When Good People Do Bad Things 2 – Understanding God’s Role London 14.7.24

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So a quick recap of what we discussed. When somebody has acted in a way that is hurtful for us, we are trying to understand how to make sense of things and then how to respond to them. So basically, when we function in the world, we take in information, we use our jnana-indriyas.
So through that we get jnana, that is we get information, we get knowledge. These are associated with perception. So then after that, we do action with our karmi-indriyas.
So this is constantly a dynamic that is happening. So right now, for example, you are hearing something. Now, if it interests you, then you will lean forward and your attention becomes more.
If it sounds not very relevant or not so easy to understand, then you might just lean back, you might start looking at the watch. So that dynamic goes on constantly. So our first session is about, say, how do we look at the wrongdoer? The person who has hurt us, what should be our vision of them? The second is, what we are going to discuss, is about the person who is above all of us, the Lord.
So Krishna is there. So how do we see his role? So I’ll start by asking you, so when bad things happen in this world, what is, what is, so it’s like our, or we can say more generally, human wrongdoings and God’s doings. So what exactly is the relationship? Karma.
Sorry? Karma. Karma is one. So that means, what do you mean by that? That actions come upon us by our karma and God is overseeing it.
So we could say karma overseen by God. So in that sense, so is God making that happen? It’s not the direct cause of it. Parashara.
Parashara, okay. So it’s, it’s more that karma is the cause of it, you could say. Okay, that’s one way of looking at it.
Anything else? God can actually change the situation. So, so you said he has the power to change the situation. Now I just want to rephrase that, there’s this point and the next point also, why does he change the situation? Why does he change it more often? Why does he change it sometimes? Why does he not change it sometimes? Okay, so that there is some lesson to learn over here.
And that lesson to learn is arranged by God. Okay, anything else? It’s a, it’s a challenge or a test, you could say, for our growth. It’s like, if we are learning something, if we are training in something, then there are tests for that.
The tests help us grow. Anything else? Sometimes it’s to help support that other person, for their growth. You’re usually challenged to give them something back.
You can make a change or support. So maybe we could say, it is meant to increase some kind of virtue within us. Maybe that person is not kind to us, but we are, if we are being trained to be kind, then would you say something like that? They may not realize their behavior.
So you might be giving them some opportunity or trying to make some changes within them. I don’t know if that’s a good thing. Okay, that’s another one.
Say, we are meant to be an instrument for change. So it could be by maybe explaining to that person, by educating that person, stimulating that person’s growth. So there are various ways in which God may be playing a role in what happens in our lives.
So now, let’s try to put this in a bit of a more of a philosophical framework. And then we’ll move forward and we’ll try to understand how we should respond. So, when things happen in the world, this is what I’m going to talk about, is especially discussed in 5.12-16 in the Gita.
This is, in philosophy, the word used for this is etiology. Etiology is the study of causation. Why do things happen? So understanding the causal connection between things.
So, for example, right now, when the mic was not working. Now, I could say that, okay, the mic is not working. Maybe it’s God’s will that I should not do this class.
And the mic stopping working would not happen without God’s will. Isn’t it? But does that necessarily mean God’s will that I should not do this class? Not necessarily, isn’t it? So it means maybe I should be willing to speak without a mic. Maybe I will exercise my throat a little bit.
Maybe it means the organizer should be ready with a backup plan if the sound system stops working. So the idea is that the same event, one event, that can be put in many different causal contexts. What do I mean by this? That, let’s consider, just here, not very far from here, about 700 years ago, when Newton is said to have felt the apple fall on his head.
Now, it’s probably apocryphal. The apple might have fallen in front of him or wherever, but whatever it is. Now, when the apple fell on his head, that led to a question in his mind.
The question was, what made the apple fall? And Newton believed in God. But at that time, he was not looking for the answer, God made the apple fall. But did God make the apple fall? Well, yes.
When Newton is attributed to have said, several people have said to have said this, that, oh, father, I think thy thoughts after me. That means the way you have fashioned this world, I am trying to understand that now. So I think thy thoughts after me.
So when he was looking for the cause of what made the apple fall, he accepted that, okay, God is the ultimate cause. But he was looking at that point, not for the ultimate cause. He was looking more for the mechanism by which the apple fell.
And he came up with the understanding of gravity. So that is a significant insight in terms of the advent of the age of science and technology in modern humanities history. So the idea is that there could be multiple levels of explanations that could apply in the same situation.
See, right now, I start feeling cold. It could be because maybe I am not wearing warm enough clothes. Maybe just behind me there is air conditioning.
Maybe it is because I am not habituated to this weather. Maybe it is because I have fever. There could be so many different reasons.
And which frame do I put that particular cause, event, the cause of that event in? That requires intelligence. So when a person, say, is not having inner stability, mental stability they don’t have, often they take the most unconstructive or destructive explanation for everything. So for example, if somebody goes to a party and they greet someone and that person doesn’t greet them back, this person starts thinking, Oh, nobody respects me.
Nobody cares for me. Nobody loves me. Maybe there is something wrong with me.
Maybe I am intrinsically unloved. Maybe I should never go to a social gathering. Maybe I should always be lonely.
Maybe I should not live only. Now you say, why is there somebody to greet you back? Why are you going to that level that I am unlovable and my life is unlivable? But generally speaking, when you take an event and you try to come up with an explanation for that event. Now, so this event can be put in many causal contexts.
Causal context means that which cause effect context framework should I consider? So we could put it, it’s our intelligence which helps us to put it in a constructive context. Constructive means I can do something about it. So if you put it in a constructive context, that is good.
If you put it in a destructive context, that is unhealthy. So now when you consider destructive context, so when you are trying to contextualize a event, contextualize cause, there could be two extremes of destructivity. One is that God has no role, that, oh, in this world, I am all alone, I am facing these big bad people, and this world is, God is up there somewhere.
God doesn’t know me. God doesn’t care for me. What is going on in my life? So we can just be forsaken.
And we think God has no role in it. Now, the other is, the God is the sole cause of this. And we don’t consider any other factor at all.
So here only in London, now we are next week we are having the Rath Yatra. So one of the first Rath Yatras the devotees did was over here. It’s very new.
So they had made a grand Rath. So all the devotees at that time when they were 1968, they did the first Yatra in San Francisco in the western world. And the devotees had to do something over here.
But they made a huge Rath, far bigger than what was there in San Francisco. However, they did not make the wheels correspondingly bigger. And when the Rath was going out, it just collapsed.
And it was a nightmare managing everything after the collapse of the Rath. So the devotees wrote to Prabhupada who was not there at that time. They said, Prabhupada, did the Rath collapse because of our poor devotion? Is Krishna angry with us? And Prabhupada replied, it collapsed because of your poor engineering.
In general, there is a Vedic system of logic called Nyaya. And Nyaya talks something about causality. So when we are trying to figure out the cause of a behavior, it’s best to move first from the Drishta then to the Adrishta.
Drishta means visible. First look for visible, tangible, immediate explanations. And then move towards invisible explanations.
So, if I am speaking and I start getting a coughing attack. Now the invisible explanation could be, oh, I have done some bad karma because of which I got this cough attack. Well, that’s possible.
But maybe something is stuck in my throat. Maybe something has come up. Maybe I just drink some water and it goes away.
So when we start going towards Adrishta, invisible explanations right in the beginning. That can make us unnecessarily passive, unhealthily passive. So that causality, look for explanations, move from the immediate towards gradually more and more distant explanations.
That doesn’t mean the distant explanation is not important. But we have to move incrementally. Now, in terms of this understanding of God’s role, so God is the ultimate cause of everything.
But that does not necessarily mean He is the immediate cause of everything. So God, let’s put it another way. God is the cause of all causes.
But He is not the cause of all effects. What is the difference between cause of all causes and cause of all effects? Say, for example, we could say rain is the cause of all vegetation. If there is no rain, there will be no vegetation.
But the seeds are the cause of particular vegetation growing at a particular place. The rain is not causing weeds to grow in particular places and grains to grow in other places. That is what the people over there have done.
There are other causes involved. So now if you consider, some people say that everything is actually done by God. Well, not really.
Say, for example, if you go to the Mahabharata or you go to the Ramayana, there is a terrible incident that happened in both. Say, Draupadi is dishonored. There is a vicious attempt made to disrobe her.
Sita is actually abducted. So now, is it that when Dushyasana is disrobing Draupadi, is it Krishna doing that from Dushyasana? Obviously not. It is an outrageous thing to think about.
Krishna comes to rescue her. Krishna comes and extends her garment unlimitedly. So now, Dushyasana’s strength comes from Krishna.
Everybody’s strength comes from Krishna. Prahlad Maharaj tells Hiranyakashipu that even your strength of Hiranyakashipu, your Lord Brahma’s strength, everybody’s strength comes from the Supreme Lord Krishna. So here it is Dushyasana’s strength comes from Krishna.
But Dushyasana’s action of disrobing, that doesn’t come from Krishna. That comes from his own free will. So it is important to understand that God is not the cause of all causes.
He is the cause of all effects. Is that correct? No, it is the exact opposite. God is the cause of all causes, not the cause of all effects.
And now we may say then, then is God not involved at all when Dushyasana is disrobing Draupadi? If he is, you say that his strength, Dushyasana’s strength also comes from God. Then what does that mean practically? Why is God allowing that to happen? So basically, I’ll just explain this part and I can see if there are some questions. That now when we say God’s will, there is a saying that not a blade of grass moves without God’s will.
But my Anandakshayana, Prakriti Krishna also says that. Everything happens under my supervision. But God’s will can range from things that are happening out of his intention and things that happen with his permission.
Upadrashta Anumanta Achyut Krishna says. I am the permitter. So when things happen, they may happen not because God wants them to happen, but because God allows them to happen.
Now, why does he allow certain things to happen? That is because with respect to causality, we can say that there are three broad factors. There is free will. We are all living beings.
There is Jeeva. We are all souls and we have freedom. And then there is ultimately God’s will.
That is, he is Jagadish. So there is free will, there is God’s will and there is evil. Now, evil is not some dark being that exists somewhere.
Evil is the conditioning, the samskaras that are there in people’s psyches, in their mind, there are impressions. And these impressions impel people to some actions. So when the actions happen, it’s individuals are choosing to do certain things, that’s free will.
Some individuals are pushed to do certain things. If they let themselves get pushed, that’s also a factor. But there is some dark force inside us which impels us to do things.
There is a conditioning coming through the subtle body. And beyond that, there is God’s will. So going back to that framework of action, when an event happens, one event could be, the cause of the event is my free will.
Another cause of the event is that there is some evil involved. And the ultimate cause of the framework is, there is God’s will. So let’s try to understand this a little bit more before I move forward.
This is a very important concept to overall understand. So now, when a particular thing is done, say, let’s consider Sita was abducted by Rao. Now, who is responsible for it? Now, nothing would happen unless the Lord allows it to happen.
But just because the Lord allows something to happen does not mean that he wants it to happen. And therefore, it’s not constructive to hold God personally responsible for what happens. I’ll explain why not shortly.
But when Sita was abducted, now who is primarily responsible for that? Rao and set up a whole conspiracy by which Sita was abducted. Now we could say Sita came out of Lakshan Rekha or Sita had an argument with Lakshman and she sent Lakshman away. Now that also contributed.
When things happen, we could go into various reasons why something happened. But the constructive, when I say constructive causal analysis, that means that helps us to focus on factors we can do something about. Otherwise, if we don’t focus on this constructively, then we get caught in thinking that, oh, there’s nothing I can do about this.
So, I’ll give one metaphor to explain this. Then we’ll have questions and then we’ll move on again after that. In 9.6 of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna uses a particular metaphor.
Let’s try to look at this verse. Krishna says, that just as in the sky, everything is situated, that in the sky, the wind is situated. The wind can move left, right, up, down.
But if you consider the sky to be like an upside down ball, situated in the sky. tatha sarvāṇi bhūtāni Similarly, all living beings are situated in the mat-sthāni tya upadhārya. Let’s recite this verse.
yathākāśha-sthito nityaṁ vāyuḥ sarvatra go māṁ tatha sarvāṇi bhūtāni mat-sthāni tya upadhārya So here, let’s try to visualize what Krishna is saying. Basically, he’s saying that every individual, you could compare them, around them, there is a sky which is like an upside down ball. So this is basically God’s will.
And within that, the individual has freedom. So right now, for example, I’m sitting here. Now I can speak something sensible, intelligent, that not only helps you understand things, but inspires you to study the Bhagavad Gita.
I can just ramble on pointlessly and that will make you think, okay, when will this session go over? I just want to get away from here. Or I can speak some foul words, I can speak something offensive, and that makes you want to get out of here right now, just walk away. So I have that freedom right now to speak whatever I want.
But right now, you have come into this room. So you could say my area of influence is this room. And you have come in my area of influence.
Now, if I speak something offensive, even if you don’t want to hear it, you can walk out of here right now. But till you walk out of here, you’ll have to hear it. If we are one end of the room, the door is the other end of the room, you’ll have to hear it.
So in the present situation, I have some power. But if I abuse this power, if I speak something which is offensive, then maybe I’ll not be invited here. I’m a travelling speaker, I’m invited to different places.
So the power that I have right now, I may no longer have it in the future. So basically, during our life journey, this is basically in Sanskrit, the word used for this is Kshetra. Kshetra is our sphere or area of influence.
Now within this, what we do is up to us. If I’m trying to use all my intelligence and my ability to explain Krishna’s message, then broadly you can say I’m trying to do God’s will. But if I start speaking something offensive, now yes, Krishna is allowing that to happen.
That’s not Krishna’s intention, but Krishna allows that to happen. That’s He gives the permission. So basically during our life journey, sometimes our Kshetra might be small.
Say if I’m travelling through a country where nobody knows the language that I speak and I don’t know the language that they speak, then my capacity to communicate becomes very limited. It’s only when there’s somebody who’s a translator there, then I can communicate with. Sometimes our Kshetra may be very large.
Sometimes again our Kshetra may become very small. So a child may get angry, a small baby might get angry. The baby might just scream, bite the lip and throw up its hands and legs.
They can’t do much. Maybe kick the mother a little bit. But their legs are so small, hands are so small, what can it hurt? But that same person becomes a young person, becomes an adult.
You know, their fists, their kicks, when they get a gun, they become very dangerous. That same person becomes old and simply they may get angry, but they just don’t have physical capacity to do much with their anger. So our Kshetra keeps changing even in this life.
Now while we have a particular Kshetra, say, we get our particular Kshetra by our past karma. So by our past karma, some of us may have a small sphere of influence, some of us may have a large sphere of influence. Now within this Kshetra, what we do is up to us and God does not interfere with that.
So if Dushyasan has some great physical power, that physical power has come by his past karma, whatever it might be. But now how he is going to use it is up to him. And for a particular duration, when he is meant to have that particular power, so if say, in their Kshetra, somebody else’s path goes through that.
So somebody else walks through that Kshetra. Then during that time, that person will be influenced by it. Say, somebody owns a company and they are very tyrannical, very exploitative, very abusive.
But say, we are looking for a job and that’s the only job that we get. Then during that period, when we are employed by that person, we are in their Kshetra. And when that person exploits us or abuses us, it’s not God doing that.
It is that person doing that. Now God allows that to happen. But that doesn’t mean God is doing that.
So there are many things which may happen in this world which are not God’s will. In the sense that it is not what God wants to happen. We see this in the Mahabharata.
When Krishna went as a peace messenger, as a peace messenger, he sought to avoid the war. And he did his very best. He tried to use reason to give an explanation and that didn’t work.
He tried to accommodate the other person and told him, you just give the Pandavas five villages. Just show some symbolic gesture at least that you want a peaceful settlement. But what did the other person do? Duryodhana just rejected Krishna’s peace proposal.
See there are different ways of saying no also. Right now this war between Ukraine and Russia has been going on for so long now. Now normally maybe there are some peace proposals going on.
Mostly nothing is going on for peace. But there may be some security heads from the different sides might be negotiating and maybe meeting and discussing. But suppose say the president of Ukraine goes to Russia or the president of Russia comes to Ukraine to seek peace.
Then that means the very person coming, which person is coming has a weight to that peace proposal. So Krishna is God. But even if Duryodhana doesn’t accept Krishna as God, Krishna is an extremely formidable warrior.
And Krishna is going as a peace messenger. That just shows how serious the Pandavas were. Now Krishna goes to seek peace and Krishna fails.
Now can God’s plan fail? Can God appeal for that? What do you think? Well God failed. So Krishna went on a peace mission and he failed. But it’s not that simple.
That Krishna had another plan or Krishna had another purpose over there. Krishna wanted to avoid the war as much as possible. But if the war was not to be avoided, Krishna wanted to make sure that everyone understood that the cause of the war was not the Pandavas.
It was the Kauravas. Because they were stubborn in insisting on war. So when Duryodhana rejected the peace proposal, does anyone know what he said? What did he say? Yes, I won’t give you enough land to put the tip of a needle through.
No, that will be in the social media. This would have become a viral Instagram. What a dialogue.
But if you look at it in context, what does it imply? He’s saying no, but there are different ways of saying no. Say there’s some ceremony at our home. Maybe birthday ceremony, wedding ceremony or some religious ceremony.
And we invite someone to come to our home. That person doesn’t want to come. So they make an excuse.
Now they are making an excuse. We know that they are making an excuse. And they know that we know that they’re making an excuse.
But out of politeness, they’re trying to make an excuse. But suppose they say, even if I die, my dead body will never come to yourself. Then it is not just a refusal to that particular invitation.
It’s a kick in the face of the inviter. So Arjuna’s, sorry, sorry, Duryodhana’s rejection of Krishna’s plan was a kick in Krishna’s face, in a sense. He thought, I’m so clever.
But actually, he played right into Krishna’s hands. Because Krishna wanted peace. If peace is not there, let the world know who is the cause of war.
And Duryodhana couldn’t have served a better visual demonstration. Verbal and visual demonstration, both. Verbal is what he spoke.
Visual is he tried to arrest Krishna. So he just played into Krishna’s hands. So basically, now when we say, see, God’s plan is always working.
Now, but the question is, which plan? So Krishna’s plan was, for example, for peace. That was plan A. Plan B was for establishing the, who were the disruptors or the destroyers of peace. So Krishna can have multiple plans.
So now when God is acting in this world, that there is God’s will, the divine will. Now, human will can go along and be an instrument for God’s will. We can do what God wants to do.
We can do something different from what God wants to do. We can do something opposite of what God wants to do. All are possible.
So now this, if we do, this is God’s intention. If we do anything else, that is God gives permission. So when somebody is doing something, which is bad, which is terrible, then it is not that God wants that person to do it.
Now God wants that person to do the right thing. But if they do a wrong thing, that does not mean God’s plan is going to get thwarted. Krishna is expert enough that he will make his plan go on, even through that person’s actions.
So for us, we need to understand that as one thing is God has nothing to do with this. That’s one unhealthy understanding. And God is the possible cause of this.
That’s also an unhealthy understanding. So sometimes we say that this is God’s plan. In India, there is this, when we are hurt, when there is some pain, in India there is a Gita Saar, this is the essence of the Gita.
I don’t know, it might be there here also, in many Indian places, where they say, whatever happened is good, whatever is happening is good, whatever will happen will be good. Now, this is supposed to be the essence of the Gita, but there is no sense of this in the Gita. There is no verse anywhere in the Gita, which seems to say anything like this.
That everything that happens is good. Many problems with that, I think, because first of all, the Gita’s focus is not on what happens. The Gita’s focus is on what we should do.
Arjuna is not asking Krishna, why is this war happening? I don’t want to fight against Bhishma, I don’t want to fight against them. Krishna doesn’t give some past life, esoteric story, you know, Bhishma was so and so in his life, and you were so and so, and you did this, and he did that, and that’s why now we are here. So, Krishna really doesn’t focus on why things are happening.
His focus is on, things are happening this way now, what should you do? That, पृच्चानित्वां धर्मसंपूर्चितः That, what is the right thing for me to do right now? I want to know that. So, from that perspective, the Gita does not say that, okay, whatever happens is good. Bad things do happen.
Say, when Draupadi was dishonored, nobody told, she was not actually dishonored, but attempt was made and that itself was a dishonor at one time. Nobody tells her, जो हुआ हुआ अच्छा हुआ, that what happened was good. No, horrible things happen in this world, and to say that horrible things are good, that itself is a horrible thing.
People go through unbearable pain in life at times, and we can’t, we say, oh, whatever happens is good. So, it’s just as, now, whatever happens can be for good. Some good can come out of it.
So, when we are heard to think this is God’s plan, not necessarily, this is this person’s evil intention, but what can I say? There is some plan of God in this. It is not that God doesn’t know what is happening over here, that whatever is happening with me, this person is doing it, and this person is doing, there’s a terrible person doing this, but there is some plan of God in this. Now, what exactly is the plan? And how I should play my part in that plan? How I should see what am I meant to do with it? That is something which requires good thinking, and that’s what we’ll be discussing in our last session.
But the idea here is, when we are dealing with situations, we don’t have to escalate the cause of everything to God, that there is something for me to learn over here, there is some way I can serve and grow in this situation, all that is true. But that does not mean God has done this. It is this person who has done this, this person may be evil, or this person just misusing their bravery.
When we say evil means, they have become so conditioned that they just nonchalantly do bad things. They just don’t care for it, or they actually care to hurt others, and they delight in hurting others, whichever way it is. So I’ll give two examples of this point, that there is some plan of God in this, and then we will move forward towards question answers here.
Yeah. So I’m just trying to understand that we may see something, we may see someone going through something, and what’s the role of karma? And I was thinking of Surabaya Muni, that here he made an offence to Garuda, and it said that because of that he fell down, he saw the two fishes copulating, and then he left his penances, and got entangled in many things. How do we understand it? If we see someone going through some difficulty, do we see it as that, okay, this is their karma? Is that the kind of conclusion that we make about it? Or is that inaccurate? Okay.
So now, let’s consider that particular incident, Surabaya Muni was a sage, he was performing immense austerities underwater, and then he saw some fish copulating, and that triggered desire in him, and he just gave up his meditation, and he sought gratification of his desires. So, now, the answer, the explanation that is given is, because in the past he had committed an offence to the great devotee Garuda. That is true, but is that the only lesson that our Acharyas teach? Acharyas also said that, the world is such a place of temptation, that just by the sight of some animals for creating one can get agitated.
That means they are also saying that we look at the immediate cause in order to protect ourselves, isn’t it? Now, is that immediate cause sufficient cause? Sometimes it may be, sometimes it may not be. So, we can take lessons at different levels for it. Now, if somebody is doing something wrong, Surabaya Muni’s action, for example, was not something, yeah, it was a fall, but it was not really hurting anyone.
There’s no victim, it was not that he forced himself on you. He used his mystic powers to make himself attractive, he got a lot of wealth and then he got the hands of some princes who willingly came with him. So, it is not a crime, it is a fall.
Now, it is a fall and that happened because of particular reasons. So, when we see somebody doing something which is, say, spiritually something going down, yes, we have some, we have a right and responsibility trying to figure out what happened. Now, does that mean that we should judge and label and condemn that person? Not necessarily, generally not.
But we can learn some lessons for ourselves what we should not do. And as far as that person is concerned, if their actions are not appropriate for the particular role that they’re playing, for the station that they’re in, then maybe that particular role has to change. They can still practice bhakti.
Say, a simple thing, say somebody has difficulty in controlling their eating urges, when they’re alcoholics or foodaholics. Now, if somebody is like that, then maybe they should not be in charge of Mahabharata. So, now, and we say, okay, this is some, why don’t that person, why doesn’t that person have control over their senses? Okay, you could go into some specific reason for that.
But the point is, at that particular point, it’s not just okay, it’s their karma, it’s their own urges, it’s going between them and Krishna. That’s true. But if that is going to have some consequences for others, then that has to be considered also.
Am I addressing your question? Yes, somewhat, somewhat. But do we, so we still see it as, because it seemed like, sometimes it seemed that if someone has, something happens to someone, I don’t know, if they’re hit by a car or something like that, sometimes we may think that this was something that was done in their previous life. But it also seems like karma is, it can be something that they’ve done in this life for that to happen, right? That was the point I was trying to understand, is karma something? Okay.
So, generally, when something bad happens to someone, when they face some bad situation, because of it, they may do something bad also. So, most of the times, past karma works through some present karma. Most of the times.
That means, say, normally we say karma is what? The principle of karma is that, say, if I do an action, worth, say, units 10, then I get a result or a reaction worth units 10. So, it’s like I go to a shop and buy something worth 10 pounds, I have to pay 10 pounds. So, if I put my hand near fire, my hand gets burnt.
So, whatever action I do, I get a reaction. That’s at the basic level of karma. But in real life, things are complicated.
Sometimes I may do an action that’s worth unit 10, but I may get a reaction that’s worth unit 100. Now, why is that? Because there is some past karma worth unit 90. That is coming in the month.
So, say somebody has a credit line in the supermarket, and they go to the shopping mall, and they go and buy, and they keep buying throughout the month, they don’t have to pay anything. And one day they go and they just buy something worth 2 pounds, and they get a bill worth 200 pounds. What happened? It is throughout the month you are buying.
So, that all is coming right now. So, similarly for us, say somebody may drive drunk. And driving drunk is bad.
Many people drive drunk. But somebody may drive drunk, and one moment when attention is there, at that time, some child runs across the road. And they hit the child.
And even that child is not terribly hurt. But they are going to get into a lot of trouble. Now, did that accident happen because they were driving drunk or because of past karma? Well, it is both.
Isn’t it? Driving drunk is a problem. But driving drunk and having a child run across the road at the same time. It is not just driving drunk.
So, many times, our present actions become means by which our past reactions also come to us. And that is when we sometimes feel life is unfair. And it is a small thing.
We speak one little harsh word to someone, and that person becomes our lifelong enemy. Why are you taking this so seriously? Just forget it. But that person will just become like a leech, not letting her go at all.
Now, it just feels terribly unfair. But it is that, it is not just that action coming to us. It is past action coming to us.
Now, of course, if we are honest, we also will find that sometimes we do something terribly wrong. Something is worth minus 100. But then the result we get is just minus 10.
Why? I mean there because from our past karma, something positive has come now. There is one devotee who told me that when he wanted to go for Mangal Aarti, he actually had to do the worship. And he was very tired.
So, he somehow woke up, got ready, called his car, and his car fell asleep. His car fell asleep, and he said he just, suddenly something woke him up, and he saw that he was right next to the temple. So, he said, from my home, there is a straight drive.
He says, I know Krishna protected me. This is Krishna’s mercy. I told him, yeah, it’s Krishna’s mercy, but don’t make it a habit of expecting Krishna’s mercy.
So, drunk driving is dangerous. Sleepy driving can be actually even more dangerous at times. So, sometimes, we may do something wrong, but we may not get the consequences.
So, we could see it as, okay, I have some positive karma because of which I didn’t get the consequences. It could be sometimes, it could be that, yes, Krishna has intervened. But the point is, the basic principle of karma is that our actions matter.
The philosophy of karma, the whole point of it is that our actions matter, choose our actions wisely. So, even when our actions don’t seem to matter, still they do matter. I’m doing good, and still nothing good is happening to me.
But that doesn’t mean that my doing good is useless. It will have a result. Maybe because I’ve done something negative in the past, because of which my good actions are not giving the results right.
But they will. Okay. Yes.
So, you know, like, using your example of a weapon for a tyrannical person or being in a undesirable relationship, where is the limit between you’re in a situation, and we can then use the situation and say, one, this is a result of some karma, and we’re in somebody else’s shekar, for example, and our own. And then, we’re using it as an opportunity to learn, grow, surrender to Krishna, and, you know, increase our devotion. But then sometimes, I’ve done this in situations, and you see it many times, where someone stays in that situation, that job, that relationship, that health condition doesn’t help them.
So, where is the limit between saying, someone saying, like, I surrender to this, and I’m staying in this, this is my karma, and this is what was destined for me. This is a good segue to our, it’s a good segue to our next session. It’s a very important point.
Let’s turn it, turn the situation over to someone else. Say, somebody has been wrong, and they go to the police and report. I’ve been wrong.
And the police say, it’s your own karma. Would that be accepted? I would say, police would not say that, because, the police, today the government is saying, people would assume, even if there was a, in the government, which was according to Vedic principles. Say, in the Mahabharata, there’s an incident where, a Brahmana is robbed, and a Brahmana comes to Arjuna, and Arjuna doesn’t tell him, you know, it’s your own karma that you’re robbed.
Arjuna actually takes great effort. He is, his weapons are in the room, where Yudhishthira and Ravindra are together. And they have a room that when, talking with one of them, others should not go there.
So, each of them can have private time with him. But, Arjuna goes there, explains the situation, gets the weapons, goes and sings with Brahmana. And then because of that, he says, now, the Kanipa, help me interfere in each other’s privacy, that, the consequence is that, we’ll go on, whoever interferes, intrudes in somebody else’s privacy, that person will go on a one year exile, in the forest.
So, he actually goes on one year exile. The point is that, when, some suffering is there, the focus should not be, what is whose karma. The focus should be, what is my dharma.
Not, okay, who has done what in the past, because of which this has happened. If we start going in that direction, what is whose dharma, where will we stop at this? Say, there is a small baby who is crying, should the mother think that the baby is crying, because of past karma. That would be monstrous.
Isn’t it? So, the mother should be thinking that, this is my baby, it’s my responsibility to take care of the baby. I will do everything possible to comfort them. Sometimes it may happen, that despite the best efforts of the mother, the baby may still have some disease, and the baby may still keep crying.
And that time, once we have done our dharma, and still, we can’t do much about it. Then we can say, okay, maybe this is past karma. But the idea of past karma should not be used as an excuse for not doing our present dharma.
That’s why I said earlier, going back to the principle that, whenever, whenever we face any situation, look for the drishta cause first. Look for the immediate cause first. And then look for the, the invisible cause later.
So, I was in Australia, I was talking with one young couple. So, this, the husband and wife are talking separately. So, the husband said that, he had started practicing bhakti.
And then he had married, and the wife was introduced to bhakti, and she was also started practicing to some extent. So, then, the, this young man was telling me, you know, my wife does this, she doesn’t listen to this, she doesn’t do this, she doesn’t agree with this, she doesn’t do this. And then he said, I have got a realization.
I said, what is that? He says, that you know, Krishna has given me such a disagreeable wife, so that I have become detached. Okay. I said, wait a minute.
Then, and I talked with his wife, and she explained her things. There’s some basic things which she was expecting, and he was just being negligent. And I told him that, you know, what you are saying could be true.
But, if you are jumping to that explanation, without doing your dharma right now, if she has certain expectations from you, you need to fulfill as much as possible for you reasonably, as a part of your response. So, if we don’t do, what the other person expects us to do, what we are expected to do in a particular role, and then that other person complains, and we say, oh, you know, I got a complaining partner because of my past karma. Well, your partner is complaining, not because of your past karma, but because of your present karma.
So, if we start jumping to previous karma, as an explanation all the time, then we can become passive, we can become irresponsible. So, how to assess the situation? That requires some intelligence. And start with the immediate, and then move gradually towards the more distinct explanations.
So, I talk in the next session about three broad ways, in which when we face difficulty, how do we respond to the difficulty. But, whether it is karma or whether it is God’s plan, these are all valid explanations to consider. But the idea is those explanations, they should not replace the immediate explanations.
It’s like we are being given a bigger explanatory framework, a bigger causal circle with which to make sense of things, when they don’t make immediate sense. But that doesn’t mean we stop trying to make sense of them at an immediate level. Say, if, say, going back to the example of a boss, maybe my boss is abusing or exploiting you, because, say, the previous people under them, who have worked with them, have all been irresponsible, incompetent, lazy.
And that’s why the boss feels that this is the only way. I have to get people to work. I have to create fear.
In that form. Now, maybe if we are responsible, if we are polite, if we are competent, maybe the boss’s attitude will change. So, sometimes it may not change also.
That’s possible. But instead of jumping to the explanation that is past karma, because of which this is happening, and I am going to talk about this, we need to consider various explanations. And based on which explanation we find is the most sensible, we will have to find the appropriate response.
So, one last point I’ll make before we conclude. If you have any further questions, we will discuss it. We’ll have time for questions and answers after the last session.
So, now we will talk about Krishna’s role in adversity, in distress. So, basically, the universe, at a fundamental level, the universe is like a university of adversity. That this world is a place where everybody will face distress.
Krishna said, this world is a prison. But it is not just meant to be a prison sentence where we suffer. It’s more like a university, where we are meant to learn something through that suffering and grow.
So, now Krishna’s role in adversity, we can look at three different levels. One is Krishna is the cause of adversity. Well, maybe not.
Then Krishna is our comfort during the adversity. The problem has come, the problem is there, but if I remember Krishna, then the impact of the problem is not so much. The problem is there, but the remembrance of Krishna gives me comfort, some shelter, some solace.
Now, this is there. And Krishna is the cure for the problem. Now, Krishna is the cure in the ultimate sense.
Yes. In the immediate sense, it depends. So, isn’t that, say, if I have some relationship issues with someone, I just chant Hare Krishna more and more and the problem will go away.
Relationship issues will be there. Maybe. Maybe not.
If I have some relationship issues, maybe I have to do some mediation, maybe develop some humility, and hear the other person, try to understand their perspective, address their concerns, and then things will be resolved. So, it may vary from situation to situation. But for us, Krishna is, it’s important to recognize that Krishna is not necessarily the cause of the suffering.
And we shouldn’t use Krishna as the cure for the suffering to neglect other ways of dealing with the suffering. So, Krishna is the ultimate cure. But it could also be that it is Krishna who gives us the intelligence to look for other practical cures.
So, how to approach suffering? How to graduate through this university of adversity? What are the different approaches we could take? That would be our last session. I’ll summarize what we discussed now. So, we were talking today about Krishna’s role, God’s role in our suffering, our distress, our hurts.
So, we discussed broadly three points that when events happen, there can be multiple causal contexts in which they can be put. So, we discussed the falling apple. We could look at a mechanical context that the principle of gravity.
We could look at a spiritual context that it is God. So, in different situations, different things will be the most relevant. So, the idea is intelligence means we look at the constructive context.
Now, what makes a particular context constructive? That it is actionable. We can do something about that issue when we place it in context. So, let’s expect the causal context.
We discussed that there could be when some event happens, that event may be caused by our free will, we may use it rightly or wrongly. It could be caused by somebody else doing some evil. It could be ultimately God’s will.
So, there is suffering. It could be maybe I am dealing with this person wrong. I need to learn better.
Maybe there is some evil in that person and there is God’s will. So, we discussed about how when we use the word God’s will, it can refer to intention, but it can also refer to just the permission. So, God is the cause of all causes, not cause of all effects.
It is not that he makes. It is people who misuse their free will to do certain things. And when that happens, we can’t say that God is responsible.
It’s just an example of that person having that Kshetra. So, when somebody else passes through that Kshetra, that person may be affected. So, when that person does something, it is not God doing it, that person.
So, what is the devotional way of looking at it? So, when we face distress, so, this distress is God’s plan. So, that is questionable. There is some God’s plan in this.
Now, what is that plan? That I have to find out. That I have to use my intelligence. And in general, we move from the Dhrishta, visible explanations, then to the Adhrishta.
So, try to make sense first at an immediate level. And if you can’t, then go towards deeper level. So, when there is distress, our focus needs to be on our dharma.
What is the right thing for us to do? Not whose karma. We can become, if we focus on whose karma, we can unnecessarily become passive. And lastly, we discussed how God can be a playing multiple roles in the suffering.
Is He the cause of the suffering? Maybe, maybe not. Is He the cure for the suffering? Yes, ultimately, but not immediately. He can be our comfort amid suffering.
And He can help us, D, He can help us find the right way to deal with it. So, how do we find that right way? That we will be discussing in the last session. Thank you very much.