If Jesus is a pure devotee why was he not protected, as was Prahlada?
From: suren
Srila Prabhupada many times quoted that “Jesus is a pure devotee of krishna ” and if that’s the case then why Krishna didn’t protect him as he protected Prahlad Maharaj ?
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Suren Prabhu.
Shri Prabhupada many times quoted that Jesus is a pure devotee of Krishna. And if that’s the case, then why didn’t Krishna protect him as he protected Prahlad Maharaj? Answer, Krishna’s protection always infallibly manifests at the spiritual level. And sometimes, depending on Krishna’s will and the specific circumstances in which Krishna wants to manifest his will in a particular way, that will may not manifest at the material level.
Even in the Vedic tradition, we see that Jatayu who rendered service to Lord Ram in trying to stop Ravana from kidnapping Sita was also killed by Ravana. Similarly, Abhimanyu was killed. So why does the Lord allow this? There are multiple purposes.
The most important purpose is the Lord demonstrates that the devotees are ready to sacrifice everything, even their lives for the sake of the Lord. And when the devotees give up their life, it is not with a demand that I am trying to serve you, so therefore it’s your duty to protect me. The devotee’s mood is that it is my duty to serve you and I will do everything that I can.
I’ll offer everything that I have for your service and by that I will attain success. So the success is to offer ourselves in the service of the Lord. Even if the Lord protects somebody, at the material level life is temporary and we have to die.
So Krishna’s real protection is his remembrance. When he gives that remembrance to us, then in life or in death we are protected because both through life and through death we are moving closer to Krishna. So Jatayu may have lost the war against Ravana but he won the war against Maya.
Sorry, Jatayu may have lost the battle. A battle is one specific part of a larger confrontation that is the war. So Jatayu may have lost the battle against Ravana but he won the war against Maya because by leaving his body in the service of the Lord, he attained eternal existence.
Similarly, Srila Prabhupada would quote how Jesus even on his deathbed would say that, for they know not what they do. So such a selfless love for even those who are perpetrating most brutal violence against him and such a prayerful remembrance of God even at the time of death is indicative of exalted devotion. So Krishna’s will is inconceivable and perfect.
It is perfect in the sense that by that will Krishna arranges the best possible result to come in the devotee’s life. At the same time, it is inconceivable. We cannot understand it from our material calculations.
Now from the historical perspective, it was Jesus’ crucifixion that initially shattered his followers but then later inspired them so much that he had sacrificed his life for their sake that they became completely dedicated to sharing the gospel message that he had brought. So it is one of the most dramatic events in his dramatic demonstrations in history of the principle of apparent failure transforming into a success. That because of Jesus being crucified, Jesus himself was protected by the spiritual level by the fact that he was remembering God at that time and through his death, his mission, his message became more deeply imprinted in the hearts of his followers, the apostles, and they shared God’s message more and more.
So we are fighting a war against maya that extends over many many lifetimes and this lifetime is only one battle in that multi-lifetime war against maya. So when we die, if at all somebody, our devotee dies, it is just the loss of one battle in that war but Krishna can arrange that the loss of that battle can be transformed into a victory because if in that losing battle we remember Krishna, then if we remember Krishna at the time of death, we attain life’s supreme success. So there is an article on this website which talks about how devotees may die sometimes in distressful situations and how we should see that.
So how should we respond when devotees die in accidents and things like that. So you can read that article to get greater context for this answer. Thank you.
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