... Why do suffering and ignorance exist in this world?
First of all one must be aware of the fact that suffering is an effect, not a cause; it is the effect of the identification of the sensorial ego with a vehicle of expression and with the qualities (guna) that the vehicle expresses.
The incarnate consciousness, when it identifies with one of its expressive qualities and with a mere tool of contact, can only be reductive; its “diminution”, its dwarfing, its degradation must necessarily have repercussions upon its cognitive capacity, so that it becomes a partial and limited knower. Ignorance or non-knowledge of its own nature (avidya), in turn, brings suffering, conflict, alienation. To believe to be what one is not causes tension and conflict because nature strives to regain its original condition.
... Why must atma or the incarnate jiva identify? Why is it exposed to this process of alienation? The answer is simple or complex depending on the degree of “light” one possesses.
One might begin by saying that for atma this represents one of its nature's expressive modes. And why should atma have such a nature? The empirical mind is able to discuss everything except the nature of a datum; the question cannot but lead inevitably to a regressio ad infinitum.
If the nature of atma were characterized only by identification it should, out of inexorable necessity, endure suffering and alienation. Fortunately it has another mode of being, that is to experience the levels of visva and taijasa without, however, creating any identification... This implies, in other terms, that one becomes “center” or “principle of fixity”, of transcendence, transforming oneself from lunar to solar element.
... This solar state offers neither expectations or frustrations because it lives in freedom ...
But if this solar modality is the best, why do beings today fail to express it?
Today, in fact, many beings would prefer not to find themselves involved in identification-suffering and are trying to reject their style of life; but it must be pointed out that such awareness flashed forward only today; there was a time when that life style was perfectly suited to their state of consciousness.
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*From Raphael, Commentary to the VI Sutra of the Gaudapada Mandukyakarika: «It (prajna) is the supreme Lord, the Omniscient, the inner Ruler, the Source of all; in it all things originate and dissolve». Aurea Vidya, New Yorl 2002. .