If we have a miscarriage, is it Krishna’s will to not fulfill our material desire for a child?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Right, if we have a miscarriage do we see it as Krishna’s will that he doesn’t want us to have a child that it was our personal desire our material desire and then Krishna doesn’t want us to do it answer what is Krishna’s will is very difficult to understand and we need to place whatever happens in our life in the appropriate causal context when the first time the devotees in london did a rath yatra and somehow they had made the rath the chariot’s body much bigger than what the devotee in san francisco had done but they kept the wheel sizes more or less the same so the wheel collapsed and the whole rath yatra festival became a fiasco so at that time the devotees asked Prabhupada that was this due to our poor devotion that the rath collapse and Prabhupada said it was due to your poor engineering what this means is that Prabhupada did not escalate that particular event directly to Krishna’s will or Krishna’s displeasure um we look at some contextual explanation for it so basically whenever anything happens in our life that event can be placed in multiple causal frameworks so if the lights go off in a room then you can say okay has that particular light got damaged that is one causal framework that is the the stability of that light the longevity of that that bulb or tube or has someone accidentally switched on the power then the causal frame causal boxes the button the switch getting turned on switch on off switch position and the lights illumination or its lack or has the power supply gone off and then it is the link with the powerhouse or is it that america that whichever country you are in has been attacked by terrorists and power supply has been blown all the powerhouses have been blown up it’s escalating to a higher level and then you could even say that there is a solar flare which is penetrated into the earth’s atmosphere that has caused all electronic items on the earth to stop functioning and that’s another causal framework but if somebody starts panicking oh we have been attacked by terrorists whenever switch stops working in their house whenever light goes off you would consider them paranoid in fact most mental health problems involve escalating life’s daily problems to inappropriate causal contexts so somebody snubs us and we think that we are unloved and unlovable and go into depression that’s again an inappropriate causal context it may just be that they are they are caught in their own thoughts they didn’t even notice us not be that we are unlovable for everyone so with this background of the causal placing intelligence means to place things in the appropriate causal context when we say we should be krishna conscious and we say that we should see me we should see krishna’s hand in everything that primarily means it’s krishna’s hand guiding us toward him through that situation it is not krishna’s hand causing that situation now there’s a big difference between the two and understanding the difference is critical for us to have a favorable attitude toward krishna while practicing bhakti we had to when we have the if we start to know that krishna is the cause of our suffering then it’s easy to become resentful toward him but we understand so but then how can we be preety purvakam how can we perform devotion with affection and it is when we perform devotion with affection that we get the intelligence from within to make choices that take us closer to him so when abhimanyu was killed down in a battlefield arjuna placed that disaster in very interesting causal framework he did not blame krishna you knew why did you let this happen why didn’t you tell me or he didn’t even blame durjay the son of dushasan who actually hit abhimanyu the fatal blow he escalated it to jayadrath that the pandavas had a plan for abhimanyu to penetrate and are remaining to follow because jayadrath is coming in the way that eventually led to the chain of events that caused abhimanyu’s death so he decided to get back he decided to punish jayadrath for that and then krishna helped arjuna in doing that so for us now let’s with all this background let’s come into the specific point of miscarriage it’s it’s painful it’s tragic and especially having a child is such a important emotionally deeply invested decision and then when we are moving forward in that for something to suddenly be terminated like that it’s it’s extremely difficult and if we feel if we feel angry if we feel betrayed if we feel shaken whatever are the emotions we need to be kind to ourselves and not try to use brute force to just deny those emotions i shouldn’t be feeling like this no when draupadi gets angry draupadi is upset and she protests to krishna also krishna i called to you when i was being dishonored why didn’t you come krishna doesn’t say i am perfect i am my plan is perfect how dare you question krishna is understanding god and krishna says that no i didn’t know the gambling match was taking place i was busy defending dwarka from the attack of the demon shalva and krishna assures her that you you have acted virtuously and those who have acted viciously will be punished for their actions your honor will be redeemed so we need to be kind to ourselves and not just make ourselves firstly feel guilty for having some uncongenial thoughts or emotions whether they be doubts or fear or anger or whatever at the same time we also need to move on in life and we need to adapt adopt that frame of reference that causal context that enables us to move forward so now if we consider today’s world and it’s not just today’s world the entry of new life into this world is is is an adventurous and dangerous journey and from conception to delivery if you see the percentages there are so many times when miscarriages happen so if something like that has happened with us we could say that that’s just the hazard of how life is life comes into this world and if you attribute it to that then is it krishna causing no it’s just the nature of the world so it’s extremely cold sometime and we can’t wake up and chant properly is it krishna displeased with our previous inattentive chanting and not giving us a facility to chant now no it’s just the nature of the weather over there um but it’s extremely cold so that’s it’s that this is a normal hazards of of childbirth then beyond that another framework we could see is that is there something specifically biologically biologically deficient with the persons involved and does that need to be fixed and how can that be fixed sometimes it is where the medical science is required in the vedic times also there was ayurveda it was not that if a person got disease that god causing me disease or is it it’s not god causing if somebody has got an imbalance of kapha vata pitta something like that then that is the that is the level at which the explanation is sought and then the remedial action is done so we need to look from medical perspective whether there was something specific that that was deficient and that needs to be corrected beyond that another causal framework could be that was there that something that happened during that particular time that could be some physical injury some emotional trauma and could that have triggered this chain of events and and then we can act accordingly now when we act we have to see so we have to see that we act in a way that is conducive for our growth and service to krishna um so is wanting to have a child a material desire and that’s why krishna is disapproving of that that is a that is a such a over over simplistic understanding that it can only be distorted ultimately the body and mind are mechanisms given by nature for us to function in the world and one major function for living beings is is reproduction that’s a biological drive that’s how the species continues and it is infused with not just practical survival significance but also religious significance one of the debts that we have is to our ancestors that they have that it is because they continued a dynasty that we were born in the dynasty and continuing that lineage is the way we fulfill that debt so to to consider um the desire to have a child as simply a mundane desire is to is to misrepresent the reality in very very stark black and white terms in scripture on so many occasions there are kings who wish to have children or sons and then they go through elaborate amount of austerities for that purpose and of course we have an extreme like harsh ashok born to chitra ketu but there he has tried at a material level to extreme degree he even had innumerable queens in the attempt to get a progeny so some so sometimes we might just decide that after trying repeatedly if something doesn’t happen we may decide that this is just not to be and we need to accept that and move on so in that just his desire to have a child was not the problem there that compulsive desire to have the child despite um having tried repeatedly and it not worked so that’s what was the that was what was the indication of the attachment and when we try to do something and it fails does that mean that that’s will of destiny that it should not happen well could be could not be we don’t know but we have to see how best can we move forward in our life how kids can we serve we have the example of Shachi Mata and Jagannath Mishra they had multiple they wanted to have a child and to describe that they had multiple times nine times the children died you know that way that happened at various stages and in the past the infant mortality was also very high so it was not so it is miscarriage is painful but after a child is born something happens it’s so much more painful because the more time we have spent the more time we are nurtured the more our emotions get invested and the greater is the trauma and even after that what happens is that the it said in the Chetan Charita with the Jagannath Mishra and Shachi Devi they became even more intense in the practice of devotion Krishna Kare Vishesha Sevan that they intensely started practicing bhakti and thus they moved forward and eventually they got glorious children eventually in life they had two children Vishwaroop and Vishwambhar within Mahaprabhu himself came as their child so so did they see that oh it is Krishna’s will that this child should die and Krishna’s will that we shouldn’t have a child they said no but they just intensified the devotion and within that devotional context they had a particular desire which they went on so we can focus primarily on how best we can serve Krishna and in and in the grahastha ashram having children is a natural way of serving Krishna so if there is some reversal in that rather than directly attributing it to Krishna’s will or to the mundaneness of our desires we need to we need to see what causal context is most appropriate for that and we can’t know the cause of everything but we do know the purpose of everything cause is why it happens it’s from where it comes purpose is where it takes us so ultimately everything is meant to take us toward Krishna now how best we can move toward Krishna in what situation we have to use our God-given intelligence and formulate the best way forward it is life can hurt us in many ways but greater than the world’s power to hurt is Krishna’s power to heal so as devotees we see this event as something arising from the nature of the world the world is hurting us but Krishna is always there with us within us to heal us and during that healing journey how we take that forward whether it is again trying to have a child immediately after some time or or some after a long time or how that is something which we can carefully decide but we don’t have to see a particular event as immediately escalating to Krishna’s will or mundaneness of desires thank you Hare Krishna