If we ask Krishna for something material that is not good for us, will he give it?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
See, if we ask something to Krishna, material, and it’s not good for us, but we don’t know that it’s not good for us, so will Krishna give it to us? See, goodness and badness, often this is not intrinsic. It is not always determined by content. It is also determined by consequence.
That means the same thing, which would be good for one person may be bad for another person. So rather than saying that things themselves are good or bad, we can say that how we deal with those things is good or bad. So some people may pray to Krishna for wealth and they may get wealth and that may increase their faith.
Oh, Krishna fulfills my prayers. And they may become devoted to Krishna. We see this happen with Dhruva Maharaj.
He wanted a kingdom. He got the kingdom. But he felt, oh, Krishna is so much more attractive.
He said that this kingdom is just a broken piece of glass. Actually, Krishna himself is the jewel and I want that. But that’s not what happens to everyone.
There are examples of demons who get wealth and they become intoxicated. So when there are two aspects in our relationship with Krishna, when we approach Krishna, we cannot artificially partition our material and spiritual life. No, we are integral beings.
Now, when we care for someone, we can’t say that I’ll care for your soul. I won’t care for your body. We can’t do that.
We care for the complete person, body, mind and soul. So like that, even with our needs, we cannot artificially partition our material and spiritual life. Our material life also matters.
Our material life, it is important and ultimately it affects our spiritual life. If there is some upheaval in some relationship, if there is financial instability, if there is health issues, all that affects our spiritual life. So we can’t artificially just neglect our material life and think I’ll approach Krishna only spiritually.
What we try to do is we have a spiritual relationship with Krishna based on our sadhana, based on our shastric study, based on our devotee association. And along with that, we harmonize our material life. So if something is burdening us, if some material problem is burdening us, then that is occupying a significant place in our heart.
When that is burdening our heart, if at that time we say I’ll not talk about this to Krishna, I’ll not pray to Krishna about this, then basically that problem is not going to go away from our heart. That problem is anyway going to occupy a large part of our heart. It will occupy a large part of our heart.
At that time, we will not let Krishna connect with that large part of the heart. Is that point clear? Because my consciousness is going to be occupied by that problem anyway. I can’t wish away that problem.
That problem is there, it is there. So better that I pray to Krishna for the solution of that problem. But again, we don’t make our bhakti conditional to the solution of that problem.
So even if we pray to Krishna for something, now one of the things that makes bhakti exciting is that no one can predict Krishna’s response. So sometimes Krishna may give something to us. And if we have a sincere attitude to serve, then even that which could have taken us away from Krishna, we will get the intelligence to use it and go towards Krishna.
So rather than worrying too much about what Krishna will do, we focus on whether we are doing the right thing. So doing the right thing means trying to make sure that our basic sadhana, our spiritual practices that connect us with Krishna, they go on steadily, no matter what happens. At the same time, some material things are burdening us, we can’t pray to Krishna about that.
And if we pray to Krishna, how Krishna responds, that is his mercy. And we continue our practice of bhakti. So it’s not that we partition a part of our heart away from Krishna.
We are trying to offer our whole heart to Krishna and something material is occupying the heart, we connect that also with