Isn’t everything that happens to a surrendered devotee good?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so when I said that if we surrender to Krishna isn’t it that everything that happens to us is good it’s the nature of this world that there are dualities and everything that happens in this world is ultimately by Krishna’s sanction but it is not necessarily Krishna’s intention it means it’s not that Krishna wants people to act right say if a devotee Prabhupada went to America and then when he was staying at a particular place his typewriter and his tape recorder somebody stole it so now was that something that Krishna wanted it to happen now we don’t know Krishna’s mind but the point is there was some person most likely the janitor of the watchman he himself robbed it so now at an objective level in this world when Prabhupada had practically no money it was very difficult for him to replace it so that was a bad thing but now see there is a difference between things being good and bad and things being for good or bad see for a child when he is getting an injection he can tell the injection is for good but if you tell the child the injection is good well the injection is painful so we are not meant to deny our experience of reality if you tell the child you think that the injection is not painful the injection is pleasant you can’t do that at an experiential level the injection is painful so the point which I made was that just in the name of bhakti we are not meant to deny our experiences our experience of reality is what it is now with our intelligence we see that experience in a broader perspective the mother explains to me this injection is painful right now but in the long run the good will come out of it see why I am telling you this this can become it can become extremely insensitive if we start claiming that everything that happens is for good I was in North India recently and there was one after a class a mataji came and talked to me and she was a rape and some preacher who I was telling to say that rape was good so what is the that’s why I gave the example nobody told Draupadi that when she was being disrobed what happened was good so we have to be sensitive and traumatic experiences are there we can’t deny the fact that those experiences are traumatic now how Krishna will bring good out of it we don’t know so we have to acknowledge and even if somebody another insensitive answer is it must be your own karma you must have raped someone that is not the answer that nobody tells Draupadi you must have disrobed someone in your previous life that’s why you got disrobed nobody tells her that so it’s more about it’s not just we are not actually subordinating facts or being sensitive sensitivity is also based on reality that experience is painful at that time and if not somebody gets moral support Krishna also does that when Abhimanyu passes away Krishna doesn’t tell Arjuna Arjuna is crying Krishna doesn’t tell Arjuna you have forgotten the Bhagavad Gita he supports it he is very gentle with it that also we have to be careful whether we speak it or not at that time it’s very difficult for a person to think that it is for good we just have to be there in a way that we can help them sometimes giving them the confidence that whatever happens is for good is beneficial for them sometimes when such a terrible thing happens like for a woman to be violated tell her that it is for her good it’s just unacceptable for her so basically there are four levels of perception one is that what has happened I think it is good second is that what has happened I understand it is for good third is what has happened is bad but by taking shelter of Krishna I can tolerate it so what has happened is bad but Krishna is good and Krishna will help me to tolerate it so Krishna’s goodness is not in preventing that thing from happening it happened because the nature of the material world is a place of misery and Krishna will help me to deal with it and the fourth is that what happened is it’s my own karma it’s getting exhausted now and in that sense it is good a bad karma is getting exhausted so there are many different ways in which we can look at the situation so we have to see what way of looking gives people consolation and strength in that matter so if we give the wrong explanation at that time we can just alienate people terribly alienate people in the west people are very sensitive about this there was a prominent football coach in England and he led one of the England league teams to success one time he just made a statement that people who are physically handicapped that must be because they have done some bad karma in their life such a moral outrage he had to resign from his job so he says the argument was why there was moral outrage they said basically you are blaming the victim blaming the victim from this life’s perspective that person has not done anything wrong, that person is simply a victim and if you are going to blame the victim, the karma is not meant for blaming the victim karma is actually if the philosopher’s karma is seen in this way it can be psychologically damaging I am suffering right now on top of that you give me a guilty conscience also that I must have done bad because of which I am suffering no, karma is meant to actually help us to understand that things are not just happening arbitrarily I must have done something in the past therefore now if I choose wisely I will get good in the future so philosophy has to be presented in a way that empowers people not disempowers people Thank you