If we feel grief-struck on losing a loved one, how do we relate with Krishna thereafter?

From Tamil Mani P

Supposing a loved one dies early as a result of a disease or some unnatural causes, how can we remain equipoised, when even Krishna’s greatest disciple, Arjuna, mourned the death of his son? How do we compensate (or relate to Krishna) for having shown our feelings of distress at the death of a loved one?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna question from Tamilmani Prabhu suppose a loved one dies because of a disease or some other unnatural cause and how can we avoid lamentation when even Krishna’s disciple Arjuna lamented at the death of his son Abhimanyu and after having lamented in this way how do we compensate or relate with Krishna thereafter answer we don’t have to suppress our natural human emotions but at the same time we don’t have to let those natural human emotions suppress us that means when we are in the world and we have relationships and something unfortunate happens, we will naturally feel maybe even devastated by that and it’s not that we have to think this is material attachment and I should not feel any emotions no, when the emotions come it’s not that we have to suppress them we may express them in a normal way but at the same time we shouldn’t let ourselves be suppressed by those emotions as I said the way Arjuna also expressed his emotions but the important point was that Arjuna did not give up his service to Krishna he continued serving Krishna and he used those emotions in such a way that he could intensify his service to Krishna so that means we can, if we feel these natural emotions then we can also think about how actually ultimately everybody has to lose their loved ones sooner or later and because we have the knowledge of the soul, we have the knowledge of our eternal relationship with Krishna and we have the knowledge of the eternal relationship of that person whom we are lost with Krishna we can still cope and go on with life we know that that person has not completely been destroyed, it’s just that the person has gone on to a different body and by our prayers we can still benefit that person through the medium of Krishna our prayers can still reach and benefit that person and so normally we have two main sources of pain that we can’t do anything for that person and that person can’t do anything for us that’s what relationships are all about but we can do something for that person because we know that we can pray for Krishna pray to Krishna for that person we chant some extra rounds and the benefits will go to that person and secondly we also understand through the philosophy of Krishna consciousness that whatever that person was doing ultimately it was Krishna who was doing through that person for us when a mother gives her breast milk to the child it is actually Krishna who is arranging for the mother’s breast to have milk so that the soul whom he has sent through her womb into her life will be fed so whatever love and care and shelter that person has offered to us we know it is Krishna who has offered to that person and now we can learn to depend directly on Krishna so by thinking in that way we can intensify our devotion and we can also think of how much more would have been our suffering if we did not have the shelter of Krishna consciousness and therefore feel grateful and feel more intensified in our Krishna consciousness and we may also feel inspired to share the wisdom that has given us solace with others so to summarize actually it is not that we suppress our material emotions suppress our human emotions dismissing them to be material but rather we don’t let them suppress us that means we don’t just drown in grief thinking that everything is lost now and what is the point of living no the point of living is that we have a relationship with Krishna nothing can destroy that and the love that we are experiencing in this relationship is giving us a glimpse of the sweetness of that love and we are grateful for that glimpse and now we will focus more intensely on the ocean of which we had a glimpse right now so in that way we can deal with the situation and respond to it maturely neither insensitively by trying to become heartless nor becoming hypersensitively by drowning in lamentation but mourning in a balanced way and then picking up with the pieces of our life and piecing them together with the wisdom and the strength that we get from our relationship with Krishna thank you question