Advaita Vedānta approaches the problem of suffering and evil by sharply distinguishing between ultimate reality and the realm of appearances. At the highest level, only Brahman exists: pure, non-dual consciousness-bliss, untouched by any trace of evil or limitation. In that paramārthika (absolute) standpoint there is no real multiplicity, no separate beings, and therefore no genuine locus for suffering. What is ordinarily called “evil” does not belong to Brahman at all, but to a lower order of reality in which difference, conflict, and pain seem to arise.

The key to this apparent contradiction is the twin doctrine of māyā and avidyā. Māyā is the beginningless power by which the one Brahman appears as a manifold world, much as a rope might be mistaken for a snake in dim light. Avidyā, or ignorance, is the individual’s failure to recognize the true identity as non-dual Brahman; under its sway, the pure Self (Ātman) is misidentified with body, mind, and ego. Through this misidentification, the limitless Self seems to become a finite “I,” vulnerable to loss, fear, and pain. This superimposition (adhyāsa) of limitation and suffering upon pure consciousness does not actually alter the Self, just as clouds do not stain the sky, yet it structures lived experience as bondage and sorrow.

Within the empirical realm (vyavahārika-sattā), where this misapprehension operates, suffering and evil are not dismissed as trivial illusions; they function within an ordered moral universe. Here Advaita accepts Īśvara, the Lord associated with māyā, who presides over the law of karma. Actions born of desire, attachment, and aversion generate karmic results and samskāras (mental impressions), which in turn shape further experiences of pleasure and pain, as well as continued movement through saṃsāra, the cycle of rebirth. From this standpoint, what is called evil is the painful fruition of individual and collective karma within the field of māyā, and it calls for ethical response, compassion, and spiritual discipline.

Yet all of this remains relative and provisional when viewed from the highest perspective. Advaita insists that suffering and evil, though experientially compelling, lack independent, ultimate reality; they belong to the dream-like domain that is sublated when true knowledge dawns. Liberation (mokṣa) does not consist in repairing an ultimately broken world, but in dissolving ignorance through self-knowledge (ātma-jñāna). When the realization “aham brahmāsmi” – “I am Brahman” – becomes steady, the individual recognizes that the true Self was never bound, harmed, or diminished by the play of māyā. With that recognition, the very basis on which suffering appears to stand is undermined, and the world of evil and pain is seen as an appearance that never truly touched the real.