Won’t saying that God is not the sole controller imply that he is helpless in certain situations?
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Transcript
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when you say that Krishna is the supreme controller but not the sole controller might that not imply that Krishna is helpless to prevent certain situations whereas the actual reality is that Krishna is powerful enough to change but he allows certain situations yes that is true that when you say Krishna is the supreme controller that primarily means that he is that he is the ultimate controller the scriptural example the scripture uses the word Ishwara for us for everyone and the Parameshwara is used for Krishna so Parameshwara is supreme controller and Ishwara means that we are the controllers so it’s a basic part of our philosophy that because we are parts of God so whatever is in God is present in us ममईवाम्शो जीवलोकि जीवभूतः सनातनः उत्क्रामंतं स्थम्वाति भुञ्जानं वा गुणानुतं गुहित्वैतान्शिञ्याति वायूर्गन्नानिवाशयातु चरीरं इदवापनोति यच्चाप्य उत्क्रामती श्वर्ः that the soul gets a body and the soul gives up the body and this holy jewel is Ishvara, it’s referred to as Ishvara. So the fact that we are controllers or we are also controllers is a fundamental defining part of our philosophy.
Now Krishna is the ultimate controller, there’s no doubt about it. And is Krishna helpless to avoid certain situations? I wouldn’t put that that way because we don’t associate the word helplessness with God. But by his arrangement, he gives us free will and then he gives us Kshetra, an area within which to exercise that free will.
And within that area, if somebody does something wrong, then he generally does not interfere. And if we start saying that Krishna is allowing this to happen, that also means, that can also lead to the implication that Krishna is responsible for this. But Krishna is not responsible in the sense that Krishna is not the cause of this.
So for example, when Dushyasan is disrobing, trying to disrobe Draupadi, it is not that Krishna is responsible for that disrobing. It is Dushyasan who had that desire and Krishna allowed that. So different words can have different implications, different connotations.
And my point is only that, when bad things happen in this world, we cannot blame Krishna for those bad things. That is the basic meaning of the point that Krishna is the sole, Krishna is the supreme controller, not the sole controller. That yes, Krishna allows, but the point is that Krishna has given us free will and he, based on our past karma, has given us an area over which to execute, exercise the free will.
So when a sage, so when he was confronted by the sage Uttanka, Uttanka after the Kurukshetra war, and sage held Krishna responsible for the Kurukshetra war and the bloodshed, he said that you are God, you could have stopped it. And Krishna says, I tried my best. That, we know that Krishna tried his absolute best when he went as a shanti doodh, to seek peace, but when Duryodhana did not accept, the war became inevitable.
So Krishna showed the Vishwaroop, which indicates his supreme controllership of everything and yet the same Krishna in the Mahabharata tells Uttanka that actually I could not avoid the war because Duryodhana was adamant, was obstinate, was recalcitrant. So that indicates that Krishna is not the sole controller and sometimes things can happen even when he doesn’t want them to happen simply because some people might just be so obstinate to do certain things in certain ways. So we cannot, if people abuse their free will to do some bad things and then some people, other people get victimized by the bad things.
Now Krishna is expert enough to bring good out of the bad, but it is not that Krishna is necessarily always to be considered the cause of that. In some cases, the scripture does say like that, say for example, Parishad Maharaj says that it is Vishnu who has come in the form of the, who is going to come in the form of the snake bird, but Draupadi never says that it is Vishnu who has come in the form of Dushasan to disrobe me. Sita never says that it is, it is God who has come in the form of Ravan to abduct me.
So in certain situations, thinking that God is allowing it and that God has some purpose for letting this happen can be helpful and appropriate in deepening our Krishna consciousness. But in some cases, it may not be helpful, it may not be appropriate at all. At that time, it is best to see that it is Bhuta Naam Yan Mitha Kali, that conflicts in this world, the Kunti Maharaj says, she in one sense divorces the Lord from the conflicts in this world.
She says that you are equal to everyone in this world and if there are any conflicts in the world, they are because of the mutual interactions of people, they are not because of you. So the simple point is that we can’t, we have to see which vision is conducive to our, the development of our Krishna consciousness and we have that, develop that vision accordingly. Thank you.
So whether it is that God is the ultimate God, it is God who is acting through this or this is happening in spite of God and it is happening because this person is misusing the free will. So we can’t, we have to see what vision is conducive to our devotion and the vision and say statements can be interpreted in different ways, but just because a statement can be interpreted in a different way does not mean that the statement itself is wrong. The statement itself is grounded in Shastra because we are Ishwaras and within our Kshetra, Krishna, whatever Kshetra Krishna has given us by Bhaskara, Krishna is an interviewer.
So in that sense, He is, if Krishna were the sole controller, then that would mean we would have no free will and if we had no free will, then that would mean that if we suffer, if we abuse our free will and we do bad karma, then it is Krishna who is making us do bad karma. Krishna is making us abuse our free will and then Krishna is making us suffer by the law of karma because of that. That would make God into the ultimate saddest.
So saying that God is the sole controller will convert God into the devil who is responsible for our misdeeds and for our suffering, the consequences of the misdeeds. That’s why rather than, rather than, rather than focusing or obsessing on a particular possible misinterpretation of a statement, we can see the context in which the statement is made and see that the converse of the statement can also be misinterpreted to grievous results. Thank you.