Making sense of senseless suffering – Understanding why devotees face fatal accidents

[Congregation program at Brisbane, Australia]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
will be here and this wonderful Hare Krishna.
Good to be here amongst all of you. And, thank you for being here. I got delayed because of the flight.
Somehow, it changed. I’ll try to speak today on the topic of Making Sense of Life’s Senseless Suffering. Making Sense of Life’s Senseless Suffering.
I know all of you are under a state of shock coming to know about the tragic demise of Madhuri Mataji here. A few years ago, I was in Mumbai and something similar had happened at that time. Several devotees from Mumbai had gone for pilgrimage to North India, to Patinath.
And there, the flight had crashed. Several devotees had died at one place. So, these are very difficult situations for us to deal with.
And I’ll try to talk first from a Bhagavatam perspective, then from a practical perspective. The Bhagavatam, at several places, addresses what is commonly called as the problem of evil. Why does bad exist in this world? Why do bad things happen to good people? And there are many different bad things that can happen, but death seems to have such an irreversibility to it that it becomes very difficult to accept it.
In the 16-17 chapters of the Bhagavatam, first canto, there is the incident of how the cow and the bull are being beaten by… Am I audible behind or is it too low? The cow and the bull are being beaten by a person impersonating as a king, and that is Kali. So, Parikshit Maharaj comes over there and draws out his sword and chastises Kali. And then he turns to the cow and bull, the bull is being especially beaten, the cow is being tormented, and seeing the suffering of the bull, and he asks, Oh bull, tell me, what is the cause of your suffering? Now at one level, this question can seem absurd.
Can’t you see? This person was beating me, that’s why I’m suffering. So why is he asking such an absurd question? And the answer of the bull there is even more strange. He says, Actually, it is very difficult to know the cause of suffering.
Different people offer different theories, but ultimately no one knows what is the cause of suffering. Why is this bull not pointing out? This person Kali is beating me. He doesn’t do that.
And then Parikshit Maharaj’s response is at one level even more strange. First he says that, Kudos, you are a very wise person. I can know that you must be Dharma, because such wisdom cannot be present in any ordinary human being.
What is the wisdom here? He asked, what is the cause of your suffering? He didn’t give no answer. What is the wisdom? And then he says, The blamer for a wrongdoing, the accuser for a wrongdoing, gets the same destination as the wrongdoer. Now this may seem outrageous.
If one person beats up another person, one person abuses another person, is it that if the abuse points out, Oh, this person abused me. Is that person going to get the same karma? No, not at all. The point over there is something much deeper.
When he is saying they both get the same destination, that means that both of them are in material consciousness. And in material consciousness, when a person lives, we look at the immediate causes. Oh, this person hit me.
And I hit this person. I did not hit this person. So the whole Bhagavatam’s mood is to take us beyond immediate causes.
Time and time again, if you consider, let’s start from the central narrative of the Bhagavatam. The Bhagavatam’s central narrative is, Parishad Maharaj is cursed to die in seven days. There are many adventure novels, adventure movies, that start with this particular person is going to die within this much time, unless he does something.
Maybe he has to find this treasure, or he has to get this elixir, or he has to do this, he has to do that. And then the whole movie is about how that person manages to get that and survives. So the Bhagavatam starts with Parishad Maharaj being cursed to die.
And at the end of the Bhagavatam, Parishad Maharaj dies. So what is this? If we have a movie starting with somebody about to die, then the person dies at the end of the movie. What kind of movie is this? It may seem like a very, either a tragic movie or a senseless movie.
But the Bhagavatam talks about a deeper sense. The deeper sense is that, Parishad Maharaj, at the level of the body, the body meets destruction. But at the level of the soul, he has attained absorption in Krishna.
And by that absorption, he transcends bodily suffering. In fact, even before the snake bird comes and bites Parishad, Parishad has already left the body. And he has already attained Krishna.
So the Bhagavatam’s message and mood is that, at the material level, when distresses come, a devotee is not focused so much on countering them or evaluating them at the material level. Parishad Maharaj could have reigned against destiny. A small mistake on my part.
And I’m cursed to die. Justice normally has to be proportionate. So he just put a dead snake around a sage.
And for that, he’s cursed to die. There’s no sense of proportion if we consider the cause and the effect. But he doesn’t condemn that boy, Shringi.
He doesn’t condemn his father saying, what kind of son have you brought up? He doesn’t try to counter curse him. He accepts and transcends. So the Bhagavatam’s mood is that, there are material causes for whatever happens to us.
But they are not the ultimate causes. And whatever happens, there is an ultimate purpose to it. So if we look at the world at a material level, then actually we often will not be able to make sense of things.
I was at a university in America a few months ago. And there was an atheist student who was asking this question. That if God exists, why do bad things happen to good people? So I was giving various answers and he was not at all satisfied.
He was becoming argumentative. Then I told him, okay, let me ask you a question. Why should bad things not happen to good people? He said, what do you mean? I said, why should bad things not happen to good people? He said, if people are good, good should happen to them.
Then bad, bad should happen to them. I said, why? If you consider that there is no God, then everything that has happened, everything that is existing is a result of unguided natural processes. And nature, if it is unguided, it is insentient, it doesn’t know anything such as good or bad.
Nature simply acts. Coconut, I was just in Central America, that they have coconuts. And in case coconuts may fall down on some people, they have government, they come and cut all the coconuts.
So, now when a coconut falls, the coconut does not consider what is there below it. Nature’s laws and nature itself, at least from the mechanistic perspective of atheism, it knows no such thing as good or bad. It simply acts.
A coconut will fall, sometimes it will fall and break itself, sometimes it will break someone else. So, there is, from the spiritual, from the atheistic perspective, no reason for anything being good or bad. Nature simply acts according to its natural laws and whatever happens, happens.
So, why do we expect at all that good things should happen to good people and bad things should happen to bad people? Nature, technically speaking, is not, is amoral. Amoral means that it just does not consider morality. It just acts on its own.
So, there are certain chemicals. If they are taken in the body, they will have certain effect. They are poisonous chemicals, they will kill.
But the chemicals themselves are not evil. So, the point is that from the atheistic perspective, there is no reason for good or any reason for evil. The concept of good or evil itself should not exist.
The very fact that it exists, I have some tissue papers. The very fact that good or evil exists suggests that there is something more. The very reason why we expect, why we are shocked when bad things happen to good people is that we normally expect and we normally perceive that good things happen to good people.
We see some kind of cause-effect connection between the way things happen. Last year, I was invited to Cambridge University to speak on the topic of science and spirituality. So, while we were going there, we passed by the tree where Newton is said to have seen the fruit falling.
So, now, when Newton saw the fruit falling, now, fruits have fallen millions of times before this. Probably thousands of people have seen fruits falling. Most people simply picked up the fruit, ate it and went their way.
Now, Newton asked the question, what made this fruit fall? So, now, his brilliance is in that he found the answer in terms of the principle of gravity. But let’s go backwards and look. When he asked the question, what made this fruit fall? That means that there is an assumption that things don’t happen by chance.
That if there is something happening, there must be some cause behind it. There is some cause-effect chain which makes things happen. In fact, all of scientific advancement is based on the understanding that nature operates according to some orderly patterns.
And all of laws of science are basically uncovering the orderly patterns of nature. Now, science may explain, may find out the correlation. Okay, this cause will lead to this effect.
But why does this cause-effect connection exist in itself? For that, science has no explanation. It’s an assumption in science. It’s an article of faith in science that nature operates according to some cause-effect principles.
And now if we consider the scientific perspective, we want to find out, oh, this works this way. Planets move because of this. Temperature goes down and up because of this.
We find laws of mechanics, laws of thermodynamics, laws of electricity. And then if we look from the atheistic perspective, what do we have? Why do things happen in our life? Why do people fall sick? Why do people meet with accidents? Why do there are calamities? There’s no cause for that. So basically, if we consider, this was my answer to him at that time, if we consider the atheistic perspective, what we have, firstly, we have no reason why good things should happen to good people, why bad things should happen to bad people.
Why there should be a cause-effect connection at all? That itself, atheism has no explanation. More particularly, when we see in nature that there is some cause-effect connection, this leads to this. But if you look at the whole picture, there is no explanation.
Oh, why do fruits fall down? That’s because of gravity. Why do the waves move in the ocean? Oh, that is because of fluid mechanics or whatever. But then, why do we exist? Our existence has no purpose.
So we basically end up with small islands of meaning in an ocean of meaninglessness. We end up, in the atheistic worldview, with islands of meaning. Oh, this can be explained by science, this can be explained by nature, this can be explained this way.
But what is the overall explanation for life? There is no explanation. We live, we struggle, we suffer, we die. The atheistic way of looking at the world ultimately makes no meaning.
So, if you consider the atheistic biography of the universe, what would it be? Nothing existed because of nothing. Nothing exploded because of nothing. And gave rise to everything.
Nothing existed because of nothing. Nothing exploded because of nothing. And gave rise to everything.
So, in our search for meaning, we human beings innately want to make sense of whatever happens around us. And atheism offers us no ultimate meaning. So then if we turn towards theism, if we turn towards the understanding that God does exist, then that raises the question that if God exists and by his will there is a cause-effect correlation, that there is some kind of action-reaction sequence, then why does this action-reaction sequence sometimes not seem to act? That means, we normally see if I put my hand in fire, my hand will burn.
If a child comes back home from school and the mother sees there are scratches on the hand, the mother will ask, what happened? That means the mother is implicitly saying there must be some cause for this. What happened? So we see, we operate in our day-to-day for our life based on a cause-effect connection. If somebody calls the doctor early in the morning, doctor, I have got a stomach upset.
The first question doctor will ask is, what did you eat last night? So when I put my hand in fire, then the effect can be seen immediately. But when I overeat, eat inappropriately, that effect may come after 6 or 8 hours. Somebody may start smoking at the age of 17 and then they go to doctor at the age of 40.
The doctor looks at their lungs and they say, doctor, you have got cancer. So there the effect may come after 15-20 years. The point is that we do see action-reaction or cause-effect correlation in the world.
And this can be best explained that there is a Governing God who controls things, who has set up a system of correlation between action and reaction. Now the problem comes up, we sometimes see that some people seem to suffer even though they have not done anything bad. And some people seem to get good even though they have done some bad.
So how do we explain this? So for this, the principle of action and reaction, the correlation, if we start from atheism, the next step is we move towards the existence of God. But even the existence of God alone is not enough. Because we will see terrible disparity in the world and terrible suffering in this world.
And we will not be able to see on many occasions the correlation between good action leading to good results or bad action leading to bad results. And that is where we need to understand that this life is not the only life. That’s why there are some religions in the world which don’t accept the existence of eternal soul who goes over many lifetimes.
And for them to explain the existence of evil becomes very difficult. I was once travelling in South India and there was a Christian missionary sitting next to me. So he was trying to convert everyone.
So he started talking with me. So then I started with Shri Prabhupada’s standard arguments. You know that if you follow Jesus then one of the commandments is that you shall not kill.
He said, why do you kill animals? He realised that it’s a weak wicket so he changed. He said, if you are concerned about killing of life then why are you concerned only about animals? Why not about the infants who are aborted in their mothers’ wombs? He said, so you are also against abortion? I said, of course. He said, yes.
And I asked him, just now you were telling me that Jesus is the only way. And if anyone who does not surrender to Jesus that person is going to go to hell. I said, what about the children who are aborted? He said, they don’t surrender to Jesus.
So what happens to them? He said, oh, they are innocent. So they will be delivered by God. I said, what is the ultimate purpose of life? He said, to be delivered by God.
To be delivered and to attain God. I said, then why not abort everyone? I said, no, how can you do that? I said, that’s bad. He said, no, if the person is born that person may not surrender to Jesus.
And that person will go to hell. There is a possibility that person may go to hell. But if that person is aborted then there is certainty that person will go to heaven.
He said, no, no, no, we can’t do that. So, the point here is not to criticise any particular religion. The point is to make a philosophical point over here that we cannot understand God’s justice without understanding the eternality of the soul.
So, we are eternal beings who have gone through many different lifetimes. And we carry our karma from one lifetime to another. And karma, the actions that we have they produce reactions.
But karma is not simply this action and this reaction. There is a lot that goes on in between. Why? Because some actions may lead to multiple reactions.
Or some reaction may be a concentration of multiple actions. It’s not simply A leads to B. Say for example, if somebody is born blind then it is not just one reaction they are getting, it’s lifelong they are getting. Sometimes some people just become sick and they become paralysed.
So, for several months they may just stay in a state of paralysis. It’s a prolonged reaction. So, karma is not just this action and this reaction.
That in principle is true, action will lead to reaction. But there is much more that goes on in between. So, based on the kind of karma that a person has done overall the time between action and reaction may be buffered.
So, associated with Mahabharata is a story of Dhritarashtra after the Kurukshetra war is over. Dhritarashtra asks Krishna, I had 100 sons and all of them were killed. Why couldn’t even at least one have survived? And Krishna tells that 50 lifetimes ago you were a hunter.
You had gone to hunt and you saw a bird and a she-bird. You shot at them but they escaped. And in a flash of rage you climbed up the tree where they were there, found their nest and slashed their nest.
And there were 100 birdlets in that nest, baby birds. You killed all those 100 baby birds and you made the mother bird and the father bird watch helplessly the death of their 100 children. That’s why you had to watch the suffering of your own 100 children dying.
Dhritarashtra became grave. And he is asked, Okay, but why did I have to wait for 50 lifetimes to get this reaction? He said that to get 100 sons in one lifetime you had to do punya for 50 lifetimes. So that reaction came to you after 50 lifetimes.
So the point here is that sometimes our karma, there is action, there is reaction. So action doesn’t always immediately lead to reaction. The karma which we have done can act as a buffer which may delay a particular reaction from coming.
Sometimes some positive karma, some negative karma may be required, sometimes some positive karma may be required. Karma plays, that means our past other karmic reactions also play a role. Like sometimes you may say that some people, they eat a little food inappropriately.
Their health gets spoiled or their weight bloats up. Some other people, they treat their tongue like a conveyor belt. They just eat a lot and still they seem to be healthy, they seem to be slim, they seem to be active, nothing happens to them.
Some people may say, you know, I have been smoking for so long, nothing happens to me. I was at once at a science and spirituality conference. There were two spiritual teachers.
I was one and there was another swami. And his whole thesis was everything is in the mind. He was telling that, just see.
He was a swami and he said, I have been smoking and drinking for the last 35 years. And I have no blood pressure, no heart problems, no lung issues. Why? Because my mind is strong.
You make your mind strong and you will have no problems at all. And actually, one week after that, he got a heart attack and died. So, now it may be true that for some people, if they have done some past good karma, then by past good karma, a particular person is meant to enjoy good health.
So normally if I eat inappropriately, my health gets spoilt. But if by past good karma, somebody is meant to enjoy good health, then till that past karma’s residue is there, the person may be doing some bad, but the bad reaction may not come. But as soon as that karma’s reservoir gets exhausted, the reaction will hit.
So this is the subtlety of karma. And karma not only goes from one lifetime to another lifetime, where sometimes a person, because of their past good karma, their actions are going to lead to reactions, but the reactions don’t come immediately. Their other good karma acts as a buffer in between.
And similarly, sometimes a person may be doing good, but the good results may not be coming, because the past bad karma is going to put the person in a bad phase. So bad phase means, whatever is happening, whatever I do, things just don’t seem to be improving. So when the bad phase comes in our life, we have to understand that, I just have to tam sthitiksha subhara, tolerate.
One of my friends is a farmer, so he was telling me this incident. There are some leeches in forest. The leech catches their body, I’d say it’s sucking blood.
It’s very scary. You can sense actually that leech’s tubules are going into the body and sucking blood. But if you try to pull the leech out, that leech has got such strength in its grip, that it will pull the whole skin out.
That nasty wound it will become. But, if we just let the leech do its work, just let the leech suck blood. How can I let the leech suck blood when blood is sucking? No, but if you let the leech suck its blood, its capacity to suck blood is not infinite.
It has its tubule, and once the tubule is filled, the leech will itself fall off, or we can just flip it, it will fall off. So sometimes, our past karma comes upon us like a leech. And when the leech is sucking blood, at that time, if we try to do something, whatever we do, it only makes things worse.
At that time, just tolerate. And when we tolerate, gradually that karma gets over. And then the situation resolves itself.
So this is, if we consider that there is a God who has a principle of justice, but how, why can’t we see the justice happening? Because there is a delay caused by the accumulation of other good karma or other bad karma that the person has done. And to explain this delay, we understand that there is a soul goes from one lifetime to another lifetime. Now this brings us to one more principle.
That okay, there is God’s justice, and then there is God’s mercy. That, okay, good people are going to get good, bad people are going to get bad. Accept that.
But then, it is also said that those who surrender to Krishna, Krishna protects them. Krishna says, aham tvam sarva-papebhyo moksheshyam. I will free you from sinful relations.
So when, when those who are devoted to Krishna, they suffer, what exactly is going on? Is it their karma coming upon them? If it is their karma coming upon them, why is Krishna not protecting them? So to actually understand Krishna’s protection, to understand Krishna’s love, to understand Krishna’s mercy, we have to understand both the length and the breadth of our existence. The length and the breadth. Sorry, the length and the breadth.
Length means that we see only from a short-term perspective. We see from the present. We see from what is our finite vision.
We can’t see before this life, we can’t see beyond this life. And not only that, we can see only at the level of the body. We can’t see what is happening at the level of the mind for most people, unless they speak out something.
And we don’t know what is happening at the level of the soul. So the length of our existence means we have to see beyond the immediate life span or immediate what is visible for us. And the breadth of the existence means to see beyond the body to the mind and ultimately the soul.
There is a fundamental difference between how we approach things, how we see things, and how Krishna sees things. We look at the present and plan the future. Krishna looks at the future and plans the present.
So Krishna knows what dangers, what problems, who is going to face in future. And then he plans it accordingly. So because we don’t know about this, that’s why we may feel, you know, why is this happening? A child has some pain in the stomach.
The child goes to the doctor, the doctor gives him some medicine, and the pain will go away. But then the doctor takes out an injection. No, I don’t want this injection.
It’s increasing my pain. The doctor is seeing that the infection in the future I want to protect. So the doctor sees the future, this infection is going to worsen, so I’ll stop it.
I’ll give this injection. Similarly for us, sometimes there may be some future dangers that we may not be able to see. I was speaking about this topic in America in Fort Lauderdale.
And there after that, a Russian, Ukrainian Mataji, she came and told me that she was in New Vrindavan and she had gone there for some programme and she wanted to leave. And she came to know that there was one devotee who was going the next morning, at around early morning, around 10 o’clock he was going. So he told her that you’ll be there at 9.55, I’ll come and pick you up.
And she went there and she was waiting. 9.55, 10, 10.05, 10.10, 10.15, 10.30. And as this was going on, she was getting more and more angry. She was trying to call him.
New Vrindavan is the area where it’s in the forest on top, in West Virginia, on a mountain. So she was not able to connect with him. And she was waiting and she was getting more and more angry.
She had to also do some urgent work. Finally at 11.30, she was able to contact him. And then as he contacted him just for a few minutes, few moments, he says, Oh, I’m sorry.
I forgot about it entirely. And, he says, now I’ve come too far away. I also have urgent media.
I can’t come back to pick you up. And the phone got cut. She was furious.
How could you forget like this? You wasted my time. I could have made some other plan. And that evening, she was doing some service in the deity kitchen.
And another man told her, you know that devotee who was there yesterday? And he said, yes. She said, yes. His car met with a deadly accident.
And he said that actually he’s in the hospital, but he’s stable now. There’s a drunk driver who hit his car. And that drunk driver hit his car fully on the passenger side.
So, she realised that if she had been travelling, she would have been sitting over there. So she would have been killed. So, sometimes we don’t know what dangers are there for us in future.
And with our limited vision, why did this person do this? Why did this person do that? It’s difficult for us to understand. So, Krishna sees the future and plans the present. And that’s why sometimes his plan may seem to be something which is disrupting our plans.
Now, when Krishna’s plan leads to protection, it is easy to appreciate that. When Krishna’s plan leads to frustration, in that particular case, for the, say, from 10 o’clock till 6 o’clock in the evening, those 8 hours, she’s still furious. Why did this happen? How could this person have forgotten this? Why did this happen? Why did that happen? Why? Why? Why? But then, in 8 hours, she got the understanding.
So now, sometimes for us, what Krishna’s plan is may be revealed in a few hours, sometimes it may take a few years, sometimes it may take a few decades, sometimes it may take a whole lifetime. In the Mahabharata, when Abhimanyu is passed away, Abhimanyu is killed, at that time, Yudhishthira feels extremely guilty. He thinks that because the Kauravas had formed a Chakravyuha, a military formation by which their purpose was to trap Yudhishthira.
And Yudhishthira had approached Abhimanyu. Can you penetrate in this? None of us know how to penetrate. If you penetrate, we will follow you and then we will break this Chakravyuha from there.
And Abhimanyu had told him that actually, I can go inside, but I don’t know how to come out. So Yudhishthira and Bhima, they had all assured him, don’t worry, just get inside, we will follow you and we will break everything. So then Abhimanyu had agreed.
And somehow, Jaidrath had come in between and stopped them. And then, Abhimanyu was trapped inside and Abhimanyu was killed. And Yudhishthira was being crushed under a mountain of guilt.
It’s one thing when somebody dies accidentally. It’s quite another thing when somebody dies because of one’s own instruction. I told him to go to the mosque.
He was thinking, what a wild creature I am. He is my nephew, like my son. I am meant to protect him, but I engaged him in protecting me.
To save myself from the Chakravyuha, I sent him inside and I couldn’t protect him. I sent him to his death. It’s quite a heavy burden to have on one’s own conscience.
I met one devotee recently. He was in the army. He was in the US army.
And while he was fighting, he had to shoot people. So he said that if you actually kill, it’s a lifelong memory. It’s a big, big burden.
But I had no alternative. If I didn’t kill, that opponent would have killed me. So even when there is no alternative and there is killing someone, there is a big burden on the head.
But if somebody is killed because of our account, and especially for a virtuous, sensitive person like Yudhishthir, it was unbearable. And he felt, what have I done? In his anguish, he just ordered his charioteer to march into the chariot. He said, I am going to charge into the Kaurava ranks and I am going to avenge Abhimanyu’s death or I will die trying to do so.
As he is charging inside, Nakula Sahadev, they are shocked. They are themselves shocked by Abhimanyu’s death, but they are shocked by Yudhishthir’s action. And they don’t know what to do.
And then as he is charging forward, Vyasadev comes in between. And when Vyasadev comes, at that time, Yudhishthir, although he is so upset, so anguished, still he is a cultured person. So he immediately gets off his chariot and offers his respects to Vyasadev.
And when that happens, he pours out his heart. He said, Abhimanyu has been killed. I am shattered by this.
So then, Vyasadev tells him three things. He says, O King, no living being in this world is ever free from the law of death. No living being is ever free from the law of death.
And then he talks of many kings who had far more virtues than Abhimanyu. And they all had died. So, he says, this is, the law of death is the inescapable truth of this world.
But then Yudhishthir gets this question, okay, I know we all have to die, but why did Abhimanyu have to die so young? I could have died in this place. He was so young, he had a full life ahead of him. So, Vyasadev addresses that question.
And he says, that in this world, no matter how high one rises, this world is a place of temptation and distraction. One can get tempted and distracted in this world at any time. But, if one, someone like Abhimanyu, in his young age, dies in the service of the Lord, then he goes beyond the reach of temptation.
He attains a world which is eternal. And he says, rather than lamenting for one who has attained such an auspicious destination, he says, we should lament for us who are still in this world of temptation and distraction. Then, Yudhishthir has a question still in his mind.
He says, okay, where he has gone, that’s wonderful, but why did I have to die in such a brutal way? They had come to at least know the bare bones narrative of what had happened. Six warriors had attacked him unfairly, and he had been fighting all day long and he had been killed. Then why did he have to die like this? So at that time, Yasadev says, that the inscrutable will of the Lord is surely for the welfare of all living beings.
If you do his will, you will understand it in due course. He says, God’s will is inconceivable, but it is always beneficial for everyone. Now how exactly something is beneficial, that is very difficult to understand.
So it’s interesting, very revelatory, not just interesting, that Yasadev does not talk about karma. Yasadev does not say anything, that Abhimanyu’s karma because of which he had to die like this. He says, it is what happens, it’s for the ultimate good, but how it is good, you will understand it in due course.
When Arjuna comes to know about this, Arjuna is first shattered, then infuriated, and when he is shattered, at that time, first he cries, and falls on the ground, crying in agony, and at that time, it’s practically more than half of a chapter in the Mahabharata, he is describing his agony, and then his agony changes to anger, and he turns to his brothers, he turns to Nidhishthira, to Bhishma, to Nakula, and he says, what is the use of all the weapons that you are carrying? Are they just bangles? All of you could not protect my son? He gave up his life for your sake, and lashes out in anger, and all the Pandavas, their eyes are filled with tears, and then, Krishna comes up to Arjuna, and Krishna hugs Arjuna, on the side, Arjuna is still angry, he turns towards Krishna, and he says, Krishna, you must have known what is happening, why didn’t you tell me? Krishna just pulls Arjuna into a tight hug, and Krishna tells Arjuna, Krishna, oh Arjuna, everyone around you, is afflicted by the death of Abhimanyu, do not increase their affliction by your words, we all share your grief, wise people act to decrease others’ grief, not increase their grief, pull yourself together, oh Arjuna, the call of duty still beckons you. So Krishna, again, he does not talk about karma, he does not talk about any philosophy, he does not tell, oh, you are so attached to the body, he says, why are you talking about? Ultimately, give up material attachment. In fact, Krishna has said in the Bhagavad Gita, that the wise people, when he is talking about knowledge, he says, that one should not be attached, the wise people are not attached to one’s children, one’s sons, one’s children, one’s wife, one’s family members, but Krishna doesn’t quote all this philosophy, Krishna doesn’t say, Arjuna, you forgot all the philosophy? He doesn’t say that.
Krishna doesn’t say, when Arjuna turns towards and blames Krishna, Krishna doesn’t say, my will is perfect. Krishna just understands, Krishna is gentle, Krishna is consoling, and Krishna says, remember your duty, act according to your duty, Arjuna, do not increase the grief of others. In life, bad things happen, and it is not that, somehow as devotees, yes, Krishna’s will is always good, Krishna is always benevolent, but that does not mean necessarily, that everything that happens in this world, is good.
How is this possible? If Krishna’s will is good, then how can we say that what happens in this world, is not always good? In many places in India, people have something, which they call as a Gita Saar, the essence of the Gita. In the Gita Saar they write, jo hua, wo achcha hua, jo ho raha hai, wo achcha ho raha hai, jo hone wala hai, wo bhi achcha hi hoga. Whatever happened was good, whatever is happening is good, whatever will happen will be good.
Now, I have recited the Gita, over a thousand times, read the Gita over a hundred times, I have never found any verse, which comes close to this. Nowhere in the Gita, is it said that, everything that happens is good. And the Gita is not about what is happening, the Gita is about, what we should do, in response to what is happening.
Arjuna’s question is, Krishna, please tell me, what is my duty right now? So, when Draupadi is dishonoured, nobody tells her, whatever happened is good. No, the Pandavas are angry, Krishna himself is angry. This should not have happened.
So, it’s not that, everything that happens is good. Bad things happen in the world. Everything that happens is not good, but everything that happens can be for good.
It’s a big difference between the two. Everything that happens is not good, but everything that happens can be for good. Good can come out of the bad, and that is Krishna’s expertise.
By his expertise, even when bad things happen, Krishna can bring some good out of it. Now, why does Krishna let bad things happen at all? Actually, all of us have been given free will. And, as I said earlier, by karma, we all have certain amount of free will, by which we can do certain things.
So, the Bhagavad Gita uses the word Kshetra. Kshetra is the area of influence. So, for example, ant has a tiny Kshetra.
An elephant has a huge Kshetra. It has a much greater area of influence. So, different people, by their past karma, have different levels of influence.
And within their area of influence, which they have acquired by their past karma, they can do what they want to do. So, Hitler, for example, by his past karma, was meant to become a powerful leader. But by his present karma, by his karma in that lifetime, he chose to use that power for disastrous purposes.
And Krishna, he, by the law of karma, for those who have done something, earned, done some good karma, he gives them certain influence. And if they had an influence, in that influence, they may sometimes do terrible things. So, we live in Kali Yuga, which is also a very dark place.
So, sometimes bad things happen. And what we need to see is, when bad things happen, it is not that somehow it is all good. It can be for good.
So, for a devotee, I’ll conclude with two points now. To understand Krishna’s love, we have to understand the length and the breadth of our existence. So, I told the story about Abhimanyu to illustrate this point of length.
That what seemed to be like a tragic death, in a brutal way, in a warfare, Vyasadeva said, that actually he has become elevated. He has gone beyond this world of temptation and distraction. He has attained the eternal abode.
And in that sense, it is his destination is glorious, whereas it is our predicament, which is to be lamented. So, when we see things only from this world’s perspective, or this lifetime’s perspective, then often, things can appear very arbitrary. But, this lifetime’s perspective, or this world’s perspective, is a very incomplete and fragmented perspective.
So, when we learn to see with a broader picture, that something which may seem very inauspicious, from this lifetime’s perspective, may actually be extremely auspicious from the eternal perspective. A devotee who is serving Krishna diligently, that devotee is always glorious. But Krishna can have plans by which the devotee is elevated, from greatness in service in this world, to eternal glory.
Or, to some other destination, where there is greater progress, where there is faster progress, where the devotee can go closer to Krishna. So, what is happening between a soul and Krishna, is very personal. And, it is very difficult for others to know what actually is happening.
And, when Krishna acts in somebody’s life, especially when that action seems to come in a very negative way, in terms of some terrible disease coming, or death coming, you say, where is Krishna’s protection? Actually, Krishna’s protection is ultimately at the level of consciousness. In the Ramayana, there is a story of Jatayu. Jatayu fought heroically to stop Sita from being abducted.
And actually, when Sita saw Jatayu, Sita was also a Kshatriya, she was a Kshatriya princess, she also knew the relative strengths of different warriors. So, when she saw Jatayu, Oh, Jatayu, please help me, please inform Ram, that Ravana is abducted. And, as Jatayu saw Sita is going, flying up, and Sita warned her, says, don’t try to fight with Ravana.
You cannot match him. Please go and inform Ram. So, at that time, Jatayu, he saw what was happening, he just couldn’t tolerate, how can I stand by here while Sita is being abducted.
And he heard what Sita said, but his heart couldn’t accept what he was saying. And he just charged upon Ravana. As he charged upon Ravana, he fought fiercely.
Ravana thought, what can this bird do? But, Jatayu using his beaks, using his wings, using all the strength that he had, he slammed into Ravana, he broke his mules, he slammed his charioteer, he broke his chariot, and Ravana was furious. Ravana was landing on the ground, Jatayu went behind and caught him by the hair, and started pulling him around. And Jatayu was, Ravana was angry.
He had to whirl around and hit Jatayu, Jatayu flew away. And then, Jatayu started, Ravana started taking out his bow and arrow and attacking Jatayu. And Jatayu was very expert in dodging the blows.
And he was moving his wings, whisking away the arrows. The battle went on and on. As it was going on, at one particular point, Jatayu swooped in, he caught Ravana’s arms and pulled it off.
And then, in blinding speed, he turned around, caught the other arm and pulled it off. And then, he came down again and caught Ravana by the neck. Trying to rip off his neck.
But, to his dismay, he saw that Ravana’s arms had appeared back. And Ravana caught him by the hair, whirled him away. So finally, Jatayu started getting tired.
And then, as Jatayu was swooping in towards him, at that time, Ravana took his sword and he cut off one wing. And then again, as Jatayu was trying to attack, he cut off the other wing. Jatayu fell helplessly to the ground.
At that time, Ravana just laughed and moved on. Sita was horrified. She was horrified first of all to see that she was being abducted.
She was horrified to see the plight of Jatayu. So, he started praying for Jatayu. And now, Jatayu realised that he had failed in his mission to protect Sita.
But then his mind went back. Sita had told him, please inform Ram. And he used whatever ascetic power he had, whatever capacity he had, he used it all to maintain his life.
Already he had fought fiercely. It was not just the sword which had locked off his wings. Before that, many of Ravana’s arrows had pierced him.
He could have died at that moment. But somehow or the other, he maintained his life. And he maintained his life till the point Ram came over there.
And he informed Ram that Sita had been abducted. And then, on the lap of Ram, beholding his beautiful face, chanting the name of Ram, he departed from the world. So, in this case, he was defeated.
He was defeated in a battle against Ravana. But he won the war against illusion. Why? To die in the presence of the Lord.
That is supremely auspicious. Even if the death apparently came because of an inauspicious act, like getting brutally wounded and killed by a demon, but still he died while doing service to the Lord. And he died in the hands of the Lord.
The Lord personally performed his last rites. The same honour that Lord Ram offered to Dashrath, he offered to Amjadayu. So, Jatayu’s death, from an external perspective, if we consider he was brutally wounded, that is inauspicious.
From another perspective, he died in the Lord’s arms, that is auspicious. But, even if we assume that Ram had not come there in time, still his death would have been auspicious. Because he died for the service of the Lord.
So, similarly, in this world, sometimes, because of some reasons, death may occur, but for somebody to leave the body in Vrindavan, in the sacred Vajabhumi, in the proximity of Govardhan, that is non-different from Krishna. The whole Vrindavan is non-different from Krishna. And, at one level it is very heart-breaking, when somebody young with a full life ahead dies, somebody who has gone for a mission, serving the Lord, and at that a time such a thing happens.
To see that Krishna’s plan is acting in his own way, there might be defeat, even up to the point of death for Jatayu, but still there is victory, because he was doing the service of the Lord. Similarly, for someone who departs while trying to serve the Lord, even if death comes in apparently an auspicious way, through some accident, but still, actually, there is auspiciousness. Because the intent to serve the Lord was there, the abode of the Lord was there.
Ultimately, in this world, I’ll conclude with this last point, that Baldevidya Bhushan, in his Vedanta Sutra commentary, as well as his Gita commentary, he analyses that, what exactly is life and what exactly is death. He says that, Prabhupada says that, normally we think that when the body is destroyed, then death occurs. But he says no, when the soul leaves the body, then the body is destroyed.
And when the soul leaves the body, that is when death occurs. So what does this mean actually? Baldevidya Bhushan explains that, every soul, especially the souls who are trying to serve the Lord, they are under the Lord’s special protection. And even when inauspicious things seem to happen to such souls, at that time, there is the Lord’s protection that comes internally.
And there is conscious remembrance of Krishna. Even if there is no conscious remembrance of Krishna, still there is a remembrance by the Lord. And that remembrance by the Lord, there is remembrance of the Lord by the devotee.
There is remembrance by the Lord of the devotee. And by the remembrance by the Lord of the devotee, the devotee is always protected. So, at a physical level, it may well be that there may be distress, there may be shock.
If you look at the six Goswamis of Vrindavan, they were living in such austerity, barely eating anything. At a physical level, they are suffering, but the physical is not their reality. Beyond that, there is the mind and there is the spirit.
At a spiritual level, they were absorbed in Krishna and they were ecstatic, although at a physical level, there was distress. So even when sometimes, some things happen at the physical level, the soul who is devoted to Krishna does not reside at the physical level. That soul’s consciousness is either by one’s own intention or by Krishna’s grace, taken to the spiritual level.
Ramanujacharya was asked by, Ramanujacharya asked Kanchipurna and Kanchipurna asked Varadaraj. Kanchipurna was his Guru and Varadaraj was their worshipable deity. Ramanujacharya asked his Guru to ask the Lord, if a devotee, if somebody tries to remember the Lord, but somehow, if at the time of death, he is not able to remember the Lord, what happens? So Kanchipurna asked Varadaraj and Varadaraj said that, even if my devotee doesn’t remember me, I will remember my devotee, and I will manifest in the consciousness and I will give remembrance.
So, if we look from the spiritual perspective, as contrasted with the material perspective, then we will see that even something which is inauspicious at the material level, can be auspicious at the spiritual level. So, for us, as souls who are trying to practise bhakti in this world, something like this happening is distressing, and it can be profoundly distressing, at the same time, if we learn to see with the eyes of philosophical understanding, then we will see that Krishna’s protection is there, even when it doesn’t seem to be there at the physical level. Even when something terrible happens, at a physical level, Krishna is there at the spiritual level.
And Krishna’s protection at the spiritual level is unfeeling. And for us, when we practise bhakti, Krishna, by his plan, sometimes protects at the physical level, sometimes protects at the mental level, sometimes protects at the spiritual level, sometimes protects at all levels. So, we focus not so much on what Krishna is doing, we focus more on what we are doing.
If we are trying to serve Krishna, then there is always auspiciousness. I started by talking, I speak on the topic of making sense of senseless suffering. Ultimately, all of us have to choose, how am I going to live my life? And by turning our consciousness towards Krishna and trying to have an attitude of service to Krishna, we find that our life becomes stable.
In the world, there will be storms and we can see the storm coming, this storm is coming, that storm is coming. Why is this happening? Why is this happening? The more we ask the why question, the outer storms cause storms inside. The why question ultimately has, on many times, no answers, but if we keep asking the why question, that only gives more power to the storms that are shaking our life.
If we just change our question from why to how, Krishna, how can I serve you now? How can I serve you now? When Srila Prabhupada was asked, what is the best prayer that we can offer to Krishna? Prabhupada said, Krishna, please give us, please give me the strength to serve you. Please give me the strength to serve you. If we ask the how question, then amidst the storm, our consciousness shifts to the anchor.
The anchor is, how can I serve Krishna? That question shifts the focus to, ok, Krishna is my lord, I am his servant and I will serve him no matter whatever happens. As soon as we ask the how question, our focus shifts to whatever is in our control. We can pray for, we can pray to Krishna for someone who has departed, we can pray to Krishna for whatever danger we are in, we can pray to Krishna for giving us the intelligence, the strength by which we can serve him and we can take small steps forward.
Sometimes when power goes off, we may just get so frustrated, power is gone, what do I do? We may curse, we may rant, we may moan, but then we will turn on our, we will take out our phone, turn on our flashlights. So we turn on the flashlight, we don’t see the whole room, but we can see one step ahead. And if 100 people turn on their flashlights, there can be enough light for everyone and it’s also a beautiful sight to see.
Sometimes life plunges us into darkness, like the power goes off and the more we keep asking the why question, that is like cursing the light, why is it dark, why is it dark, why is it dark? Just ask the how question. Asking the how question is like turning on the flashlight, Krishna, how can I serve you? What should I do now? And that, how question and the flashlight that is turned on by that, we will find that we can take one step forward, another step forward, another step forward and in due course, the power will come back. But the power will not just come back, during that time when we were rooted in our attitude of service to Krishna, we will experience shelter even amidst the darkness.
We will experience light and comfort even amidst the darkness and that will give us conviction that there is a higher reality. And that higher reality is what matters. So, by fixing ourselves, Krishna, how can I serve you? Bhaktivinoda Thakur says this, krishna das, ei vishwas, korle, tohara dukkha nahi.
There will be distress in this world, but there will be no ultimate distress because we will stay connected with Krishna. And that connection is life’s supreme security. The security that stays throughout life and the security that stays through death and beyond death to eternity.
I’ll summarise. So, I spoke today about making sense of senseless suffering. I spoke in four parts.
First was, if you look at the atheistic worldview, why should bad things not happen to good people? Why should good come to good and bad come to bad? Why should there be any concept called good and bad? Nothing makes any sense in the atheistic worldview. Science is based on the assumption that there is a logical cause and effect, logical correlation. But why should that correlation exist at all? That atheism has no explanation.
So, atheism condemns us to looking for islands of meaning while drowning in an ocean of meaninglessness. So, then if we accept that God is the source of meaning, God is the source of the cause-effect correlation, then the question comes up that, okay, if there is a cause-effect correlation, why can’t we see? Why do we see it working sometimes and it not working sometimes? Normally, we do see actions are correlated with reactions, but sometimes we don’t. And to understand that, we need to understand that it’s not only God who exists, but there is a spiritual reality beyond the material reality.
And we belong to that reality as souls. The soul is going through many different lifetimes, and the karma that the soul has done comes as reactions. But it’s not simply A leads to B. Rather, A and B, their correlation will be determined by what other kind of karma the person has done.
Just like Dhritarashtra, he killed 100 children of birds and his 100 sons had to die. But in between, there is a 50-lifetime span, buffer in between. So, like that, sometimes some people may do good, but they may keep getting bad because they are going through some bad days.
That’s like a leech biting. We just have to let it do its work, it will fall upon its own. Otherwise, at that time, it will rip off the whole skin.
On the other hand, when we understand this, without this, God’s goodness doesn’t make any sense. I think I talked about the Christian worldview. You can’t explain what is the destination, what’s wrong in aborting people if they want to go to heavens.
So, anyway. So, now, if you understand that there is God and the soul’s eternality, but then beyond God’s existence and God’s justice is God’s grace. So, what does God’s grace mean? That he protects.
Now, how does he protect? I talked about how Krishna plans the future. Krishna looks at the future and plans the present. We look at the present and plan the future.
That’s why sometimes we may not understand what Krishna is doing. I talked about this story of that Ukrainian Mataji, how she was protected by the forgetfulness of this other devotee. And then, when death seems to be happening, then we may ask, where is the protection? So, I talked about two incidents, Abhimanyu and Jatayu.
And in Abhimanyu’s case, Yudhisthira was burdened by guilt. But what Jatayu told him is, no one can escape the law of death. And in this world, no matter how glorious a person is, the person is still under the reach of temptation.
But Abhimanyu has gone beyond temptation. So, he has attained an auspicious destination. And why that auspicious destination came in such an auspicious way? Because the inconceivable will of the Lord is surely for the good of all living beings.
But it can be understood when we do His will in due course. And in Jatayu’s case, I talked about how he fought heroically and one level he failed. He died at the hands of Ravana.
But he died in the hands of Rama. And his death was at one level a failure, but at another level, it was a supreme success. He lost the battle against Ravana, but he won the war against Indra.
Similarly, if death occurs for someone who is focused on the service of the Lord, even if it is inauspicious on the material level, at the spiritual level, because Krishna arranges for remembrance, Krishna uplifts the person. And takes that person to an auspicious destination. And concluded by how when there is a storm, we need to focus on the anchor, not on the storm.
So the why question, why do things happen? Why did this happen? The why question will simply aggravate the storms in our mind. And the why question ultimately has no answer. I started by talking about how the bull and the cow, they refuse to blame Kali.
They don’t answer the why question. They say, we don’t know why things happen. But we will take shelter of the Lord.
That’s the essential mood of the Bhagavatam. When Lord Krishna is cursed to die, he doesn’t ask why this is happening. He takes shelter of the Lord.
So from the why question, if we shift to the how question, how can I serve Lord Krishna? Then that how question is what will enable us to find the anchor, to become rooted in the one identity that is the source of security. That I, Krishna is the Lord, I am his servant. No matter what happens in life or in death.
So even if power goes off, even if darkness comes in our life, why are things happening? We turn on the torch light of service attitude. Krishna, how can I serve you? As we keep taking small, small steps forward, we find that by Krishna’s grace, not only will the power come back in due course, but we will have our faith deepened. So by praying to Krishna to stay fixed in his service, we can not only face the challenges that life sends our way, but we can go beyond them, we can grow through them.
Bad things will happen, but Krishna can bring good out of the bad. Thank you very much. Shri Prabhupada Ki Jai Shri Krishna Bhagwan Ki Jai Shri Tai Gauri Prema Nandini