Does Krishna test us according to our capacity or beyond our capacity too?
And in that way, one can become purified, one can become ultimately liberated. That's what I understood. Because the whole purpose is education.
The student is in the first grade. The student has to prepare for the first grade. But the student doesn't have to worry about the exam in the 10th grade.
The teacher will not worry about the exam in the 10th grade. So in that sense, there is a progressive purpose of educational growth. In whatever we face in our life.
So at that level, we can say, the purpose of every test that we face is to help us grow. But growth is not necessarily unique. In the sense that, it is not necessary that only by rejecting a temptation can you grow.
Because my eyes are subtle. Sometimes I may reject a temptation. But in rejecting the temptation, I become proud of my renunciation.
I say, I can't help it. If I am doing that, then in a sense, I am winning the battle against temptation. But I am losing the war of renunciation.
Because I am not going to lose it in Krishna. I am going further away from Krishna. Instead of feeling dependent on Krishna, I am feeling proud.
See, I am so lost. The purpose of renunciation, the purpose of purity, is so that we can undistractedly look up at Krishna. But Maya is so subtle.
Sometimes with that same purity, so looking up at Krishna, I start looking down contemplatively about this. Simple. So adapt.
Such a sense growing up. I may fast in nirjavani kadashi. And then I go in the kitchen and see who is eating what.
My body is fasting, my ego is feasting. So, I have helped half the list. I have helped.
So sometimes, what may happen is that we may, I will just give you an example to illustrate the converse point I want to make. Sometimes, we feel the taste. And we feel, this was such a temptation.
I just couldn't have resisted. Things came in such a way that I just stuck on it. But if that, apart from that failure, if the battle that makes the renunciation, if that makes us more humble, if that makes us feel more the need for Krishna, if that makes us listen to Krishna, I need you Krishna.
Then that feeling of increased dependence on Krishna, that awareness of our neediness for Krishna, that increased awareness is actually a success. So we may have lost the battle against temptation, but we have won the war for renunciation. We have taken one step forward in the war for renunciation.
Not in one way, but on the journey to renunciation. So in that sense, the way Krishna tests us, it is always for our growth. But growth may not just happen in terms of external successes.
Sometimes we may, you know, we are given a service. And that service is just impossible to do. If I have given the instruction to do this service, Krishna has told me to do this service, then I will be empowered to do this service.
Then we are not able to do it. And was it that the empowerment was not there? Was it that our sincerity was not there? No, none of these may be true. It is just true that Krishna wants to teach us some other way of living.
Who could be more empowered than Shri Krishna? And yet, for almost 40 years of his preaching, he did not get any success. So both in terms of temptations or in terms of tribulations. Basically Maya, the tests come in two ways.
Temptation is, come on, do this, give up Krishna because this is so enjoyable. And tribulation means, give up Krishna because this is so troublesome. Why do it? So Krishna's test can come in both ways.
There is so much pleasure elsewhere, so go there. There is so much trouble here, why do you stay here? Just go away. Both ways.
And either way the test comes. The tribulation that comes when you try to serve and you are not successful in the service or that also has many effects. So sometimes if a devotee keeps serving even amidst lack of success in terms of external results of the service.
Now we may say that, oh, I was giving myself that, I just could not do that. It may be that we are in the material sense or in the sense of this world. It's not always that things happen which we are capable of coping with.
But even when there are things which we are not capable of coping with, if we face them, we will grow by that. Even if we don't succeed. There is one story.
It's like a folk tale. But let's say at this point, once a person was going to a forest and he heard a voice. This is God speaking.
Just push this boulder up the hill. He said, it's a huge boulder. I can't push it.
Push it. Can't you push it? So God has told him, you can't push it. One day, one month, six months he was pushing it.
And finally he couldn't even budge the boulder. So he got frustrated. He says, God, why didn't you tell me to push this boulder up the hill? You knew I couldn't do it.
He said, what did I tell you? He said, I told you to push it. You told me to push it. He said, yes, I told you to push it.
Who told you to move it? He said, you said it has no effect. But look at your own muscles. You have become stronger.
So sometimes, you will go for a particular service, no results will come. But by doing that service, we grow. So in that sense, whatever comes in our life is for our growth.
But exactly how it is for our growth, it may not be the linear external sense that we succeed and that's how we grow. Sometimes even through failure, we will also grow. Please answer the question.