Do Yamadutas commit mistakes by taking some person other than the intended?
Hare Krishna Question Do the Yamadutas commit mistakes? Many times we hear stories of how when a person is unconscious, that person after coming back to consciousness when he was near death says that he was taken by Yamadutas and then when he went there apparently Amaraj told him, oh you got this Amit but that person was another Amit whom you were supposed to bring why you brought this person, so mistakes send him back, so this raises several questions Can the Yamadutas commit mistakes and do the Yamadutas identify souls by their names that they have in this life and if Krishna's system of justice is perfect then how can the Yamadutas commit mistakes Answer first of all Krishna's system of justice is perfect but the agents who are administering it are not perfect not to speak of Yamadutas, even the Devatas commit mistakes sometimes Indra attacked the Vrajavasis and he tried to kill them and there are several other places also, Indra becomes acts immorally becoming attracted to some Rishi's wife or something like that so the ultimate system is perfect but the agents are imperfect, then how is the perfection administered? At one place someone might get some disproportionate reaction but that may not be immediately caused by a particular event but there is some other karma that is accounted for over there, that means if A attacks B or A punishes B when B is not to be blamed for that particular crime, then that means B must have done something else because of which that reaction is coming now and A is becoming the instrument, so just as there can be sometimes excessive reaction or excessive punishment or less punishment in the system of God, sometimes there can be overreaction or underreaction even through the administrators in the universe because they are also mortal beings, they are also finite beings and they have their fallibilities so even the Gods can commit mistakes, what to speak of the Yamadutas secondly with respect to such stories, we shouldn't give credence to all such stories sometimes devotees are too enthusiastic to find any evidence that supports the Vedic beliefs anyone tells some story like this, everybody starts circulating that story oh this happened here, that happened here that person went there, that person went there and that person saw the Yamadutas or this person saw this, so we should also have some level of critical intelligence and we have to evaluate which stories will stand scrutiny so for example we have Duttakarma Prabhu Dr. Michael Cremo who is publishing books challenging theory of evolution and many people talk about ancient fossils found here or found there so he has a basic standard that he doesn't refer to any reports unless they are published somewhere in some respectable sources of course even after that the atheists will challenge try to find some false but at least we have to have some standards, so as anecdotal accounts they are fine maybe people may talk with each other about this but we shouldn't in classes especially on the Vyasasana talk about these events too much, occasionally once in a while if somebody talks it's okay but that should not become a center of our preaching because that person saw Yamadutas therefore Yamadutas exist and therefore there is sin and therefore if you don't stop committing sinful activities you will have to suffer sin therefore give up everything and chant Hare Krishna no we don't want to do fear induced preaching like that our focus should be on knowledge based preaching, how often did Prabhupada talk about chanting Hare Krishna because of fear of Yamadutas no Prabhupada talked about you are not the body you are the soul therefore aspire for a higher happiness than what than the bodily happiness that is available even for the lower species so that's the first point we shouldn't be jumping for evidence anything that supports our beliefs so not everything that is told in these anecdotal stories may be true a third point is even if it is true, yes as I said Yamadutas can commit mistakes and when this happens do the Yamadutas identify souls by their this name like bodies yes because we see in the Ajamil pastime also that Ajamil was when the Yamadutas are talking with Vishnudutas they are referring to that person as Ajamil you know we have a Swaroopa in the spiritual world but nobody knows our Swaroopa you know we don't know it and Yamadutas are administrators in this world they don't know our Swaroopa also so what will they refer to us by? by this life name naturally so that's not wrong and therefore when the Yamadutas commit mistakes and people have to go through such events then we understand there is some unusual karma involved so we are now assuming that such events have actually happened when such events have actually happened we understand there is some unusual karma because of which just like some people may get haunted by ghosts some people may get troubled by black magic so there is some karma because of which some people have to go through this kind of experiences and for some people this can be positively life transforming that oh I have to bear consequences for my actions therefore let me not do wrong deeds again and in this way they can protect themselves so what we have to do is recognize that ultimately Krishna system is perfect because the agents are imperfect sometimes some mistakes may occur and they are not actually mistakes because they are giving the reactions of some other karma that was performed at some other time thank you Hare Krishna.