Kṛṣṇa or turning away from Him. Real love requires this freedom. If the soul had no option but to love, it would not be love at all.

Most souls remain forever satisfied in loving service, finding unlimited fulfillment in glorifying God and sharing in His joy. But some became curious: What if I were the center? What if I received the praise instead of giving it? What if I could taste experiences impossible in a world of harmony?

This was the seed of false desire. As the Bhagavad-gītā explains:

“Deluded by desire and hate, the living beings in this world are born into delusion.” (BG 7.27)

Such desires cannot be fulfilled in Vaikuṇṭha. There, no one envies, no one betrays, no one hurts, and no one forgets God. And so the soul that wants to be the center must seek a different arena.

And it was not only independence they sought, but also the backdrop that would make their imagined roles feel real.

To be heroic, they needed enemies.
To forgive, they needed betrayal.
To show social detachment, they needed rejection.
To win admiration, they needed others to be beneath them.
To gain pity, they needed to suffer visibly.

In Vaikuṇṭha, none of this is possible. Therefore, for those souls, a different world had to be created—one where their desires could take shape, with all the consequences that would follow.

God’s Solution: A Secondary World for Those Desires

When a soul desires something that cannot exist in Vaikuṇṭha—namely, to be independent from God, to enjoy separately, to be praised instead of praising—the solution is not to force them into submission. That would not be love, and it would not be freedom. Kṛṣṇa never forces surrender.

Instead, He gives the soul a different environment—a temporary world designed specifically to facilitate the soul’s new desires, while still preserving justice and providing the opportunity to return.

This is the material world.

It is a world governed by duality: pleasure and pain, success and failure, gain and loss.

A world bound by karma, where every action has a consequence, even if delayed.
A world defined by time, where everything changes, decays, and dies.
And a world saturated with illusion, where the soul forgets God, forgets itself, and chases reflections.

But most importantly, it is a world where other souls are allowed to act wrongly toward us—and where we are allowed to act wrongly toward them. Because only in such an arena can the soul’s egotistical dramas play out: heroism requires danger, forgiveness requires offense, detachment requires betrayal, and pity requires pain.

This world is not broken. It’s not poorly designed. It’s exactly what was required for souls who wanted to explore life without Kṛṣṇa. It is a place of learning. A place of consequences. A place where the soul is free to act, but not free to escape the results of those actions.

As Śrīla Prabhupāda so often said: “As you desire, God gives the facility.”

The facility to try being the center.
The facility to enjoy independently.
The facility to experience what it’s like to be God—or at least try.
And the facility to meet real opposition, so that the soul’s imagined greatness, detachment, or pity could feel authentic.

But no matter how much facility is given, the soul remains a fragmental part of God, not His equal. And therefore, the attempt always fails, sooner or later. That failure—the inevitable frustration of false desire—is what we call suffering.

But suffering is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a question: What am I really looking for? And that question, in time, can bring us home.

What Souls Desire Means Suffering—For Themselves and for Each Other

Every soul who enters this material world comes with a specific type of desire—a desire that cannot be fulfilled in Vaikuṇṭha, because it is rooted in ego and separateness. But more than that, this desire is such that it requires the soul to suffer in order to achieve the experience they’re after.

It is not that some souls are cast into suffering merely to fill dramatic roles for others. No—each soul enters the material world with desires born of their own will, and these impressions require pain, danger, fear, or loss in order to be fulfilled. And for those experiences to be real, the soul also requires other souls to oppose them, to reject them, to wound them.

Let’s look more closely.

The Desire to Be Heroic, Resilient, or Glorious

Some souls want to feel strong, brave, and victorious. They want to overcome, to rise above, to stand out as noble or admirable. But within the material world, those experiences are only felt in contrast to threat, loss, or adversity.

To feel heroic, one seeks a situation of real danger.
To feel resilient, one must pass through genuine difficulty.
To feel glorious, one must stand apart—often by winning, protecting, or sacrificing.

In this way, the soul consciously and subconsciously invites hardship, and even opposition, because hardship and opposition become the backdrop against which their imagined greatness can be expressed. They need enemies, rivals, and obstacles, because without them there is no stage for their drama.

b. The Desire for Drama, Emotion, and Intensity

Other souls desire emotional experiences that are not possible in the spiritual world, where peace and spiritual love are steady and ever-increasing.

But in this world, you can feel:

The thrill of risk,
The pain of betrayal,
The agony of separation,
The rush of romantic passion,
The devastation of loss—and the ecstasy of reunion.

These emotions are only possible when others act imperfectly—when someone betrays, when someone leaves, when someone rejects. Thus, to fulfill these desires, the soul must agree—consciously or subtly—to a world in which others will act wrongly toward them.

c. The Desire to Be Seen, Admired, or Pitied

Some souls want to be significant—to be noticed, remembered, praised, or even pitied. But again, suffering and opposition become the vehicle for this significance:

“Look what I endured.
“See how much I sacrificed.”
“Observe how detached I am.”
“Feel sorry for me. Understand my pain.”

In this way, even those who claim to despise suffering may, at some level, cling to it, because it reinforces their sense of being important, exceptional, or godlike. They may even desire harsh austerities, poverty, or humiliation—so that others will admire their stoicism, their renunciation, or their tragedy.

Even acts like charity or sacrifice can be contaminated by this hidden motive. As described in the Bhagavad-gītā (16.17), the demoniac person gives in charity simply to inflate his own ego. But even that desire—for admiration—requires prior hardship, either for oneself or others. Thus, the ego-driven desire indirectly calls suffering into being, and requires others to play the part of those in need, or those who reject and wound.

d. From Self-Desire to Mutual Exploitation

At first, each soul suffers primarily as a result of their own desires and past actions. No one enters this world as an innocent bystander. But once embodied, these souls begin to interact—and their karmas intertwine.

The soul who wants to dominate needs others to submit.
The soul who wants to save needs others to be in danger.
The soul who wants to be admired for giving needs others to be in need.
The soul who wants to forgive needs others to wound them.
The soul who wants to be heroic needs real enemies to rise against them.

And so, over time, the world becomes a stage of mutual exploitation—not by divine design, but by the inevitable logic of ego-centered desire.

Everyone is chasing their own distorted version of godhood, and each soul’s suffering becomes both a reaction to their own choices and an opportunity for others to play out theirs.

This is why Śrīla Prabhupāda often said that this world is a slaughterhouse—not because God made it so, but because souls used their freedom to compete instead of serve, to imitate instead of surrender.

Even here, however, God remains present. He never leaves the soul without the chance to reflect, to turn inward, and to remember who they really are.

Thought Experiment: A World Without Evil

Let us imagine a world where there is no evil. No suffering. No fear, no injustice, no pain.

In this imagined world:

No one ever hurts anyone else
No one lies, cheats, or manipulates.
There is no war, no crime, no sickness, no betrayal.
No death. No anxiety. No sorrow.
Everyone always does what is right, and no one ever experiences the consequences of wrong choices—because wrong choices don’t exist.

On the surface, this may sound ideal. But now ask yourself: What kind of experiences would be possible in such a world?

Would anyone be able to show courage? No—because there would be no real danger to face.

Could anyone be heroic? No—because there would be no enemies, no victims to rescue, no battles to fight.

Could anyone be charitable? No—because there would be no poverty, no desperation.

Could anyone be merciful? No—because there would be no suffering to respond to.

Could anyone experience triumph? No—because there would be no real conflict to overcome.

Could anyone even feel intense romantic passion or dramatic longing? No—because there would be no separation, no betrayal, no fear of loss.

Could anyone feel like God—the protector, the admired, the self-sufficient, the glorious one? Not at all. Because in such a world, there is no room for the false ego to imagine itself central. No way to feel superior. No backdrop against which to shine.

What Remains?

What remains is peace. Harmony. Stability. No anxiety. No competition. No fear. In other words—Vaikuṇṭha.

But the souls who enter the material world did not want that. They wanted more than peace. They wanted opposition, drama, and intensity. They wanted real enemies to fight, real betrayers to forgive, real suffering to endure, real rejection to rise above.

They wanted emotion, glory, admiration, pity, detachment, and danger. They wanted to taste what it feels like to be the center—to play the part of the savior, the lover, the warrior, the wise guide, the pitied victim.

And all of that is impossible without suffering—especially the kind caused by other souls acting against them.

So they could not remain in Vaikuṇṭha, and they could not live in the kind of world described above—because such a world would frustrate the very desires they had come to cherish.

Therefore, Kṛṣṇa gave them something else. Not a bad world. Not a broken world. But a perfectly constructed arena in which their desires could be acted out—with full justice, under strict supervision, and always with the possibility of return.

The Role of Karma: Why Suffering Appears Unjust

Once we understand that this world was created as a response to the soul’s own desires, the next question arises: Why does the suffering in this world so often appear unfair? Why are some people born into misery, while others enjoy privilege? Why do children suffer? Why do some commit horrible crimes and seem to escape the consequences?

The answer lies in the law of karma.

Karma means that every action—mental, verbal, or physical—creates a corresponding reaction. It is not merely punishment or reward. It is a reflection of the soul’s own desires and choices, playing out over time in precise and often subtle ways.

Even a soul’s subtle desire—such as the desire to be seen as heroic, or the desire to suffer and be admired for it—generates karmic consequences. Those impressions (saṁskāras) accumulate, and they shape the circumstances of one’s next birth.

So when a soul enters this world, they do so already carrying the seeds of their future suffering—planted by their own will. And for many souls, those seeds include the desire to be opposed, rejected, or harmed in some way—because only then can they play the roles they cherish.

Karma Includes Subtle and “Accidental” Harm

Karma is not limited to intentional cruelty. Even actions that seem socially acceptable—or even virtuous—can generate suffering if they are rooted in ego and selfishness, or if they result in harm to others.

For example, a soul who desires to be the center—to be admired, glorified, praised—may unconsciously act in ways that harm others:

Taking more than one needs,
Competing aggressively for power or attention,
Building an identity that depends on others being beneath them,
Giving in charity with pride, or guiding others in ways that subtly reinforce their own superiority.

Even if these actions are not done with direct malice, they still carry consequences—because they are driven by a desire to enjoy separately from God, and they often result in others being exploited, diminished, or forgotten.

And just as one person’s desire to be admired calls others into need, another person’s desire to be heroic calls others into danger, another’s desire to forgive calls others into betrayal, and another’s desire to be pitied calls others into cruelty against them. Karma arranges all of these intersecting roles with perfect precision.

This is how even “accidental” harm creates karma. Because it is not the outer behavior alone that matters—it is the inner motive, the subtle pride, and the ripple effects it creates in the world of other souls. The desire to be the center almost always puts others at the margin. And that has a cost.

But Why Does It Look So Unfair?

Because we are only seeing a single lifetime, disconnected from its karmic past. What appears unjust is actually the result of an intricately woven history of previous desires, actions, and attachments.

Karma is not random. It is not cruel. It is not merely mechanical. It is orchestrated with surgical precision by the Supersoul (Paramātmā), who resides in the heart of every living being and oversees the unfolding of each soul’s journey.

Śrīla Prabhupāda often emphasized: “Not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the Supreme.”

This means that even the most painful event has a meaning, a history, and a connection to the soul’s deeper journey—even if we can’t see it from here.

Complex Entanglement and Shared Karma

And yet, karma is not isolated. This world is not a collection of disconnected lifelines—it is a vast web of entangled souls, each interacting with others, creating mutual consequences.

The desire of one soul often intersects with the desire of another:

One soul desires to rise; another desires to fall.
One desires intensity; another desires recognition.
One desires to dominate; another is karmically inclined to be dominated.
One desires to forgive; another desires to betray.

These intersections are not accidents. They are mutual karmic arrangements, designed to fulfill the desires of multiple souls simultaneously—even if none of them are consciously aware of it.

This is why the same event can be someone’s punishment, someone else’s lesson, someone else’s pride, and someone else’s awakening—all at once.

In this way, karma explains why suffering exists without making God the author of that suffering. The soul is the author. God is the overseer. And karma is the system by which desire becomes experience—including the desire for real opposition and hurt, arranged with perfect justice, and always leaving the door open for the soul to turn back to Him.

Natural Evils Are Also Part of the System

When people think of evil, they often picture cruelty, betrayal, or war—human beings harming one another. But what about natural evils? Earthquakes, diseases, floods, droughts, and storms—these seem to strike without human cause. How do they fit into this picture?

The answer is that natural evils, too, exist within the system of karma and desire.

Sometimes they appear as part of a soul’s specific desire.

The soul who wants to be heroic may face wild beasts, plagues, or storms.
The soul who wants pity may be born with disease or deformity.
The soul who wants admiration for asceticism may live in famine or harsh climates.

In such cases, natural evils supply the stage for roles that the soul insisted upon.

But often they arise as consequences of adharma—when individuals or societies exploit, neglect, or rebel against divine order. Śāstra explains that when dharma declines, nature itself becomes hostile. Famine, drought, disease, and disaster are not random accidents; they are karmic results of collective choices.

When rulers exploit their people, rains may cease (SB 4.18.7).
When society turns away from sacrifice, nature withdraws her gifts (BG 3.14).
In Kali-yuga, as dharma wanes, natural miseries steadily increase (SB 1.17).

So natural evils can function in two ways:

As the backdrop for certain ego-centered desires.
As karmic consequences for adharma, both individual and collective.

In either case, they remain under divine supervision. Not a blade of grass moves without God’s sanction, and not a storm rises without purpose. They serve the twin functions of fulfilling desire and correcting deviation—while always leaving open the chance to turn back to Kṛṣṇa.

The Sufferings of Body and Mind

Beyond the harms that come from other people and from nature, every soul who enters the material world also suffers from within—from the body and the mind.

The body itself is a karmic costume. It is given according to past actions and desires, and it carries the seeds of pain from the very beginning. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, injury, disease, aging, and death are all built into the material body. These are not accidents, but the inevitable consequences of having chosen a temporary form in a temporary world.

The mind, too, becomes a source of suffering. It is restless, flickering, and easily disturbed. It generates anxiety, depression, envy, confusion, and endless craving. As the Bhagavad-gītā teaches (6.6), the mind can be the soul’s friend or the soul’s enemy. When it is bound by false desire, it becomes the worst enemy of all.

Some of these sufferings are directly tied to desire.

The soul who wants to be admired as austere may be given a body prone to pain.
The soul who wants pity may be born with a chronic illness or mental burden.
The soul who wants to feel victorious must struggle against weakness, hunger, or despair.
The soul who wants detachment must endure the torment of unfulfilled longings.

But many sufferings of body and mind arise as karmic reactions—consequences of adharmic actions, past or present. Exploiting others, neglecting dharma, or misusing one’s body and mind in previous lives can all lead to conditions of disease, instability, or inner torment in this one.

Thus, even when alone, the soul is not without suffering. Its very embodiment provides both the backdrop for its ego-driven desires and the karmic consequences of its past.

And just as with external and natural evils, these sufferings are not meaningless. They are precise, karmically arranged, and divinely supervised. They both fulfill the soul’s false desires and expose their futility, pushing the soul to question: “Is this what I truly wanted?”

God’s Goodness Is Shown in How He Manages This World

Having entered a world built on their own distorted desires, the soul begins to suffer—caught in a web of karma, illusion, frustration, and disappointment. But even in this fallen condition, God does not abandon the soul.

He does not walk away from the material world and leave it to rot in meaninglessness. On the contrary, His goodness and mercy are seen precisely in how He continues to manage, oversee, and intervene in this world.

Kṛṣṇa Enters the System

The Supreme Lord does not merely remain in His eternal abode while watching us from a distance. He enters the world in various ways:

As Paramātmā, the Supersoul in the heart of every living being, silently witnessing, guiding, and sanctioning all actions.
As avatāras, divine incarnations such as Kṛṣṇa, Rāma, and Caitanya Mahāprabhu, who descend to restore dharma and reawaken devotion.
Through śāstra, scripture revealed through divine vision—not written by men, but descending from above to give the soul a map out of illusion.
Through the devotees, who carry His message and demonstrate by example the path back to the spiritual world.

He does not interfere with our free will. He allows others to wrong us, just as He allows us to wrong them—because that is what we all, in one way or another, asked for. But He surrounds us with reminders, signs, opportunities, and teachers, all designed to awaken our forgotten identity as His eternal servants.

A World Governed by Law—Not Chaos

This material world, though full of suffering, is not chaotic. It is governed by moral and metaphysical law—karma, time, the modes of nature—all working under divine supervision. Everything that happens does so with purpose. Nothing is meaningless.

God’s goodness is not seen in the removal of all pain, but in the structure and purpose of the system itself. Even suffering becomes meaningful when understood as:

A result of previous choices,
A purification of false desires,
A wake-up call to deeper truth,
And an opportunity to return to Kṛṣṇa.

The Exit Is Always Open

Most importantly, God’s goodness is shown in this: the way out is never closed.

Even after millions of births, even after lifetimes of rebellion, the moment the soul sincerely turns toward God, the entire system begins to rearrange in their favor. The Lord in the heart takes a more active role. The external world begins to shift. The soul begins to be guided—not toward greater illusion, but toward liberation and eternal shelter.

“In all activities just depend upon Me and work always under My protection. In such devotional service, be fully conscious of Me.”
— Bhagavad-gītā 18.57

In this way, God’s goodness is not proven by the absence of suffering, but by His constant presence in the midst of it, His respect for our autonomy, and His unceasing effort to bring us home—when we are ready.

Evil Exists Because We Desired Experiences That Require It

In the end, the problem of evil is not a problem with God. It is a problem with desire.

God created a world without evil. A world without suffering. A world of harmony, love, and eternal individuality in service to the Supreme. That world still exists—Vaikuṇṭha—where every soul knows its identity and every relationship is steeped in joy.

But some souls didn’t want that.

They wanted something else—something centered on themselves.

They wanted to be admired, glorified, envied, desired, feared, remembered.
They wanted to feel heroic, wise, noble, detached, tragic, or victorious.
They wanted to experience intensity, identity, meaning, and self-definition outside of their relationship with God.

And for that, they needed suffering.

Not only their own suffering—but also that others would oppose them, reject them, hurt them, betray them. Because without real enemies, there can be no real heroism. Without real betrayal, there can be no real forgiveness. Without real rejection, there can be no real detachment. Without real cruelty, there can be no real pity. Without real ignorance, there can be no false appearance of wisdom.

In short: they desired a world in which other souls would act sinfully toward them, because those experiences gave them something they craved—a sense of greatness, of transformation, of uniqueness, of self-importance.

So Kṛṣṇa created this world. Not out of cruelty. Not out of neglect. But because He honors free will—even when it turns against Him.

He created a system where:

The soul’s desires are fulfilled through karma.
The souls who harm us are themselves following karmic impressions.
And all of it unfolds under perfect supervision, with the option to return always open.

We suffer not only because of our actions, but because of our desires. We even suffer at the hands of others because—deep down—we wanted a world where that could happen. And Kṛṣṇa, in His mercy, gave us that world. And the freedom to leave it.