How can Krishna’s loving nature be reconciled with the sufferings of hell?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So enormous suffering in hell doesn’t seem to be conciled with Krishna’s loving nature.
He’s our father, why does he create so much suffering in hell? Yeah, hell is not meant to cause us suffering. Hell is meant to save us from suffering. See, the concept, the word hell is the same in all the world’s religious traditions.
But the conception of hell within the Vedic tradition and within the Abrahamic religions is very different. Within the Abrahamic religions, hell is a place where you go eternally. And that means, that their conception that if you don’t, Jesus is the only way, if you’re not following Jesus, you’re going to go to hell.
And there are some extremist followers of certain religions, they say, you’re not only going to go to hell, we’ll help you get there faster. So their idea is, their idea is of a very unloving God. One chance, if you don’t accept that chance, you’re going to go to hell forever.
The Vedic understanding is that the universe is a university. And the universe is a university and the whole purpose of the university is to help us to learn to love. To learn to love Krishna and to learn to love all living beings in relationship with Krishna.
And within this university, there are different planetary systems which are like classrooms with different kinds of discipline. With different levels of strictness and discipline. And hell is also a classroom.
Hell, the defining difference between the Vedic conception of hell and the Abrahamic conception of hell is that even the Vedic conception of hell is temporary. It’s simply a classroom. And to understand Krishna’s love, we need to see things not from the material perspective but from the spiritual perspective.
If we keep insisting on seeing things from the material perspective, we will say, well, even in this world, why is there so much suffering? There is old age, there is cancer, there is accident, there is this, there is that. Where is Krishna’s love? So if we see from the material perspective, what to speak of in hell, even on earth we are not able to see God’s love. But to appreciate the depth of God’s love, we have to understand the length and the breadth of our existence.
Length of our existence means our life doesn’t begin with birth, it doesn’t end with death. We extend over many lifetimes. Somebody will be suffering in this life but they have a bright future by Krishna’s grace and future.
So the length of our existence is much more. And the breadth of our existence, breadth means we are not just our bodies. There is the body, there is the mind and there is the soul.
So even when somebody might be suffering at the level of the body, actually they are getting purified at the level of the soul and they are getting closer to Krishna. So hell is a place where there is severe corrective action that is offered at the level of the body. But it is not permanent.
It is temporary. And the awareness that there are consequences for actions, that awareness and the experience of those consequences, all these are meant to help the soul accelerate its learning. So to learn that my happiness is in loving and serving Krishna and my happiness other things lead to suffering and they lead to various degrees of suffering based on what kind of actions I choose.
That understanding enables us to learn to love Krishna. So Krishna’s love is manifested by giving us the opportunities to love and serve him. And when we misuse those opportunities, when we create disruptions for others in using those opportunities by exploiting others, by abusing others, by hurting, by killing others, those actions have consequences.
But even for people who go to hell, Krishna still accompanies them in hell. Krishna is not a God up there who sends people down to hell. Krishna actually goes with them into hell.
And even for the souls in hell he is there in Paramatma. So the sufferings in hell at a subconscious level help the soul to understand that actions have consequences and therefore I shouldn’t act in these ways. And even if those lessons are not consciously remembered, they are subconsciously assimilated.
And thereafter the soul emerges back from hell and the soul is able to pursue transcendence with greater determination, with greater conviction. So in that sense hell is not meant to cause the suffering. The suffering of misusing our free will, of doing wrong activities and bearing consequences that is just going on and on.
But the hell is like an intense dose of treatment which jolts us out and because it is temporary from the soul’s internal perspective it is just like a flash. And thereafter that whole thing inspires the soul to practice something. So that’s how God’s loving nature we appreciate by understanding that hell is temporary, by understanding that we are spiritual not material and hell’s suffering is only at the material level and by understanding that God is not inflicting the suffering that the system of karma which causes suffering and God doesn’t forsake us but God stays with us and helps us come out of hell and move onwards towards it.
By this we can appreciate Krishna’s love for us. Is it answering your question? Thank you.