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there so much misery, evil, bad -- why?" It is because God cannot exist without them -- that is the background. God alone without the Devil will be just tasteless, just tasteless -- you can vomit him, but you cannot eat him -- just tasteless, nauseous. He knows the hidden harmony; he cannot exist without the Devil, so don't hate the Devil -- use him. If God is using him, why not you? If God cannot exist without him, how can you? So real saints, saints who have an intensity, are just like Gurdjieff.
Alan Watts has written about Gurdjieff: "He is the holiest rascal I have ever known!" And it is so: he is a rascal -- but the holiest. God himself is that rascal, the holiest. If you cut out the Devil, simultaneously you have killed God. The game needs two parties.
When Adam was tempted by the Devil it was God himself who was tempting him. It is a conspiracy. The serpent is in the service of God, the Devil also. The very word Devil is beautiful; it comes from a Sanskrit root which means the divine. Divine comes from the same root, DEV, as Devil; both words come from the same root. It is as if the root is one, only the branches are different: on one branch the Devil, on another branch the divine -- but the root is the same: DEV. There must be a conspiracy, otherwise the game cannot continue. There must be a deep harmony -- that is the conspiracy. Here God says to Adam, "You are not to eat from this tree of knowledge." Now the conspiracy starts, the game starts; now, the first rules are being set.
Christianity has missed many beautiful things because it has tried to create an obvious harmony, and for twenty centuries Christian theologians have been worried about the Devil: "How to explain him?" There is no need, it is simple, Heraclitus knows. It is very simple, no need to explain. But Christians have been worried because if the Devil is, God must have created him; otherwise, how is he there?
If the Devil is there, God must be allowing him to be there; otherwise, how can he be there? And if God cannot destroy him your God becomes impotent; then you cannot call him omnipotent. And if God created the Devil without knowing that he was going to be
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