Why doesn’t Krishna make things easy for his devotees?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
now why is it that Krishna doesn’t make things easy for his devotees why did Prabhupada say for example I have to struggle so much to share Krishna consciousness in 9.14 the Bhagavata Krishna says satatam kirtayanto mam yatan tascha dhrudha vratah namah shantashya mam bhaktya nitya yukta upasati satatam kirtayanto mam always glorify me yatan tascha dhrudha vratah endeavoring with great determination namah shantashya mam bhaktya nitya yukta upasati always they worship me offer obeisances to me in this way they are devoted to me so when I read this verse I had the question Krishna in the previous verse described how these are actually exalted they are pure devotees, they have no attraction to anything else in the world then why do they need great determination now we need great determination to serve Krishna because we are distracted by our mind and senses but those who are they will not need it so the Acharya explained over there that actually to do anything in this world is difficult so the devotees want to serve Krishna in this world glorifying Krishna in the spiritual world is easy but glorifying Krishna in this world requires endeavor and the devotees have the determination so Prabhupada explains that the difficulties in the great devotees life is for their glorification there are so many reasons Prabhupada could have said I don’t have to do this Prabhupada was already a pure devotee, he could have just been in Vrindavan and gone back to the spiritual world he didn’t have to come to America, Prabhupada could have said that but he accepted all those difficulties because he wanted to he wanted to be compassionate he wanted to share Krishna’s compassion with the world so that is how through all those difficulties that how much a devotee is ready to sacrifice for Krishna’s sake through that the greatness of that devotee and the devotion is revealed so for them the devotion the difficulty is for their glorification and for us sadhakas the difficulties are for our purification because when the difficulties come in our life often that is when we take shelter of Krishna now normally when even when we are practicing bhakti there can be stagnation in devotion so yes I am practicing bhakti Krishna is happy there, I am happy here but then it is only when difficulties come Krishna I need you please help me the intensity in the devotion comes so that is how purification happens that way now we can see in the Bhagavatam there is the sudden disappearance of the lord that happens in the first canto and in the tenth canto in the tenth canto it happens for the gopis they are with Krishna about to perform the rasa and Krishna disappears and eventually Krishna appears back and he basically says that the glory of your devotion is unparalleled even I cannot repay you so Krishna disappears from them just to have the Gopi Gita revealed to the world just to reveal the glory of the gopis devotion so Krishna’s disappearance from the gopis is for the gopis glorification in the first canto we have Narada Muni who has darshan of Krishna and suddenly Krishna disappears and then Krishna hears a voice which says that those who are impure of heart and incomplete in service they cannot see me but then he says by hankering for me all your worldly hankerings will go that means Krishna is subject to Narada Muni to separation from him for his purification and one glimpse you have of Krishna I want this again and again and again and again and in that all the other hankerings will go away so the difficulties which we face in our life they are ultimately for our purification and purification basically what does it mean sometimes you know purification means suffering it’s not like that purification essentially means that our choice changes so when we are impure as per our impurities we choose the worldly condition we choose particular attachments that’s what we take shelter of when we become purified we take shelter of Krishna so the difficulties are what forces to take shelter of Krishna and in that absorption in Krishna actually we experience the reality of Krishna consciousness the reality of Krishna’s love for us it will all be theoretical yes Krishna exists Krishna loves us we have souls gone through many lifetimes but a practical level we stay in material consciousness but when the difficulties come and we we realize that sometimes we may compare the difficulty comes now and the difficulty came say before I started practicing bhakti or if I had not been practicing bhakti then the difficulty would have crushed me but that means now at least I am living I am moving so how I want to do that that is because Krishna is giving me shelter so the difficulties help us to realize the reality of Krishna’s shelter and that’s how we can we can actually go beyond the difficulties we can actually go beyond the difficulty by realizing the reality of Krishna’s shelter I’ll conclude with one example which is given in the Madhya Sampradaya I have adapted the example for our circumstances say there is a teacher who is very strict and student doesn’t do homework the teacher is going to show your hand is going to beat the child now the mother knows the child has not done the homework today and now the mother knows the child is going to be beaten mother doesn’t want the child to be beaten at the same time the mother doesn’t want the child to be undisciplined so what the mother does is when the child is about to go to school mother puts nice thick gloves on the child’s hands and the child goes to school and have you done your homework? no, ok show your hand now loud noise comes but although the child is hit but the child is not hurt because the gloves are there in between so similarly Krishna we are like that child we all have done certain karma because we are supposed to get some reactions so material nature is like that teacher and Krishna is like the mother and the remembrance of Krishna is like that glove so the worldly problems will hit us but if we are absorbing the remembrance of Krishna they will not hurt us but if the child thinks what is this glove? I don’t need the glove takes out the glove and then goes to school then the child gets beaten so where is the glove? I need the glove let me put it on so like that sometimes for us we don’t feel the need for absorption in Krishna so when the blow starts hitting oh Krishna I need you so by material nature’s arrangement I think it’s a little dicey for us to say that Krishna is making things difficult for us. It’s not Krishna who is doing it.
Now in this material world people act misusing their free will. Material nature acts according to people’s past karma. Now to say that Krishna is creating the problems in our life that is a little philosophically problematic.
What we can say is that the problems are coming because of whatever reason but Krishna is ready to give He is giving us the glove of Krishna consciousness and sometimes the stick is not hitting then we don’t feel the need for the glove. So we take the glove and throw it away so when the stick comes oh Krishna I need you and that’s how we wholeheartedly take shelter of Krishna so it is said that when we are down to nothing then Krishna is up to something laughter laughter laughter so we will stop here we shall stop Thank you very much Prabhupada ki Gaur Vatsalindu ki Gaur Premanandu