Why was Indra made the king of angels in spite of his many defects?

Shri Kishore Ram asked: Angel Indra made a lot of mistakes as mentioned in the Puranas. On what basis was he made or elected as the king of angels?

Swami replied: Due to the absence of tamas in them, angels do not have ignorance that arises from tamas. But they have some ignorance, which is generated by rajas. Rajas is the source of ego. In the Veda, there is a story that angels became proud upon defeating demons in the war. A king is always having more ego than any citizen and hence, Indra has naturally more ego than any angel. Angels are certainly better than human beings since human beings have double ignorance due to the presence of both rajas and tamas. All three qualities always coexist everywhere. In human beings, all the three qualities exist in significant amounts even though rajas predominates. Demons predominantly have tamas. In angels, when it is said that they do not have tamas, it means that tamas is present in negligible traces. This trace amount of tamas in angels arises from the inertia of the inert energy that forms their bodies. It is the rest mass of a photon. Angels have sattvam or knowledge as the predominant quality. Human beings have rajas as the predominant quality. Demons have tamas as predominant quality. Due to the predominance of tamas, they have material bodies made of highly condensed matter. When we say that angels represent sattvam, humans represent rajas and demons represent tamas, we are only referring to their predominant qualities. It does not mean that they do not have the other two qualities in smaller amounts. Both angels and demons are not visible to human beings due to the will of God, which has unimaginable power. Angels lie above the earth and demons lie below the earth.

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