How can God be happy when we are suffering?
From: Praveen Shanmugam
How can god be enjoying and satisfied (atmarama) when we conditioned souls , his children suffer tormently in this world?
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Praveen.
Does God feel unhappy to see that we are all suffering in this material world? Or is God happy in the spiritual world with his devotees and doesn’t care about how much we are suffering here? Answer. God is a person who, being infinite, is capable of having multiple emotions and multiple reciprocations at the same time. That means that when Krishna is in the spiritual world and he is performing pastimes with his devotees there, he is fully available for them.
And in reciprocating love with them, he gives them happiness and he feels happiness himself. And in this way, the very basis of understanding that he is God is that he is completely and eternally happy. That nothing and no one can take away his happiness.
So in that sense, God is always happy, no matter what anyone else does. And in one sense, that happiness is what his devotees also want in the spiritual world. If Krishna is reciprocating love with his devotees and he is unhappy there, the devotees will be unhappy there.
If the devotee is unhappy, Krishna will be unhappy. And in this way, if Krishna is unhappy, the devotees will further be unhappy. And this will make the spiritual world an unhappy place.
But we know very clearly in scripture that the spiritual world is always an ecstatic place. So that means Krishna is fully happy in the spiritual world. And that’s how he reciprocates love with his devotees.
At the same time, Krishna is also available for each one of us in the material world. And when he is available to us in the material world, he presents himself as the Paramatma in our hearts. And as the Paramatma in our hearts, he is anxious.
He is anxious that we not undergo any suffering needlessly. And in the 17th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, when Lord Krishna talks about people who perform whimsical, non-scriptural austerities for mundane purposes and in the process they torture their bodies, So Krishna says that, The 17th chapter, verses 5th and 6th. So in the 6th verse he is saying that when they torture their bodies, at that time, So I am also situated in their body and I feel tortured.
Now Krishna is spiritual and the torture of the body is not going to affect him in any way. But he is not tortured because the body is troubled. He is tortured because we are needlessly causing suffering on ourselves.
So Lord Krishna makes it very clear in the Bhagavad Gita that when people are suffering, at that time he also suffers. And in fact the whole principle of Avatar, why Krishna comes in this world not just once or twice, you know, in the Abrahamic religions, God’s love is not revealed so fully. They have the idea that God comes only once as his son as incarnation or God sends one messenger and that messenger is the last of all messengers.
Now these understandings reveal a God of limited love. However, the Vedic literature reveals God in his completeness as a God of unlimited, unending love. And many of us may know about the ten avatars, but Krishna has unlimited avatars.
The Srimad Bhagavatam says that there are as many avatars as there are whales in the ocean, which means they are infinite. And why does Krishna descend in infinite avatars in this world? Because his love for us is infinite. And that’s why Krishna is so concerned that we not suffer ourselves in this world, that he comes as the Supersoul internally and is always trying to guide us.
He comes as the avatars or the descends externally and tries to guide and inspire us. He sends his devotees, he sends his scriptures, he comes as the deities, he comes as his holy name, he comes as the dhams, he comes as the prasad. And in so many ways he tries to attract us back.
If Krishna were a pathetic, unconcerned and undisturbed by what is happening to us, he would not have manifested himself in so many manifestations that enable us to connect with him. So, Krishna is surely concerned about us. And Krishna is not happy when he sees that we are suffering.
He is concerned. He also, in a sense, suffers. But, as I said in the beginning itself, Krishna can experience simultaneously multiple emotions.
And that is why his suffering here in the material world does not cause an interference in the reciprocation of his love with his devotees in the spiritual world. If some person, just because of his frustration, puts a bullet on his own head and commits suicide, Krishna in the spiritual world is stealing butter from Mother Yashoda, performing Rasila with the gopis, and suddenly he will not say, Oh, this foolish person, what has he done? And I lost my mood to perform pastimes. No, we cannot interrupt Krishna’s pastimes due to our suffering.
Because, in one sense, Krishna does not want his other devotees to suffer. If Krishna let himself be disturbed in a way that disturbs his reciprocation of love with his other devotees, then those devotees would be unhappy. And then Krishna doesn’t want those devotees to be unhappy.
Krishna wants devotees to be happy and for their sake also he is happy. And by his nature also he is happy. So, this point that Krishna is not limited is very important to understand.
Krishna, that is borne out in the scriptures also, in the Rastila when Krishna was seen to be next to every gopi when they were dancing, or the gopas also when they were taking lunch with Krishna, every gopa felt Krishna was looking only at him. So, Krishna is available to each one of us as a support soul in the material world, and he is also available to the devotees in the spiritual world to reciprocate pastimes with them there. So, for the sake of the pastimes in the spiritual world, Krishna as he manifests himself in the spiritual world is always happy.
And no matter what bombs, terrorists explode in this world, no matter what suicidal things people do here, Krishna is going to continue to be happy in the spiritual world. And he is going to make his devotees happy and his devotees are going to make him happy. And that’s ananda-ambudhi-varadhanam.
It’s ever increasing. But at the same time, Krishna wants all of us also, because we are his children, to join him in the world of happiness. And when he sees that we are suffering here, he is concerned, he is distressed to some extent.
And that’s why he comes to this world in so many manifestations. And when he is here, when he sees the suffering, he is concerned about us. And he does, in one sense, suffer.
And not suffer in the sense that he is not under the rules of laws of material nature, that is, inflicting something unwanted, forcing him to suffer. He is still above the laws of nature. But seeing us misusing our free will and unnecessarily inflicting suffering on ourselves, he also feels unhappy.
So, in this way, both understandings are right. Krishna doesn’t suffer any time. Krishna is always happy all the time.
And Krishna also is concerned deeply about our suffering.