The Monk’s Podcast 74 with Gopal Hari Prabhu – Does karma address the problem of evil

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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Hare Krishna, Gopal Hari Prabhu. Welcome to the Monks Podcast. Thank you.

It's my pleasure to be with you. You know, we have been together on the Shastric Advisory Council and even before that, I have heard about you. I think after I heard about Radhika Raman Prabhu, then I came to know about you also.

And one of the papers which I read of yours, which you sent me also recently, I think that was what we will discuss today. But I'll tell you from the angle which I am coming, and then you can tell me how you are coming to this, how you came to this. So when I was introduced to Krishna Consciousness, like for everyone else, the problem of suffering, the problem of evil, as it is called in the West, that's a universal problem.

And initially, the explanation of karma seemed very reasonable for me. But over the years, from being more of a, you could call a podium speaker, to more of a human counselor or a human mentor, I realized that karma is not really an adequate explanation. It is an important explanation.

But in the past, I would just treat karma like an all-explanatory magic wand almost. Suffering is because of your own karma or our own karma. But then I realized that it's, especially when we are dealing with people at a one-to-one level and they are in distress, the idea of telling them that it's all your own karma, it's very insensitive.

It's often quite unhelpful. It's unhelpful to them and it can alienate us from others. So I started looking at scripture and then I noticed that, well, there is, you could say philosophy, where we discuss about where the principle of karma is implicit in the scripture.

I don't think it is explicitly analyzed and described in any one section. It is implicit in various places, but it is practically never used to address people who are suffering directly. The person who is suffering may say, I must have done some karma because of which this is happening to me.

But others don't do that. So whether we consider when Abhimanyu is killed, at that time what Krishna says to Arjuna or whether we consider many other situations in scripture, there is generally that is not used. That is not at least used as much as a standard explanatory tool as at other times, as we use ourselves.

So then I also, when 9-11 had happened, I had read an article by Hridayanand Maharaj in VTG. And he said, he says the first time I read that, that he says that in times of such immense suffering, talks of karma, talking about karma makes no sense. So he says, what our wisdom offers us is that the soul is indestructible.

And I'm paraphrasing his words now. So he says that beyond all the destructiveness of this world, the soul, soul stays eternal and hope springs eternal for those who know the soul. So something like that.

It was a very, I felt a very sympathetic way of looking at things, very useful and compassionate way. And then I read your article, I think it was the book Bhagwat, which Radhika Ramana Prabhu and Krishan Chitra Maharaj edited. Your title was Bhagwatam's philosophy is Theodicy Beyond Karma.

So the way you analyze primarily, I think Bhishma's pastime and or Bhishma's discussion with Yudhisthira and how he analyzes his experience, that was very striking. So I felt that what I had sensed through my experience, you demonstrated through your analysis of that pastime. So I feel this is a very important subject, not only for satisfying our own, for satisfying and strengthening ourselves when we are going through difficulties, but also for helping others in a way that is compassionate and doesn't come off as either dismissive or judgmental.

So you can tell me your thoughts on this as well as how you took up this subject for your doctorate. So a very wonderful point that you're making here. And to begin with, there are many different problems of evil.

So when we speak of the problem of evil, it's not one problem. There are different problems. And based upon that, there are different solutions.

And like you're saying, in different contexts and different situations, different solutions are more appropriate than others. So one of the problems of evil is the logical problem of evil. So logically speaking, why would an all powerful, that is omnipotent, all loving, omnibenevolent and omniscient, all knowing God, why would he allow for suffering in this world? This is the most fundamental problem of theology.

There are many arguments for the existence of God, at least five or six rational arguments for the existence of God. But this is one argument. And really, there's only one really good argument why someone can argue there is no God.

And that argument is the logical problem of evil, that if God has the power to stop evil, God has knowledge of all evil, and God wants to stop evil, then why does evil exist? In response to the logical problem of evil, as far as my own reading and experience, karma is a very effective response. Without the idea of karma, how do you explain a world of suffering? There are various solutions in Western literature, like the free will defense, posited by Alvin Plantinga. There's so many different theodicies of which the free will defense is the most popular response.

But the free will defense, while it argues that suffering must exist to allow for free will, it does not actually explain how free will works, how it actually makes sense in the context of human suffering. For example, the suffering of a six-month-old child. Clearly, it is not the free will of the child to suffer or to do wrong.

So why is that child suffering? But when you take the free will defense and you apply it to many lifetimes, that is, you apply it to reincarnation and karma, then it works. Just a minute. So when you say free will defense, what you mean by that is people have free will, and by that they may do something bad and they will get the consequences.

And that's why suffering comes up. Is that what you mean by free will defense? Yes. Basically, the free will defense means that an all-loving, all-powerful, all-perfect God could allow for suffering in the world so that God can allow for free will in the world.

Because there is a greater good. The free will defense is actually part of a greater good defense. Because God allows suffering, even though it's bad, he allows it because it is so valuable to have free will.

It's such a greater good to have free will that he's willing to pay the price of letting us suffer. Because if we did not have free will, we certainly would not suffer. We would be all good people because God is good and he created us as good people.

But then we would be like robots. We're just like machines. And a robot can certainly be the most ideal person, but still he's a robot.

And so to allow for the greater good of free will, God allows us to suffer. No, but still, how does the allowing free will lead to suffering or what is the relationship between the two? So for example, like a mother or father may allow a child to go for surgery. They go for a painful surgery, let's say some surgery needs to be done.

But the mother and father allow the child to go for surgery and experience that pain so that that child will be able to walk and lead a normal life. So the benefits of that suffering outweigh the pains of the suffering. In the same way, if we don't have the choice to do good or bad, to love or not to love, then there wouldn't be any meaning to love in this world.

And God wants a world in which there is love. Unless I have the opportunity to betray my friend, there's no meaning to friendship. There's no meaning to loyalty.

Because I have the choice to betray or to love, therefore there's a meaning. There's a, you could say, a significance. And love itself is meaningful because there's free will.

I can purchase so many robots that will love me, but I still will never enjoy that relationship with robots as I will with a human being who has a choice not to love. And therefore, the love is a greater good, which presupposes free will. It requires free will.

That's a greater good. And therefore, God allows it. Yeah.

So now I think you started by saying that there are different aspects, different problems of evil, also different aspects of the problem of evil. So I think what you are saying is if we have, say, a group of people, say two people, let's put it A and B. So now even for A and B or for A with God and B with God, to experience love, they have to have free will. But if in the course of free will, A might betray B or B might betray A. And that could lead to suffering.

So this can explain, this explains not so much that we are the cause of our suffering as so much that suffering is inherent in the very existence of free will. And is it like that? Of course, if you don't want to go into technicalities of this, this is fine. No, this is a great discussion.

So certainly good people are also free. Like a perfectly good person who is a loving person who never does any major acts of evil is also free. So the need of love and free will does not mean that we actually have to perform evil.

It doesn't mean that we are obliged to perform evil or evil has to be experienced in order for us to experience love. At the same time, we recognize them as good people. We appreciate their goodness because we see that evil is there in the world.

At the same time, the choice, freedom means that that good person who may never do evil still has the real choice of doing wrong. And if it is a real choice, then what that means is that at a certain point, someone will choose to do that wrong. It's expecting an unreasonable world where there's true choice, but no one will ever make the wrong choice.

So let me explain it to you like this. God is omnipotent. God is all powerful, we say.

So people say God is all powerful. Why is he not powerful enough to create a perfectly good world with free will? Yeah, I got this point. So I'm just see this, the standard example I also give that, you know, would any parent want to replace their children with robots? Robots would be perfectly obedient, but there would be the joy of parenting would all go from that.

So that's a that's a good example. That's a fair example. The point of the free will defense, it's if I if I can understand what you're saying is.

So it's not necessary that A is the cause of their own suffering. If A suffers something, maybe it's because B issues their free will and that's why B betrayed A. Now A might have done something which caused B to betray, but it might not be proportional. So in that sense, it's more in the more we could say in the nature of the world itself that there is the possibility of suffering rather than the responsibility of suffering being placed on the individual who is going through that suffering.

Yes, I understand now your point. Yes. And that's the shortcoming of the free will.

In Kunti Maharani's prayers also, when she talks about and I think it is 1828. So he says that the that it is because of illusion and misconception among people that the conflicts arise and distress comes from thereof. You are equal to everyone and you are the lord of everything, but you are impartial, but it is because of the interactions between people that distresses come up.

So it might be something similar, although I don't think it's exactly the same. But yeah, so you can respond to that. Yes.

No, very nice point here. The shortcoming of the free will defense is that the nature of the world, like you're saying, because there's freedom and free will, it allows others to do bad. So B performs a bad act towards A. I betray my friend because I exercise my free will.

But what about the free will of my friend? My friend never wanted to be in that situation. They never seem to do anything to be in that situation. So if God has truly made a world with free agents, then why is he not respecting the freedom of the victim? Why only the freedom of the perpetrator? That's true.

Okay. And that's the shortcoming of the free will defense, that the idea of karma fills in when you add karma to the free will defense. Where now, all of a sudden, it's not just the free will of the perpetrator that God is respecting, but it's also the free will of the victim.

Because the victim in a past life acted in a certain way to, in some sense, choose their destiny. They chose their destiny to be betrayed by their friend. Because in this life or in a previous life, they betrayed someone else, and they needed to learn through that experience.

Yeah. And so intellectually speaking, not the other problems of evil, which is the evidential problem of evil and the phenomenological problem of evil, which we can get more into. But just in terms of satisfying the intellectual need to understand on a cosmic level, philosophically speaking, why God would allow evil.

Without karma, there's no philosophical position that I have found that actually gives a satisfying response that's wholesome. You know, free will definitely moves in that direction. But what about my choice? Why am I suffering? That only karma can make sense of.

Okay. So, yeah, I think it could be put another way. I would like to go into this classification of the other aspects, phenomenological and evidential aspects.

But I can say that my position, if we say that I didn't think about specifically the logical problem of evil, but we could say karma is, as you said, it is the most plausible explanation. Or we could say another way of putting it is that it is the least implausible explanation. Yes.

So ultimately, there is, it's a very difficult problem to address. And yeah, can you explain the other aspects of the other evidential aspect and the phenomenological? Yes. And just one quick thing before that point.

In terms of karma, there are challenges or you could say difficulties as far as the logical problem of evil as well in the idea of karma as well. And one of those, for example, is, well, the cycle of karma is a cycle of action and reaction. But in the beginning, why did God set it up this way? And in the beginning, if God created us equal, why is it that some people choose to do the wrong thing and others do the right thing? So, so fine, karma is the rules of the game.

But, but why is it that some of us were created by God to choose in a more informed way than others, in a better way than others? And to respond to this, the Vedanta Sutra actually has a very interesting conversation where the objector objects against the Vedanta Sutra at this very point. And in response, the Vedanta, the conclusion that the Vedanta gives is that, in fact, we as individuals, the cycle of karma and the world and God are all beginningless. Meaning that we've always existed.

Our choices are truly our choices. And we have what God creates us in the sense that God sustains us. But God does not create our choices.

God may facilitate them. God may, you know, keep us in existence. But it is truly our choices from beginningless time that determine our future.

And so this is just an example, problems like that. Also, another problem is why we don't remember our past misdeeds. Yeah.

So does beginninglessness really solve the problem? Or does it like take the problem to where, where you don't need an explanation? So in the sense that, say, when the Big Bang theory was proposed in, I'm thinking of cosmological equivalent. Yes. And the Big Bang theory was proposed.

Initially, many atheistic scientists and thinkers opposed it vehemently because they were more in favor of the steady state theory. Because if the universe has a beginning, then it requires a beginner. Then if it is the universe has always existed as it is, then it's much easier to deny the need or the existence of a organizer or a beginner at all.

I think much of Buddhistic philosophy is like that the cosmos itself is at one level eternal. Our entanglement is not, but the cosmos is. So eventually, when at least the mainstream scientific community accepted the Big Bang theory and supportive evidence for that, then I think Stephen Hawking was among the first to propose that it's not just linear, it's cyclic.

That means he said that there's a Big Bang and there's a big crunch and Big Bang and a big crunch. And of course, there are others who talk about space time as circular more than linear. These are complex concepts and I'm really simplifying them here.

But the point is that if existence is cyclic, then there is no need for it to have any beginning or any beginner also. But, you know, so a existence may be cyclic, like a circle is. A circle goes round and round.

That's fine. So after the circle is made, we can't trace where did it begin? But still, even the circle needs to have a beginning at some time. So in that sense, just saying that things are beginningless, does that really address the problem? So that would mean that God has permanently placed some souls in this cycle.

And maybe there are some souls who are never placed in the cycle. So then it doesn't really, does it really address the problem? It doesn't. So the idea of beginninglessness does not answer the problem of evil.

It simply answers questions regarding beginnings. Karma is a response to the problem of evil. We are suffering in this world because God has given us free will, free choice.

And then we have to experience the results of those free decisions. But then people say, well, but how did it start? Why in the beginning did God give us this? Well, it's answering that question of beginnings. There is no beginning.

We are who God and us are, are eternal beings, like Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita. No beginning and no end. So never did I exist in the past, nor was there a time when I did not exist in the past, nor will I not exist in the future.

The soul has no beginning. It has no end. So therefore, the point is that that's the nature of the self.

And it's bringing a responsibility on the self rather than on God. For being this time, we've had our own choices. And we cannot say that God put this choice in me or God made me this way.

Now, someone may say that, well, why does God not change it? Okay, this is who I was, but why doesn't he not now make me into a better person? And that's, but then the response is, that's exactly what God is doing. Yes. Through the process of karma, through the experiences of this world.

He's allowing us out of our own free will and experiences to change ourselves for the better. And so therefore, God is doing his part of when we when we go in the wrong direction to bring us back in the right direction. So the idea, I think in Vedanta also, it is overall there, that there is another level of reality beyond this.

So when we talk about it, about karma being beginningless, that means it's more a talk of that we can go from this reality to that reality. It doesn't really address how we came in this reality in the first place. It just says that this is where we are and this is where we have been.

So now this is the other very important point, that if we say that we have been suffering in this world since beginningless time, then in some ways we are saying that we've been suffering for eternity. If we go to the mathematical concept of infinity, infinity has no end. In the same way, minus infinity has no end.

So if we've been suffering in this world since minus infinity, we've been suffering in this world eternally. And if we're suffering in the world eternally, that means our suffering also has no end. Logically speaking, our suffering will never come to an end.

Oh, okay. So therefore, while we are beginningless. So you're saying that if it goes backward forever, then it'll go forward also forever.

Exactly, yes. So if it's going forward, if it's going to end, then in the backward also should be ending then. Backward also, okay.

Yes, yes. And so therefore, while we are beginningless, based upon the different acharyas that I've come across and that others have also studied, it appears that, and there's a big discussion on this point, but it appears that the general conclusion of the acharyas is that our stay in this world, our experience in this world has a beginning. Because if our stay in this world is beginningless, then it's also endless.

But because it has a beginning, therefore it has an end. Like in the Gita, there are two ontological categories of reality. One is sat, which is eternal, and the other is asat, which is temporary.

And Krishna says, those things that have a beginning must have an end. And that which is beginningless is also endless. So we have to choose.

If suffering is endless, it's also beginningless. If we're going to use the ontological framework of the Vedas, if something has a beginning, therefore it must have an end. And because this world and the sufferings in this world are asat, they must have a beginning and an end.

And therefore we have free will. Sorry, when you talk about two categories, I thought of them as matter and spirit, but you're talking about sat and asat. So then are we considering suffering as an ontological reality apart from the psychological experience of suffering? So suffering as a tangible reality, because if you, what is that 1321? I think, kare karana kartrutve hetu prakritruchate, purushaha sukha dukkhana bhoktrutve hetruchate.

So Krishna says that the cause and effect is caused within the domain of material nature. But pleasure and pain are experienced because of the soul's desire to, to enjoy this world. So, yes.

So suffering itself, but the way you are analyzing it is either we have to play suffering in the domain of asat or sat. So we are considering suffering also to be a thing here. So is it something that is a matter and spirit? So, see, everything, like in Vaishnav theology, any experience that we have is a substance.

In other words, the only way we can actually experience it is if it is real. Ramana Jacharya said even mirages, like things that appear to be unreal, like, you know, the, you know, water seen on fire or water seen in the desert. It is still real.

There's some, there's some minuscule amount of water there. Therefore, we feel that water is there. So suffering is experience.

It's true. It's an experience, but it is also something that exists. Therefore, we experience it.

And the point, the important point here is that, that free will is being-less. We've always had free choice and therefore we've always been loving, intentional human beings. But our wrong choice and the beginning of suffering, that is not being-less.

That has a beginning. So imagine a situation. We've been in the spiritual world.

We're enjoying with God. We're good people. We're loving God.

And at a certain point, we have the desire, we choose to turn away from God. We choose to be envious. We choose to be greedy.

We choose to be angry. At that point that our experience in the material world starts and that has a beginning. Okay.

Yeah, I think there is a lot of animated discussion on this topic of how a soul might turn away from God and whether it exactly happens or not. And that could be a separate discussion itself. Yes.

Let's focus on what we are discussing right now. So I like the way you put this, that everything that we experience has to have some basis in reality. So what we experience may not exactly coincide with the reality of what our thing is, but it has to be some connection.

So if there is nothing at all, like we said, there is, if there were, we have to have some experience of a snake to mistake a rope to be a snake. So there has to be, yeah, there has to be some reality which we may experience in a distorted way. So I think the example of reflection, the 15 chapter upside down tree.

Something that is ontologically unreal can never be an object of experience. That's a strong claim. Okay.

So when now, when people have say movies, which are science fiction or simply fiction. So there is some connection with reality. The characters have either emotions similar to humans.

The characters may have some bodily forms and abilities separate from us. So unless there is something similar, there has to be something similar. And there may be a significant thing, which is dissimilar or we could say that is not real, but unless there is some grounding in reality, it's not possible to experience that.

Well, the movie itself and the dream itself is also real. So it has semblance to our day to day experience. So therefore we create it, we imagine it and we, we produce it.

But then the experience itself, although it may not match our day to day reality, but the, but the movie itself, the screen, the characters, the cartoons, those are also real. And if they're not real, I can't experience that. Yeah, that's true.

You know, when I read the Govinda Bhashya, there's a very striking section where he talks about dreams and he says, are dreams real? So normally we often say this world is like a dream. And he said, use it in the sense that this world, sometimes it is, this world is false. Yes.

It turns that argument around. And he says that actually this world is like a dream. I'm paraphrasing again.

And because this world is real, therefore dreams are also real. And that's why we can experience sometimes the ultimate reality in dreams. Krishna may come in the dreams.

The spiritual master may come in the dreams. So it's not that everything in the dream is real, not as everything in the dream unreal. The dream has to have some basis in reality.

So in some ways, the task of intelligence is actually to separate the real from the unreal in our lewd experience, whether it is conscious. Of course, we don't analyze dreams so much. But in some ways, the process of bhakti is also we utilize this world like the hamsa, take the milk and reject the water.

So this one, so it's more of separating the real from the unreal. Yes. And I wouldn't even go so far as to say that there's something that is unreal.

Sometimes the word is used, the word is used, the word unreal is used to denote a lesser reality. So it's unreal in relation to things that are eternal. Temporary things are unreal in the sense that they are temporary and not eternal.

But really, in the case of a dream, it's a mistaken perception. It's completely real. That's why I'm sleeping in my bed and I'm screaming and shouting.

If it was not real, why would I scream and shout? It is completely real, but it is a mistaken identity. I am thinking I am the person in my dream who is chasing me when in fact I am not. That is actually that person there is a figment of my mind.

It's been created by my mind. It is real. It's been created by my mind, but it's not me.

That's the mistake that I made. So it is a lesser reality or it is a mistaken perception, but it's not truly unreal. And we see the Bhagavatam and Vedic texts in general.

They speak unreality more as a way of talking, a way of saying. But they don't mean unreality in the strict ontological sense that it actually does not exist. That's a very important point.

I think this is quite a misconception about Hindu thought in general. You know, I read a book on the basically the problem of evil that was written after the tsunami. And there were different perspectives given by different religions.

And I found the Hindu perspective. I was looking forward to how they would present it. It was very, you could say, annoyingly simplistic.

This is a Hindu say, ultimately the world is a dream. So our pleasure and pain, it's all a dream. And then you wake up, you realize there is no pleasure, no pain.

I don't see that as a fair representation of what Hindu thought or Vedic thought or whatever name we use. That's not at all a fair representation, isn't it? This is actually one of the reasons I was working on this. This is one question you'd ask me, you know, why did I start working on this theme, on this topic? Because I found so many responses in the academic literature which said that in Hinduism, the way they respond to evil is to say that it doesn't exist.

It's unreal. It's all illusion. It's Maya.

World really doesn't exist. Evil doesn't exist. And, you know, to some degree, that may be true if you look at certain philosophers in Hinduism, certain traditions.

But how is that helpful? How does that help anyone? The fact is we are living in this world. People are suffering, you know, children, adults, old people. They're dealing with real issues.

And first of all, it's not factually correct. And second of all, it's very unhelpful to say that evil just doesn't exist or we don't exist or the world is a dream. So what if the world is a dream? The fact is that we're in this world.

It's as real as anything to us. And we want to find a solution to our sufferings, to our difficulties. We also want to know why am I in the dream.

It might be a dream, but just describing it doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't explain the situation. So, yes, we're in a dream, but still God is to blame.

Why did he put us in this bad dream? Fine. It's not real. But why did he make us feel that it is real? So Hinduism still faces the same problems as other traditions do in terms of the problem.

Yeah, that's true. And what you said exactly that even if I understand it's a dream, now from a dream, somebody can just throw some water on my face and wake me up. But I can't be woken up from the dream like that.

There is a systematic, sustained, often prolonged process required for waking up. And during that process, still I have to, I have to, I have to deal with the problems of life. And then I think further also another problem remains is if it's all a dream, then why do some people have worse dreams than others? Isn't it? Yes.

So that also the difference in sufferings of different people also remains a problem that is unanswered by that. Yes. So going back to this point about eternal, I have seen that some Christians, they define eternal only as forward.

Because their idea is that when a man and a woman unite, that's when a new soul is created. Yes. They don't accept the idea of pre-existence.

So then I thought it was just a stray Christian idea or a fringe Christian idea. But I have seen many mainstream dictionaries also define the word eternal as forever from now. Not just no beginning and no end, but just no end.

Just no end. That way. So it's almost like if you say it's infinity, it's half infinity from here onwards.

So is that, is it like, first of all, is it mainstream Christian thought and is it really logically sound to argue eternity in that way? So there's actually a theologian, Thomas Aquinas, a very famous theologian, the main saint for the Catholic tradition, the largest tradition of Christianity. And if we read his writings, actually, Thomas Aquinas deals with this issue. And he says that, you know, rationally speaking, if God is beginningless, it's somewhat not illogical, but somewhat difficult to say that at a certain point, God decided to create us.

If God is beginningless, then why, how can you, and God is beyond time. That's the key point. God is beyond time.

And how can you say at a certain point in time, God created us? So he recognizes that it may be the case, and he actually says this openly. It may be the case that we are also beginningless. All souls are eternal.

God is eternal and all souls are eternal. And he recognizes that philosophical issue, which you are pointing out, that, of course, for God, everything is possible. So we cannot say that God could not have created us at a certain point and eternity means from now onwards.

But he says it's also likely that we've always existed. And still in that case, he says God will be called creator. How? In the very same Vedantic way that Vedantins say, God is creator in the sense that he continuously creates us.

And there's actually a phrase in Christianity for this. It's called continuous creation. God continuously creates us.

That is, he keeps us into existence. Without his keeping us into existence, we could not live. And in that way, he's our creator.

Okay. Sometimes these kind of discussions, it is often explanations raise more questions than they answer. Yes.

Yeah. So we could go explore this particular timeline line of thought. But I think we wanted to focus on the problem of evil.

So would you like to discuss how the Bhagavatam addresses the problem of evil? Or would you like to go into the other aspects of evidential, phenomenological, whichever direction you would like to take it? So that's where the Srimad Bhagavatam comes in, actually. So we've seen the basic general response to the logical problem of evil. But then there's the evidential problem, which says that, okay, logically, evil should exist in this world.

But why so much evil? Why did God have to put us through so much? Why not less? And why does it come in the way that it comes? And this is not something that a person can answer so easily. And therefore, I do agree, coming back to your original point, that karma is not a fully satisfying response to the problem of evil. It may satisfy the intellect or just the tough questions.

But it doesn't answer the main problem, which is the degree and the severity of the experience of evil. And so therefore, the Bhagavatam is saying we have to go one step further. And in order to explain the amount of suffering in this world, we have to understand that there's a higher divine plan.

There's the plan of God, which is there to help us. It's meant to help us. And that goes beyond just our own choices and what's fair and suffering for the things that we did right or wrong.

That goes at a level of love, where God is making us go through certain experiences, even if we don't deserve them, because God feels that this will help us. And so the Srimad Bhagavatam begins by first rejecting the problem of evil as a complete response to the rejecting karma as a complete response to the problem of evil, especially in terms of the suffering of the righteous. In terms of the suffering of the good people.

Where does it categorically reject that? Is there any particular reason it rejects it? Because rejecting is a strong word. Yes, it is a strong word. In the discussion of Bhishma and the Pandavas, Bhishma says, it never rejects it as a general response.

But Bhishma says that how karma could not be the reason why the Pandavas were suffering. He alludes to this, and you're absolutely right. He doesn't openly reject it, but he makes it very clear that the Pandavas could not be suffering due to their past karma because he points out that Yudhishtira is dharma personified.

If someone is dharma personified, then they could not be suffering due to their past karma. Okay, so it's implicit. I think that's the second or third verse that is in it.

yatha dharma suto raja So he's talking about how from the point of view of virtue, from the point of view of ability, and from the point of view of devotion. In terms of ability, they had Arjuna and Bhima with them. They also had the Supreme Lord over there, Surat Satham.

Okay, so it's not an adequate explanation. I think that's a fair enough point. And also, we see that in the discussion between the bull and Parikshit Maharaj also.

Parikshit Maharaj offers that explanation or offers that as one option. And the bull doesn't accept that. The bull says the cause of suffering is very difficult to ascertain.

Yes. Yeah, you can go ahead. So the evidential problem of evil is answered by the fact that at a certain point, when we're dealing with the problem of evil, we need to recognize our fallibility and God's infallibility.

We have to recognize that we don't understand the larger picture. We can't see the cosmic picture. And that's where faith comes in, that for the religious practitioner, for the believer, there has to be something that is not fully explicable, that we are willing to accept if we have faith in someone or something that is higher.

And there from Bhishma, he ends his discourse by saying that we know as the practitioner, the bhakta, that we know that the plan of God is perfect. And it's perfect in all respects. But we cannot know that plan.

So he tells Yudhishthira that accept the plan. But the plan is not subject to anything. Some things we may know.

Some things God may reveal. But some things God may not reveal. And we have to take that in our stride.

So in terms of counseling people, like you were mentioning, everyone feels that they're a good person. Because they are. So in some sense, every person is a righteous person.

And therefore, Bhishma's instructions are very relevant in terms of counseling. Given that most likely the people that we're counseling are not, you know, Stalins and Hitlers and criminals, but are generally good people. They need to understand that their suffering may not be due to their past karma.

But it's actually due to a higher reason. A way that we can grow and develop. God teaching us a very deep lesson in love.

And therefore, that, that lesson in love will make us into a better person. Okay. This seems quite similar to the story of Job in the Old Testament.

Basically, God, Job is suffering enormously. And when he asks, why am I suffering? And then God basically comes. Did you know where you were when I created the stars in the universe? So basically, he talks about how insignificant Job is compared to God's omniscience.

And I think that is one of the, we could say one of the, in the biblical texts themselves, that is one of the main places where the problem is at all attempted to be addressed. So, in some ways, the Avanti Brahman pastime is somewhat similar, but then he's talking more in terms of the mind, mind's perception that is causing the suffering. But so if you compare that, that there is a, there is a plan of the Lord.

So then that means something. It does not necessarily mean that God is causing the suffering. So I sometimes differentiate between the terms cause and purpose.

Now that, that can be many causes for a particular thing to happen, but causes where something comes from, purposes where something takes us. So, so in that sense, the causes can be many and we may not even know precisely what the causes. So it's accurate to consider God to be the cause of our suffering and God to that.

Ultimately, there's a purpose for our suffering, as you said, to grow and to evolve, to ultimately attain, attain God, attain eternal life with him. So I think that does our philosophy actually specifically say that God is the cause of our suffering? Or when you say it's a plan, it is. I was just looking at the Sanskrit.

So this is. So, so any thoughts on this? Yes. The.

In some sense, even in the, in the suffering of the righteous, even in the righteous, God is not the cause because the metaphor that the Bhagatam gives is that suffering for the righteous is life. It's like melting gold. And when you melt gold, it becomes all the more brilliant.

It starts to shine. Well, that righteous person needs a certain experience. So in that sense, they are the cause.

They need the experience. Therefore, God is arranging a situation where they can go through that experience. So, so there are many causes.

And therefore, there is the, you know, there is the final cause. There is the, you know, efficient cause. There's the material cause.

So God is the efficient cause, not the final cause. God is, in that sense, is making the situation where he's allowing people to, his great devotees, kind-hearted souls, to go through very traumatic experiences. Like the Pandavas, they lost all of their children.

They saw Abhimanyu die. Such a difficult experience. Krishna's allowing that experience.

And in that way, he's the efficient cause. He is a cause. And we cannot deny that he's not a cause.

But he's not the only cause. The final cause may be an experience that the devotee needs to go through. It may be for the benefit of all of us, that Krishna wants to glorify his devotee so that we can learn something.

So, you're absolutely right. Krishna ultimately is never the final cause. Or he could be.

I mean, God is free to do anything. But generally speaking, Krishna is the efficient cause of our distress. Okay.

But we are the final cause. Our need to learn is the final cause, the main reason. When you put it this way, I was thinking of something, an example came to my mind about, again, the evidential problem of evil.

Say, if somebody is sick and sometimes the treatment for that sickness is itself painful. And some sick, if you just take from the perspective of this lifetime, that sometimes some people may have gotten to some indulgences. And those indulgences cause them suffering.

Say somebody smokes and then they get lung cancer or something like that. So now somebody drinks and they get liver problems. Now, we cannot really correlate on any mathematical scale how much they indulge and how much they are suffering.

But, and sometimes, maybe if it's something, something, cancer, the treatment itself is painful. Chemotherapy or radiotherapy. But the point is that now you have this, if you go through the treatment, you'll be cured.

So the suffering that is there, rather than at one level, we want to address the cause of suffering so that we don't do anything to repeat it. So in that, at that level, you want to understand it. But it's not so much, it's not so much a precise correlation in quantity.

Now, how much somebody indulge? It could be that somebody smokes a lot and they don't get cancer or their cancer is detected very early and they are saved. Somebody smokes a little, but their cancer gets detected very late and they suffer terribly. But the important thing is, okay, there is a cure available.

And even if the cure is less painful or more painful for you, if you go through the cure, you will be, go to the treatment rather, you will be healed. So we could say that they're more important than the treatment. The treatment is the plan of the Lord, especially why you got the disease.

It could be very different, many different causes for that. Very, very wonderful point that, you know, the, the, the, the treatment is a plan of the Lord. And therefore, this, so first of all, the Bhagavatam then responds to the evidential problem is in some ways a greater good response.

That, that suffering is in this world. And this can also be used in counseling in terms of the experience of suffering that people have. That whatever it might be, the suffering in this world is not exactly because we did something wrong.

It could be for that reason, but that's not the only reason. It's not exactly because we are, we are responsible, but it is there for a greater good. Be it karma, be it not karma, it's there for the greater good so that we can learn something from this.

Now, the only way that a greater good theodicy is logical, is, is conceivable or is coherent is if suffering has an end. If it's endless, then there can't be any greater good for it, right? So one thing that I argue is that the Bhagavatam's ultimate response is that suffering has a beginning and an end. That's very important because if it's endless, there's no greater good.

You're just going to suffer and suffer and suffer and suffer. There's, there's just, there's just no greater good you can get from it. And that's, Christian theodicies have a lot of difficulty with this.

If you're an idea, if you have an idea of eternal damnation, then how could God be all loving? A very important point. Either God's love can be unlimited or hell can be unlimited, but both of them cannot be unlimited. If God's love is unlimited, hell has to be limited.

It has to end at a certain point. If hell is unlimited, then God's love is limited. Now, most religious traditions believe in an unlimitedly loving God.

So if God is unlimited, our stay in this world for every living being has to be limited. And many Christian theologians recognize that. And it's, it's called a global theodicy of fulfillment.

And they say that, you know, that ultimately each person, each soul will reach God. And I believe that is, that is our theology as well. Hmm.

This, this all souls will reach God. That is, that is not the mainstream Christian theology, but I think it is gaining some traction in today's world. And quite a number of influential theologians are talking about it.

Isn't it? Yes. Yeah. The newer theodicies.

There's the Iranian theodicy, the global theodicy of fulfillment. These are some very kind of new and emerging theodicies that are quite popular. At Oxford University, when I was doing my PhD, the professor of divinity, Marilyn Adams, I think I'm forgetting her name, but I think it's Marilyn Adams.

She wrote many books on the problem of evil. One of the titles of her books is Horrendous Evil. And this is one thing that she argues, that as a Christian, she was also a practicing Christian.

She was also the professor of divinity. She was making a strong argument that as a Christian, the only way to reconcile evil and the existence of God in this world is if we believe that eventually every person gets salvation. She rejected the idea of eternal damnation.

And she said that you can stomach evil. You can accept it if every person ultimately gets salvation. And that's the only way to make sense of it.

Because another important point that it brings in is the perfection of God. So if there's even one person in this world who cannot get salvation, that means that's an imperfect creation. And if it's an imperfect creation, that means that's an imperfect creator.

Because something that God created is imperfect. Therefore, God is imperfect. God may allow us to suffer temporarily as a way to improve us.

But if we have no means of improvement, that means that fundamentally there's something that is imperfect in God's creation. So how could a perfect person create an imperfect one? That makes a lot of sense. One thing struck me is that there seems to be a lot of serious intellectual engagement with the problem of evil in the Western world as compared to within the Dharmic traditions, as of now in the contemporary times.

Yes, in past times and also contemporary times. That was one of the biggest challenges I had while I was working on the problem of evil, is that our Shastras and texts, they don't deal with it directly. As you were mentioning, where is the set? There's no extended discussions on the problem of evil, philosophically, theologically, how to understand it.

They teach through stories, they teach through teachings. But it was something that was almost taken for granted. That's been my observation, that suffering is there.

And because of the idea of many lifetimes, and also the idea that we all get moksha at a certain point throughout our learning, that we need to learn. And therefore, it was almost like assumed. The answer was automatically assumed.

And therefore, we don't have the extensive discussions of this topic in Vedic literature, historically speaking, and up to, you could say, the Western engagement of the Vedas with the West. But in the Western world, you have very extensive discussions on evil. And I think part of it is because the idea of reincarnation of many lives was not so prominent.

And therefore, that raises, you know, very big questions, you know, if a person just lives for 15 years, what was the purpose of their life? How did they lead a fulfilling life? So it's definitely been a bigger question in the West than in the East. OK. Yeah, I think reincarnation and karma brought together, make things not that blatantly unjust or incomprehensible.

It still is there. Regarding not like deep metaphysical discussion, there is greater discussion on the nature of reality, on the means to attain liberation is not so much. It's almost assumed that this world is a place of distress.

And that we have to elevate and liberate ourselves from the world. And how to do that is more important than analyzing the comparative levels of distress of different people and trying to address that. Absolutely.

Yes. To take another example. Imagine if someone said your life is a trillion years, you're going to live for one trillion years.

And in that period for 50 years, there's going to be a lot of suffering. Well, that that suffering of 50 years is still not excusable. You should not suffer.

But still, in the context of a trillion years, 50 years, it's like, OK, OK. But after that, I'll be happy. Now, if someone says that your life is 60 years, but of that 50 years, I have to suffer.

Then all of a sudden, that suffering is very serious. You know, I have 60 years, one life. And of that 50 years, I suffered.

How could God allow this? So just in terms of, you could say, an experiential point or just, you know, common sense point. In terms of philosophers at that time, it wasn't such an urgent point. Like you mentioned.

Therefore, we find select discussions in the Vedanta Sutra and other places. But it's not such an urgent point. The nature of reality is more important.

The bigger evil, the bigger problem is I don't want to be in the cycle of birth and death. How do I get out of the cycle of birth and death? Yes. You know, in the 13, 13, 8 to 12 in the Bhagavad Gita, where Janma, Mrtyu, Jara, Vyadi, Dukha, Dosha and Darshanam.

So Prabhupada in the translation, I think he uses the word the universal evils of birth, old age, disease and death. So that means rather than why do some people die earlier or why do people get more deceased? The very presence of death and disease are evil, not the time when they appear or the severity with which they appear. Their very existence is evil, is we could say an evil that needs explanation.

Yes, it needs explanation and it needs a solution. And that's why they were always more concerned about how to get out of it than how we got into it and the details of that cycle. Yeah.

And also the idea that the world is a place of distress. At one level, even in the Old Testament, there are statements like this. This world is a veil of tears, but it doesn't seem to be that prominent a teaching over there.

Or is it that that emphasis was lost because of, say, the Renaissance, scientific revolution and the progress? Because I remember several, I read books by several, by Srila Prabhupada's disciples, as well as other Westerners who have sought wisdom from the East. They said that one of the first things is why do we still philosophers say the world is a place of distress? That that is something which is new. It's so directly in the face.

So is that a prominent teaching in Christian theology? Of course, there are many different Christian theologies. Actually, currently, I'm teaching a course on God's suffering and evil. So I teach at the University of Evansville.

And here, out of the three courses I'm teaching this semester, one of them is specifically on this topic, God's suffering and evil. And so we look at this problem in different world religions. And this semester, being the coronavirus, I'm teaching online.

So I'm teaching from home. And I am finding videos for them because I don't like to record my videos and put them online. It's like, I feel very odd.

So I'm trying to find videos for them that are already recorded and posting it for the students. And so I was going through YouTube, looking at different Christian responses to the problem of evil. And one thing that I observed is exactly the point that you're making, kind of related or relevant to the point that you're making, is that so many of the responses, they actually point out that, look, according to the Christian Bible and the Christian faith, this world is not supposed to be a world of happiness.

And so Christian theologians themselves, many of them are saying, look, we came in this world because of sin. We're in a state of sin. So how can you expect heaven in a place where there's sin? This is not heaven.

This is the earth. We are aspiring to go to heaven. And therefore, the fact that God has put suffering in this world is very much like the reason why a prison will have suffering.

Well, obviously, there's pain there. That's why it's called a prison house. So I would say that a lot of Christian theologians do accept the fact that this world is not meant to be heaven.

It's not the heavens. At the same time, there is also the concept, and this is where I think the positive side comes in, is that when Jesus Christ appeared in this world, he was God in human form, God actually coming in matter. He actually took the form of matter.

And so therefore, he elevated matter to a higher level. In other words, he made matter divine. And so therefore, the material is still divine.

And I would actually say in Judaism, there's more of a concept that this world is not really a place of suffering. Right now, there is suffering. But in Judaism, they believe that we're still waiting for the Messiah to come.

And when the Messiah comes, the world itself will become paradise. So in Christianity, this is not paradise. Heaven is a separate place.

And so they do see it as a place of suffering, mostly. But in Judaism, which is very closely tied to Christianity, it's kind of like the forefather, or you could say, older than Christianity. There's definitely this idea that paradise is on earth, and the Christian traditions inherited that idea.

So heaven can become earth, or earth can become heaven. So then it might also be because of the overall Protestant work ethos on which America was founded, where there is an idea that you can have the great American dream, that you can be pious, you can be religious, and you can have a good life. And now there's, of course, the growth from that prosperity gospel, which is often panned by even mainstream Christians.

So the idea that by worshipping God, we can have a happy life in this world, we could say that it is okay, you could say that you, by worshipping God, you might be happier than what you would be otherwise. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you will be happy. Yes, it's like say somebody's sick, and you're taking treatment, that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be free from all pain.

But when you're taking treatment, it's likely that you may be in less pain. Although sometimes the treatment itself may also cause pain. So, in the sense, there is no one-to-one correlation between one's righteousness and one's state of happiness or distress in the world.

Yes. And I would just add to that, I completely agree with this point. And I would just add to that, that a person who is righteous, like Jesus Christ said, will find that their path is laden with thorns.

That a person who is on the righteous path may actually find more difficulties than a person who's not on the righteous path. Another theme in the Bhagavatam as well, because that person is now training. That person is going through all the exercises, which are so painful and difficult, to become that brilliant diamond or that gold, to sharpen himself.

So, I fully appreciate that point. And I agree with it, that being happier doesn't mean realizing ultimate happiness or being in a state of happiness. In fact, you could be happier, but still experiencing more pain in some ways, more suffering in this world.

But you're still happier because you see the goal at the end. You see the light at the end of the tunnel. You see, ah, you know, at the end of this, I'm going to be so, you know, I'm going to realize my true happiness and therefore all of this is worth it.

And you feel happy to go through that pain. Okay, so now this is maybe I would like to take this a slightly different direction. We can come back to our direction, our main discussion later.

See, in the West, mindfulness has become quite common. And mindfulness is often associated with Buddhism. But much of mindfulness doesn't really address the problem of evil.

It is not so much philosophical as it is pragmatic. And there it does say that if you can just shift your consciousness to various things, to the values that you want to live by, to the purposes that you want to achieve, to shift your consciousness elsewhere, and the magnitude of suffering will decrease. So in that sense, what you said is that by staying focused on a purpose, then the present experience of suffering will become a bit more bearable.

It's like somebody is sick, and they know they are being treated, they are in expert hands, they are being treated well. Then although they're in pain right now, the thought of a future recovery makes their pain bearable. But if there is no hope for recovery, there is just an unclear prognosis, then the pain of the present at the physical level becomes multiplied by the hopelessness at the mental level.

Yes. The middle way is very interesting, because it's the path of moderation. And what Buddha was teaching is that if your desires are very strong, and your ambitions are very big, materially speaking, then that's going to cause a lot of suffering.

And when people have also very great aspirations, and they're very greedy, lusty for material things, they also cause others a lot of suffering. So by following the middle path, we're following the path of moderation. And following the path of moderation allows us to focus on the things that are actually important in life, which is solving the problem of birth and death, freeing ourselves from the bonds of ignorance.

So this middle way, middle path, is completely in line with the teaching of the Gita, where Krishna is saying, the yogi who eats too much or eats too little, sleeps too much or sleeps too little, cannot attain perfection. This is exactly the teaching of the Gita. Krishna is saying we have to follow the middle path.

Because if we go on extremes, then our whole focus will be on our body. If we're fasting too much, we'll think of our body all the time. If we're eating too much, we'll also think of our body too much.

So Krishna is saying, make the material things which bring us suffering, make them, minimize them. Minimize the material body's needs, which this body is such a network of problems and suffering, and focus on the spiritual, which is the ocean, it's the emblem of happiness, peace, enlightenment, illumination. Focus on that side by minimizing your material needs.

So this is just a mental technique to allow us to manage our body and our society and our situation in such a way that we have a lot of time to focus on the positive elements of life, the spiritual things in life, and uplift ourselves. So, you know, we often talk about simple living and high thinking. So in a sense, they are not necessarily two distinct or parallel things.

There's also causal link between the two. The thinking is simple, then that facilitates high thinking. And then the living is complicated, then that consumes our thinking and it's not available so much for, for higher thoughts.

Yes. Yes. There's no, you could say, title to it.

There's no, you could say, it's not defined as a process in of itself, in the way that the Madhyamaka path is seen. It is seen as a process in of itself, where you try to do everything in moderation. So it's not, you know, defined as a practice in its own right, but it's definitely there, I think, in the practice of sadhana.

It's definitely there in the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. It's referred to on many occasions. And so it's very, you could say, very, very involved, involved practice in Hinduism.

Yeah. So, now, you know, going back to the Bhagavatam and the problem of evil, that there's no serious discussion or like no sustained serious discussion directly, it's more through narratives. So one way I phrase it is that the Bhagavatam doesn't so much address the problem, the question, why do bad things happen to good people? It reframes the question that when bad things happen to good people, what do good people do? Yes.

Thank you for bringing us to this point. This is, this is actually the focus of the Bhagavatam. You know, first thing is, okay, you understand why it's there, you know, the cause of it.

You just think about it. But then, now that we have, what is the solution? What is the response? What is the resolution to it? And I would say that the Srimad Bhagavatam's response, solution to the problem of evil is devotional heroism. Devotional heroism, to become a hero, to take suffering hand on and say that I'm ready for even more of it.

You know, as my suffering is there, I can handle it. Why? Because I want to be a hero. But what type of a hero? A devotional hero.

I will overcome, I will transcend suffering by taking shelter of the Lord. Through the strength of devotion, through the strength of bhakti, I will overcome this suffering and this evil. And throughout the Bhagavatam, we find that this is, this is the theme.

This is kind of the mood of the devotees that, like the prayers of Queen Kunti, where she says, please, please, you know, if needed, if this makes me into a better person, please let me suffer even more. If this means that I can see you face to face, if I can have your association, my dear Lord Krishna, please let these sufferings come. So, this is a very powerful method, actually, of responding to difficult situations in life.

I was actually reading a book recently on psychology, and in that they were talking about different psychological states that people have when they're in distress, and one is panic, when they have panic. And the book was saying that the way to respond to panic and the way that therapists tell their patients to respond to panic, which is an involuntary sort of situation of anxiety within a person's body, is to tell their body that I'm not afraid of panic. I'm not afraid of anxiety, and to actually tell their mind, give me more anxiety, give me more panic, because I'm ready to face it.

And that thought process actually becomes a cure for that situation. So, rather than being afraid of suffering, or even resenting it, the devotee sees it as an energy that can be positively utilized for their own progress, for their spiritual progress. Suffering can be utilized for a greater good, to benefit themselves, and to help others progress on a spiritual path.

That's very interesting from a psychological perspective. I was reading a recent book on cancel culture, and the whole idea of creating safe spaces. So, this author, he says that there is an alarmingly increasing prevalence of peanut allergy among young people today.

And this was not something which was maybe there 50 years ago or 100 years ago. So, then apparently they did some survey that rather than assuming that our child might have peanut allergy and avoiding exposure right from the beginning, if the children are given peanuts right from their, as soon as they can start eating, then 5-10 years down the line, the chances of them having peanut allergies are much lesser. So, which is quite interesting.

So, the theme of that was sometimes like overprotection can be underprotection. So, you're saying that I like the idea of devotional heroism that if we take up suffering as a challenge, as an opportunity, then we all can not only face that suffering, but we can grow through it, we can contribute in the world. And some ways, the question why is sometimes maybe the wrong question to ask in the sense that we can never get a finite answer, a definite answer to it.

We can get a reasonable answer, a reasonable answer, but not exactly a definite or a precise answer. We could say that the problem of karma or the Lord's plan, both are reasonable answers. But precisely why am I going through this right now in this particular way? This is difficult.

But if we shift, how can I serve in this situation or how can I act in, as you said, in a more devotionally, I love that phrase devotional heroism. Is this something which you have coined or is this, you read it somewhere? Actually, His Grace Krishnashetra Swami, he helped me come up with this phrase, devotional heroism. So, this I attribute to him.

The article which you are referring to, it's published in a book that Radhika Ramana Prabhu and Krishnashetra Maharaj, they co-authored. And so, he was the editor for that book. He edited my paper and he suggested that you use this phrase, devotional heroism.

So, that's where it comes from. It's Krishnashetra Maharaj. That's beautiful.

Yes. And I was going to say that what you're saying now, it actually leads to the third problem of evil, which is the phenomenological problem, which is just the experience of evil. The actual experience of evil, which is very personal, which is not the same for anyone.

It's not the same experience for any two people. It's always different. And in this, we also have the discussion on horrendous evils.

Evils that are so difficult to make sense of, like a child dying under a car or being burnt in a fire. And the reason I really like the Bhagavatam's response to evil is because the Bhagavatam also approaches it with a lot of humility. Vishwa Dev is saying, ultimately, we cannot know the plan of the Lord.

We have to accept it. We have to resolve it. The problem of evil is never solved.

It's resolved. Ultimately, it's resolved. What's the difference between solving and resolving? I mean, you cannot solve the problem because there's no one problem.

I mean, you can't say, OK, I'm going to… It's something that every individual person has to resolve for themselves. It's a personal thing. It's a feeling in the heart.

And so, as counselors, as devotees, as preachers, when it comes to the problem of evil, we also… An individual person's experience of it, we also have to take it with a lot of humility. Like, OK, I can help this person make sense of it for the greater good, which I mentioned is the general response of the Bhagavatam. Help them try to focus more on the bigger picture and focus more on the greater good.

But at the same time, I cannot fully understand their experience. I cannot claim to understand the evil that they're experiencing. I can also not claim to solve it for them.

Ultimately, it's something between them and God. And I don't know and they don't know why they're going through it. But we can just encourage ourselves to, rather than turn away from God, actually take more shelter in God.

Try to find help through the spiritual channel, through the divine mercy of God, rather than rejecting that mercy. And that's really the key of it, that it also has to be that humility. So if I understand right, when you're saying phenomenological, it's something like experiential.

It's the phenomena itself, the experience of it itself, like for others and for oneself. Yeah. So that also means that it's a very personalized application of the philosophy, because different people will experience the suffering differently.

They may need to be helped to address it differently also. That we cannot just have one-size-fits-all formula for people who are in distress and how to guide them or how to help them. Yes.

Yes. It's very interesting on this very same topic. There's a book on Hindu chaplaincy that has just come up.

And for that book, they wanted me to contribute an article on the problem of evil. Why? Because like you're saying, the philosophical problem is so different from the problem that the chaplain has. That how do you make sense of it? And this is the point, one point that I made in that essay is that, you know, the Bhagavatam is the chaplain's friend.

Because it's giving a response that is very sensitive to the person. That, you know, we really can't make sense of everything that happens in this world. Let's try to help each other.

Let's try to find a solution to it. And the Bhagavatam isn't claiming to know why it all happens the way it does. Other than to say that it happens by the plan of the Lord and that plan is perfect.

So it's both a, you could say, a philosophical text and it's also a teaching text. It's a pedagogical text. The Bhagavatam teaches and it also philosophizes side by side.

So you said two things. It's very sensitive and it helps us make sense. So when you're saying make sense means not so much in terms of why all this is happening, but make sense more in terms of what can I do about it? How can I move forward? Because at one level, epistemologically, it's very difficult to understand.

And the Bhagavatam, as you said, its approach is humble toward that problem. Yes. I mean, in fact, actually, it's due to this problem that the Bhagavatam is so urgent and relevant.

The Bhagavatam itself says this in the chapter two, Divinity and Divine Service. There's one verse in the Bhagavatam in which Srila Prabhupada, in his purport, he says, this is a summary of the introduction of the Bhagavatam. And he starts that purport by saying that in this material world, no one can be happy.

And therefore the Bhagavatam is now giving the path to happiness. So in academics, we always say that every text has a context. And it's the context that makes the text relevant and makes it worthwhile and important.

So the Bhagavatam is our text. It's our main text. What is the context of the Bhagavatam? The context of the Bhagavatam is this very difficult, miserable material world.

And because of that context, the Bhagavatam is all the more relevant. Because there's a problem, that's why we're looking for the solution. And the solution is there because the problem is there.

So the Bhagavatam begins by reflecting on the horror of the Kurukshetra battle. It starts in some ways with the Mahabharat scene. Draupadi, the Pandavas are there, Ashwathama.

And it starts with trying to make sense of this horrible battle that took place. And what was the purpose of this? What was God's plan in this happening? So the context is very important of any text. And the Bhagavatam's context is the Mahabharata.

It's interesting, Srila Prabhupada said that first you have the Gita, and the Gita is part of the Mahabharata. Then you have the Bhagavatam, then you have the Chaitanya-caritamrita. And actually we see that the books in some ways follow this progression.

You have the Gita and the Mahabharata, and the Bhagavatam starts right there. And it leads us forward. And it says, okay, that all happened.

Now what's the meaning of it? What's the meaning of life? What's the solution to it? How do the great devotees resolve? How do they respond to their situations of suffering? So when you're saying that we talk about a solution, it is also, like earlier you talked about Kami solved, it has to be resolved. The solution is more in terms of how these great saintly people who are the exemplars of the tradition, how they resolve it and what we can learn from that to resolve our problems in our context. Isn't it like that? Something? Yes.

There's one purport in the Srimad Bhagavatam where Srila Prabhupada says, it's in the first two cantos, Srila Prabhupada says that by reading the Bhagavatam, we can understand every psychological situation in the world. Very interesting quote. He says, by reading the Bhagavatam carefully, we can understand every psychological situation in the world.

So what the Bhagavatam does is that it puts great devotees of the Lord in situations that we find ourselves. And while that situation may not be exactly the same, it is quite similar. Like in the case of Dhruva Maharaj, for example, he's in a situation where he is being discriminated against.

He's in a situation where there's bias and discrimination against him and within his own family. And therefore it's all the more painful. So a person who finds themselves in that same situation can apply that example and say, I'm suffering in the same way Dhruva Maharaj suffered.

Now, what is the proper way to handle the situation? The proper way is not to become angry at my brother and try to go and kill him. The proper solution is not to, you know, go and become very angry with my father or my stepmother. The solution is try to please the Lord.

Think big. Let me aspire for something even higher. Let me try to please the Lord so I can become a great person on my own right.

Not by pulling my brother down, but by becoming pious myself. Beautiful. And in fact, when he actually attains the Lord, he loses that tendency to get even or get back at them.

He becomes purified of that also. This is an excellent metaphor of, say, suffering being like gold being subjected to fire and impurities coming out. Yeah.

You know, it's also struck me when you talk about Dhruva's story. The first thought that had come in my mind was how he was dishonored. But then, dishonor is a very generic label to describe that situation.

And bias and discrimination is so much more relatable in our world today. Isn't it? It's also a matter of maybe learning to see the Bhagavatam in fresh light so that we can see how its situations also relate with and reflect our situations. And then we can draw some lessons from there for ourselves.

Yes. In fact, when we go deeper in the story, there's a conversation between Dhruva's mother and Dhruva. And after Dhruva Maharaj is insulted, he comes, you know, he's five years old.

He comes crying to his mother and tears are coming down his eyes. You know, his eyes are burning and his heart is burning with anger. And after he cries, then his mother and Dhruva start to talk.

And Dhruva Maharaj, his mother hears everything, whatever happened. And Dhruva Maharaj's mother tells Dhruva, he says that in fact, what your stepmother has told you is correct. In this situation, the only person who can help you is the Supreme Lord.

Why is this? Because your father is the emperor of the entire universe. Who do you have above him to go to? And then she says, so go out and seek the Supreme Lord. Go out and find him because he's the only one who can help you.

But before you go, she says, give up your envy and your anger for your brother. Why? And then she gives a reason why. She says, your father became the king of the world because he pleased the Lord.

Your great, your grandfather Swayambhuva Manu became Manu, the father of mankind, because he pleased the Lord. Your great grandfather Brahma became Brahma because he pleased the Lord. So if you also please the Lord, you will get your desired objective.

So she helps him realize that the problem here is not really your brother or your stepmother. The problem here is that you have not pleased the Lord. So what can you do as a person to solve? We don't have control over others, but what control do I have over my own self to solve this problem? See that.

And in that way, she encourages him. And therefore Dhruva Maharaj becomes perfectly successful. So it's also giving us such a practical way of dealing with situations of suffering.

Look, I don't have control over the other person. It's far too powerful and far too greater than me. But I, there are still solutions.

Everyone is below the Lord. I can please the Lord. And by doing that, become the person that I want to be.

It's beautiful. So very deep, very instructive. Yeah.

So, that gives examples of of her father, Brahmaji and I think Manu also, before talking about that. Sunithi gives those examples. So taking this point forward or relating it with the earlier point, which I had made of don't get too caught in why something is happening in terms of the cause, where it is coming from, but focus on where it is going to take you.

If this takes you closer to the Lord, if you please him, then your problem will be addressed. And so now you earlier mentioned the point of the Bhagavatam being sensitive. There are also times when there is a lot of strong speaking.

Say, for example, when Chitraketu is Chitraketu has his son Harshashoka pass away and then the sages come to him and they speak strongly. Even Vidura speaks strongly to Dhritarashtra as described in the first canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam. So there are, of course, different devotees with different moods, but some devotees when I try, when I try to talk about how karma is, is not and I wouldn't say karma is not always the appropriate explanation when somebody is going through suffering.

So it is definitely not contextually appropriate at certain times. And it is also not always adequate to explain everything about suffering. I like your difference even logical and the logical aspect you can explain, but the evidential aspect, we really can't.

Why so much suffering? And it doesn't address the phenomenological aspect at all, because that is where devotion or mindfulness or various other approaches are more helpful. So one of the, when I talk about how karma may not be the appropriate response, often that is called as sentimentality. I don't know, we have to speak the truth.

And so sometimes telling people that they are suffering because of their own misdeeds is seen as strong speaking, which in one sense is fine. But I try to say that strong speaking means it doesn't depend on how strongly we speak. It is strong speaking as we judge by how strongly the other person feels inspired to turn toward Krishna.

So, so would you like to talk something about that? Because you brought up the topic of sensitivity over here. How do you talk about the sensitive and other points that I raised over here? Yeah. Yes.

Actually, if we go to the narration of Parikshit Maharaj, the bull and Kali, then this dynamic, which you're, such an interesting dynamic, which you're bringing up, is explicated very nicely. When Parikshit Maharaj, and here's the ideal king. So he's also in the position of leadership.

He's, he's in the position of a counselor. He's, he's the mediator and he's also the judge. So, when King Parikshit rolls up to the scene in his golden chariot and he sees Dharma with broken legs.

The first thing that he does is he comes up to Dharma and Bhumi, the cow, the bull and the cow, and he comes up to them and he says, what has happened to you? Who has done this to you? Please tell me. He consoles them and he asks them for the cause of their suffering. And the conversation is a very sweet conversation between them.

Dharma being very exalted, doesn't blame Kali at all. He says, I really cannot understand the cause of my suffering. I think it's maybe due to my own past misdeeds, maybe due to others, maybe due to the divine plan.

And Parikshit Maharaj hears him and he also agrees with him that actually our suffering is not due to others. And there's no, you know, we cannot point really a finger at someone. So he hears him and he agrees with his philosophy and he comforts him, does it in a very gentle way.

And then he turns around. And that very conversation, he turns around and he picks up his sword and he looks at Kali and he says, now I'm going to behead you. You rascal, you person, I'm going to cut off your head.

Right after he's just agreed with Dharma that actually no one else is the cause of your suffering. You can't be sure who is the cause of your suffering. He identifies Kali as a wrongdoer and he's ready there to give him punishment.

So this is the dynamic, that there's a place for being firm in issues of justice where the king and every individual has to stand up for righteousness. They have to stand up for equality and for people's rights. And there's also a place to be sensitive.

And the Bhagavatam is doing both very nicely. The devotee of the Lord also does both very nicely. Then by being strong with Kali, Parishad Maharaj is transforming his heart because he deserves, he is like that.

So he needs that medicine to wake him up. And to someone who is sensitive, who is in need of that gentleness, Parishad Maharaj is giving the gentleness. So there's a place for everything.

If today Hitler came to us and he was complaining that he was suffering, then we would tell him the law of karma. We would tell him, sir, you should expect this. You've done very bad.

Don't be surprised why you're suffering. And I remember actually conversing with one devotee, very advanced devotee, and he was talking to someone else who had similarly been very bad in their activities. And he told them that you should write a book on all the bad things that you did.

You should write a book because then it will help you recognize, realize the harm that you caused others. And that harm will help you advance. It's not as a way of accusing that person, but telling that person to write a book on all the wrong things that they did, help them realize that, yeah, I actually did do wrong.

There's some people like Hitler, they're so wrong that they don't realize that they do wrong. They become so insensitive that they actually don't realize that they cause others pain. So that is a medicine.

People have to also, some people need to be told it's your karma. And you deserve it because they need to realize that. Okay.

I like this point. That's a, you know, that's actually a very good, I mean, that's a unique situation. I think an extreme situation.

No, I appreciate that point. Hitler is a very extreme situation as well as the idea of confronting one's problems or confronting one's wrongdoings. But there is in the Christian tradition, there's the idea of confession, which has fallen into some bad disrepute because of it being abused, abused at times.

But that is also one way of coming face to face with with our worst side or with our dark side. And then that in a sense helps us to both recognize how far we have gone down. But it also can, if it is done in a positive, encouraging context, it also gives us impetus to turn on the right track.

And so I agree again. So going back to this point of sensitivity, so both places, as you said, being strong and being gentle is basically what will be effective at that time. So have you found, going back to the earlier point, karma is, have you seen any section in scripture where somebody is suffering and they are told you are suffering your own karma? Directly like that? You know, even if you look at Dhritarashtra or Chitraketu, it's more that you are attached, so you are suffering.

So are you ignorant? You are an illusion, so you are suffering. Now give up your illusion. Give up your attachment.

So it's more, I would say it's more of a phenomenological approach that your suffering is, you are experiencing it so bad because of your attachment or because of your illusions come out of them. So directly karma is not the thrust. It might be one point, but I have not seen it as the thrust.

Yes. Because the point ultimately of karma is not, the reason why Krishna has the cycle of karma is not to get us back. It's really not to punish us, to make it even.

The point of karma is to make us learn. Karma gives us what we deserve, but karma also gives us what we need. So what we deserve is also what we need to become a better person.

So the main purpose is to make us into better persons because God is not revengeful. You know, the laws of nature are not revengeful. It's not, the idea of karma is not revenge, that you did bad and now this is the revenge.

The karma is, this is how this person will learn so that they won't do it again. And I'll give just a very short story since we haven't done any stories, a modern day story of a devotee who experienced this in his life. There was one, one European man who joined the temple in a temple in Europe.

And he became a full-time devotee there. He was very happy. He was serving very nicely.

And one of his services was book distribution. He would go out to distribute Shila Prabhupada books. And one time when he was distributing, he went to a very kind of far out place in the countryside.

And he was driving down this dirt road. And all of a sudden, out of the bushes, these four thugs came out and they stopped his car. And so his car stopped.

And when the car stopped, then, you know, he stopped the car and came out and he opened the door and they pulled him out of the car and they beat him up very badly and sat in his car and drove off. So they threw him on the side of the road and they drove off with his car and all of his possessions. So then this devotee walked back to the temple.

It was a long, long walk. But he walked back to the temple and he went back there. And when he reached, he told the devotees what had happened.

He told them the story that I was out and these thugs came, they stole the car, they stole my purse, they stole everything, beat me up and sent me, you know, and I'm now back here. And the devotees, when they heard this, they started to, you know, sympathize with him, lament with him. And then he told the devotees, he said, this is a very painful experience.

But he said, I'm very happy that I went through this. He said, one of the things that I didn't tell you before I joined is that before I became a devotee, I was actually a professional thief. I was actually a thief.

I used to steal things. Then when I joined Krishna Consciousness, I became a devotee, I completely gave up that life. I never did that again.

And, you know, I promise, I never stole anything from anyone here. I become completely free from that life. However, he said, ever since I became a devotee, I never realized how much pain I gave people as a thief.

You know, I used to steal things, but I used to think, well, this person's rich. And the fact that I'm stealing it from them, they stole it, but, you know, they'll get over it. I never realized how much pain I gave people when I used to steal things.

And today, by going through this experience, for the first time, I realize just how painful it is to be robbed and to be treated this way. And so therefore, I'm so grateful for this experience because now I know for sure that I'll never do it again. Although I was never doing it, there's still a chance That's what karma is about.

Karma is there to give us an experience so that we can learn what we need to learn. Because though we have the knowledge, and this person had the knowledge after becoming a devotee, you should not steal, and it's so bad to steal. Until we actually experience certain things, we actually don't learn.

And so karma is giving us vigya, and it's actually giving us a realized knowledge that helps us come closer to God, and that's how we experience. Karma is about learning. It's a learning system.

That's beautiful. So that means primarily, if someone learns, then maybe they may not have to go through that much suffering. And if somebody doesn't learn, they may have to go through more suffering also.

So in that sense, it's not so much the idea of karma is actually quite empowering. It is. Because it places the, especially I think if we combine karma with the idea of a loving God who has a plan for our life, then it can become very, very empowering.

I'm going through this, but there's something for me to learn and grow. And I just need to do my best in this situation. Do you want to respond to what I said? I have a couple of other points to discuss.

Sure, let's do the other points. One thing I'll just say is that yes, that's exactly the thing that karma, the positive side is that we are in control of our future. It actually is very empowering because we're learning what we need to learn, but we also have control.

We are the makers of our destiny. Like Dhruva, for him it was freedom because now he realized that I am actually, my father's not in control of my destiny. I am in control of my destiny.

So it's very positive also. Yeah, that's true. I'm hoping to write many books.

Maybe sometime they'll come up. But about destiny, I say one thing that we are not the masters of our destiny, but we are the makers of our destiny. Masters in the sense that it's not that we don't control when what will happen to us or when our actions will produce the results.

But still, the actions that we are going to do now, they are going to shape our future, not just shape, but they're going to make our future. So in that sense, it's a very, it's not just a spiritually, spiritually uplifting message, but it's also emotionally or psychologically energizing message. Yes.

So now, would you like to, firstly, we can conclude with this. I would like you to talk about something about your upcoming book also, because that book is on this whole topic. So are you going through, is it like a comparative analysis of the Bhagavatam with other solutions to the problem of evil? Or are you going over various ways through the various narratives the Bhagavatam is addressing? Or how are you doing this book? So actually, my upcoming book, it's being published by Oxford University Press.

And it's on the discussion of Maya that we find in the tradition of Sanskrit literature, particularly the Srimad Bhagavatam. And in the discussion of Maya, a very important discussion is the problem of suffering. That's in some ways how this topic is relevant to us in terms of our day-to-day lives, and also the general academic discourse.

But the book more generally deals with many of these questions we discussed today, which is what is real and what is unreal? Is the world real? Is it unreal? What is Maya? Many people have said that Maya is unreal, or Maya is simply a state of mind. It's simply illusion. But by carefully analyzing every, going through every reference of Maya in the Srimad Bhagavatam, which is over, you know, 600 times you find it being mentioned there, we find that actually Maya has three very important roles in our theology.

One is Maya forms the world. At its very basis, Maya is creative energy. It is the energy of God, which forms this world.

And it's that shakti, or that power, that transforms into this world. And in this part, I discuss metaphysics, how even in Western philosophy, energy or power is seen as the fundamental metaphysical elements of this universe. After we look at that, that Maya as a creative energy, the second part I look at, well, how does that creative energy affect us? And that is Maya as a human condition.

Maya affects us by making a world that is elusive. I don't like the word illusion because the English word illusion has so many different meanings. So here the problem is not in how to translate the Sanskrit word Maya, but generally I find the problem is in translating the English word illusion.

What do we mean by illusion? It's a very, a bit too ambiguous of a term. So Maya is real, Maya is the creative power of God, but it is elusive. It puts us into a mistaken conception of life.

We misidentify things. So, the way Maya affects us is it makes a human condition. The most common metaphor in the Bhagavatam is the dream condition, as we discussed today.

The word Svapna and its relation to the human condition is mentioned over 60 times in the Bhagavatam. 60 times the Bhagavatam says this life is like a dream. So it is in the context of the human condition that I discuss that why is it that God puts us into this horrible dream? Why are we in this dream world? Why do we have to experience this bad dream at night? And so, in that context, Maya discusses and is deeply intertwined with the problem of suffering and the human condition.

And the third way that Maya is used, which is possibly the most important way in the Bhagavatam, is Maya is seen as Divine Mother. And this is the point that although present in Vedanta philosophy, Vedantins miss many times that ultimately Maya is a positive energy. It is a creative energy.

It creates the human condition to help us learn things. But ultimately, it's a loving mother. It's creating this human condition and this world to help us come back to the spiritual world, come back to God.

Maya is there to teach us like a loving mother teaches us. Sometimes with a school of hard knocks, but it's meant to teach us that the world is imperfect, but the world is perfect for its purpose. And therefore, it's perfect.

The prison house is imperfect, but it's perfect for its purpose. An ideal prison house will make a person perfect by the time they leave and they will leave at a certain time. So, this material world is perfect for its purpose because Maya, which is this world, is the Divine Mother.

And this is a concept we find in Sankhya also. Sankhya sees Prakriti as the Divine Mother and Prakriti and Maya in the Bhagavatam are identified. Therefore, Bhagavatam is the Vedanta text and also the Sankhya text.

And in the context of being a Divine Mother, Maya is also the personal energy of God as Yogamaya. And as the personal energy of God, she is Krishna's sister, Subhadra. This is another name of Subhadra, Yogamaya.

Where she is actually arranging the many, many pastimes of God by her magical powers. Because Maya is very elusive, but elusive can also be a good thing. In love, magic is so wonderful.

So, she creates so many wonderful arrangements. So, are you using Maya in the sense it was used Yogamaya in the Bhakti tradition? Or the third sense is somewhat similar to Yogamaya, not exactly the same, but it seems to have some pointers toward that. Some similarities with that.

So, this is yeah, this is one point to note in the Bhagavatam. That Bhagavatam and from what I've seen other Vaishnava literatures, other Puranas, Bhagavad Gita of the Mahabharata, Maya is just one. Maya is the creative power of God.

The energy is just one. Then the Bhakti traditions, the actual schools of Bhakti, like Gaudiya Vaishnavism, they systemize it. And they say, okay, there's Yogamaya, that's in terms of the divine, you know, Leelas of the Lord.

There's Mahamaya in terms of the mature life. But a point that Srila Prabhupada also makes in the 10th Canto, in his introduction to the 10th Canto, he says Maya is one. Maya is the energy of God, which is Maya.

When it manifests itself in this world, then it is, we call it, we have now labeled it Mahamaya. That is then Maya as Mahamaya. But it's still the same Maya.

And when that Maya is seen in relation to God, it is Yogamaya. And it is serving the pastimes of the Lord and bringing the devotees closer to the Lord. But Yogamaya is the same as Mahamaya, all Maya comes from Yoga.

All Maya comes from the energy of the Lord. It's the Lord's energy. So Yogamaya and Maya are actually the same thing.

We use them more systematically, but you'll see how in the Bhagavatam and also in the Gita, Yogamaya is also used in the context of Maya in the mature world. There's many, many instances. That's true.

So in one sense, in that each tradition, if you consider scripture to be like a territory, each tradition offers us a map for navigating the territory and say Yogamaya and Mahamaya, this differentiation is like a taxonomical analysis for helping us understand things better. But Prabhupada, as you said, also says that Maya is one, like electricity can be used for heating or for cooling. So similarly, that illusory energy can take us closer to the Lord or away from the Lord.

And so, yeah, so just going back to your three points when you mentioned as a creative energy, as the as the energy that produces the effect shapes our perfection, the human condition that shapes our condition, shapes our human condition. And then lastly, as a divine mother. So now, so when we talk about the problem of evil or the problem of suffering at one level, if our entanglement with illusion decreases, then we could say the at the second level, how much we are enmeshed in something.

That in a particular, in the particular dualities of the world, how much we are enmeshed in that, that will decrease. And then the suffering will also decrease. So it's like somebody is watching a horror movie and is completely into that horror movie, they will feel far more horrified than somebody who is casually glancing at it without getting involved.

So in a sense, detachment, detachment is also one way of decreasing our suffering and thereby decreasing the magnitude of the problem of evil. So if the influence of the illusory energy on us decreases, then we will also suffer less in that. Even if you're going through the same physical experience, our suffering may be lesser.

Yes. Yeah. And that's why knowledge is emphasized.

It's not definitely the goal or the end, but knowledge is emphasized in the Bhagavatam. Because by having spiritual knowledge, we can detach ourselves from that situation. In psychology, this is called detached contact.

So we're in contact, but we're detached. And then that same situation, that same exchange is less painful. So therefore, we must take knowledge seriously.

This is why the knowledge of the Bhagavatam is there. Because it is through that knowledge that we're able to rise above the situation. Just like a person who's dreaming they may not be able to get out of the dream.

But if in the dream they realize that actually this is a dream and these things won't stick to me, you know, I'm actually not being chased by a tiger and very soon this dream will end, then that by itself will make them so happy. And of course, the ultimate solution is that they wake up from the dream. The ultimate solution is not solving their problems that they're facing in the dream, but it's waking them up from the dream.

But in the meantime, until they wake up, it will help them solve their problems by just understanding that they're not so important and they're not so close to and they're not so entangled in it. It's amazing. And so, so your book is by explaining the concept of Maya through that angle, you are addressing the problem of evil in somewhat you could say more of a lateral way than a direct way.

Yes. Because one thing about evil, and you brought up a very nice point. Thank you for reminding me that the problem of evil is worldview.

Like what I find, you cannot solve the problem of evil in isolation. Okay, this is the question. This is the answer.

To actually respond to evil, you have to see that response in a certain worldview. And so it actually worked out very well because when I started writing my book on Maya, I wasn't thinking actually, I was always interested in the problem of evil, but I didn't really see the relationship between the two so deeply. But in the context of writing it, it actually fit very well because we really cannot understand the Bhagavatam's response to evil without understanding its worldview.

What's the bigger picture? What is God? What is creation? Who are we? How long are we here in this material world? And so it's really presenting the worldview of the Bhagavatam. And it's arguing in response to the common, you could say, common obsession of academics with impersonalism. It's trying to vouch for personalism, that the worldview of the Bhagavatam is a personalist viewpoint.

It is clearly the case. If we read the Bhagavatam, as a whole, rather than selecting specific verses, when we see the text as a whole, it is clearly a personalist text. And there's a strong voice of personalism here.

This is, you know, Hindu personalism. And in contrast with the impersonalism, and Maya is actually a real thing. This world is real.

It's creative power. Yes, it's elusive, but it's not illusion in the way that Shankaracharya described it. It's not unreal in the way that Shankaracharya described it.

In fact, even in the Upanishads, in the Vedic texts, Maya is never unreal or completely elusive or completely an illusion. Shankara's concept that Maya and the world is unreal is his own unique contribution to the history of Indian thought. He deserves to be recognized as an original thinker.

He's not summarizing the ideas of the Upanishads. In fact, in the Upanishads, you don't find Maya mentioned so often. There's four or five instances of the word Maya in all of the Upanishads.

And three of them appear in the Shvetashvara Upanishad. And they're in relation to Rudra, where this world is called Maya, and Rudra, Lord Shiva, is the Mayan. And through his Maya, through his creative power, he creates the world.

So you have Maya and the Mayan. Again, used in very personalist terms, that Maya is the power of the Mayan, which is Rudra, in the same way that the Bhagavatam is using it. So just historically, in terms of textual analysis, if we look at the text, Maya, by far, is used as creative power.

Yeah, there's one or two instances where it's used in the sense of illusion. It's definitely elusive. It's magical.

It's like the Maya of Indra is very magical. But it's just not used in the way that Shankaracharya uses it. So Shankaracharya's use of the term Maya is his own contribution.

It's his own interpretation. Hmm. Yeah, I've read this in several places.

So that's another thing. Yeah, because I read this point in several places that even when I was reading Vedanta Sutra, even I think several prominent Western scholars who commented on Vedanta Sutra, they do say that Ramanuja's explanation of Vedanta Sutra is a more, more natural explanation and whereas Shankara seems to be using the Vedanta Sutra to to speak his own philosophy. So, of course, Baldevidya Bhushans is not that prominent till now in the mainstream, mainstream academia.

So now you talk about illusion and illusive. So Prabhupada also uses the word illusory. So how do you, illusive means that which causes illusion or means how do you, how do you differentiate between these three terms in terms of the utility? My understanding is that Shrila Prabhupada is using the word illusion or illusory in the sense of misidentification.

Yes, of course. So, so, so when I see a rope as a snake, the example that you said, my understanding is, or you could say that understanding is an illusion because I misidentified something as another thing. Now what Shankaracharya and other philosophers oftentimes use the word illusion, they're using it in the sense of unreality, that it's an illusion in the sense that it really doesn't exist.

And, and so because there's this, you could say, the ambiguity of the term, I was starting to find it confusing to use that term. Bhagavatam also uses, or you could say Shrila Prabhupada uses the word illusion in the Bhagavatam to suggest unreality. In fact, in some translations, like the famous verse which describes maya in the Chaturthi Shlok Bhagavatam, Shrila Prabhupada says how the world is unreal.

And there they're using the word unreal and illusion in the sense of temporality because then after that he explains that it's unreal in the sense that it's temporary, it's a lesser reality. So therefore, therefore the word is used in very specific senses. And here I'm using it in the sense of something that is, is misleading.

The world can be misleading and therefore it's elusive. It bewilders a person. Okay, makes sense.

By the way, going back to a fundamental question, is evil itself a category in the dharmic traditions? Because we have the concept of maya and we have the concept of say papa or we have anarthas. But when we talk about evil is I don't even know whether the precise Sanskrit term which equates with the word evil and then we can go into moral evil and natural evil and then we can have like say something like naturally we can be called as glacier or morally we can be called as something like contaminations within impurities within clay. Yes, absolutely.

So that's the point that that's also where maya is very relevant because there is no term for evil. Like there's suffering, which is dukkha, papa. All these different terms are there.

Papa, it can also mean sin, but it can also mean misfortune. But even if it is sin, it's like it's like being bad like a child is bad doing a bad act. Papa does not mean like evil in the sense of Satan.

So the only thing that is you could say alluded to as a negative thing you could say the world of illusion, the illusive world is maya. Like people say this in general language. They say, oh, you are in maya.

You are, you know, you know, like this or maya is often seen as as something that is bad in this world. So then what is maya? Maya is the misconception living, not seeing things as they are, but seeing things in the way that they are not. And that is the fundamental human problem in the Vedic texts.

So therefore to talk about the problem of evil in the context of Bhagavatam, you have to talk about maya because that's the problem. That is what is that is the Eastern equivalent discussion of evil. And on this point, I should mention that every tradition in the world has what they say what matters most to them.

A matter of primary concern. So in Christianity the matter of primary concern is sin. It's okay.

What is sin? And sin is bad. And so Christianity is a solution to sin. In in another tradition it's just escaping my mind.

Yeah. In Confucianism and Taoism, the Chinese traditions, their primary concern is disharmony. The human problem is disharmony.

And therefore the solution is harmony. That religion means something that harmonizes everything. In the Vedic texts, the primary concern, what matters to them most is ignorance.

Is if we if we are to use that word illusion, the misconception, bewilderment. That is the cause of our problems in this world and suffering. Therefore, the fundamental human problem is Maya.

And therefore, bhakti and bhagavata are seen as solutions to that fundamental human problem. Other problems like disharmony, sin, all these things are they believe coming from this fundamental problem, which is ignorance. And therefore, the solution is this.

So this is what matters most to them. And that's what the solution is. That's, you know, one of the most common phrases from the Upanishads that even we also call tamaso ma jyotir gama.

So that is tamaso darkness or ignorance. That's so true. And when we talk about it from this perspective in the bhagavata ends with nashto moha sute labda ar kachchid ajnanasam moha pranashtas te dhananjay That's the primary concern that is your illusion dispelled.

Yes. And Krishna says in the Gita in the Chaturthi Shloka he says pesham evanu kam partham aham ajnana nashim nashimakto bhavas to jnana nipena bhashvaka The way I guide people is I give them knowledge from within their heart. That's true.

So although our focus is on bhakti but still the human condition bhakti is the solution to the human condition. The human condition is one described as ignorance of avidya not of sin like in the Christian tradition but of ignorance. We are in a state of ignorance.

Interesting that so there is we could say that the extreme some people say that the idea of sin itself is introduced in the Indian tradition or it's imposed in the Indian tradition it's a western category rather than saying that it is present I think even papa is not an accurate translation of sin because sin has certain connotations which papa does not have or papa also has connotations which sin does not include but still I think it's more precise to say that that's not a primary concern so then even in that sense that's why guilt is also not primary it's not considered a primary pathological problem also because often in the catholic tradition the idea of sin is associated with the idea of guilt and then yes yes we have the idea of vikarma so we have the idea of doing bad acts so you can be a bad person do bad acts vikarma as opposed to you know karma or sakarma or sukarma but the the idea is that there are bad acts but it's still not exactly it does not have all the connotations of sin as in the western traditions true so do you see at a bigger level maybe this could be a concluding question that do you see that the bhagavatam response to the problem of evil is it already having a significant impact or do you foresee it having a significant impact in the mainstream intellectual discourse because generally when we as an institution we focus more on reaching out to people at an individual level right and many people do find the the explanation of karma relevant appealing what i find is that it's very helpful but not when a person is going through suffering especially not when they are going through extreme suffering in general they come for a talk yeah that makes a lot of sense so but it's it's so it has its value and it has utility but the overall wisdom of the bhagavatam or of the bhakti tradition in general how do you see its its contribution to the mainstream intellectual discourse today or in the near future every tradition has its strengths uh philosophically speaking and also you could say theologically speaking and in terms of practice every tradition has their strengths and i personally feel in terms of its response to problem to the problem of suffering in this world the shiman bhagavatam and you could say vedic literature in general has a strength here it has something very tangible to offer because because of the whole package like you're saying reincarnation karma but not just karma the plan of god like you can actually at least in some way or the other you can make sense of it and so many of my students at the university have have by themselves have mentioned this point how in the eastern traditions they do find a more satisfying response to suffering and evil in this world how to understand it and also how to deal with it how to make sense of it so it is one of our strengths and i think that's why it's a good topic it's a good contribution for the world and when presented in its wholeness like you're saying not just karma but in its wholeness then people will really appreciate it people are appreciating it and people will really appreciate it because of the lack of that response in other traditions and i'll just give you one small example charles darwin is very famous as the you could say the founder of the evolutionary theory and many people think that the reason why charles darwin became an atheist was because of his evolutionary theory but actually charles darwin did not become an atheist due to that reason he became an atheist because he could never find a satisfying response to the problem of suffering darwin grew up in a nice christian family in a christian home in uh in england uh he he grew his parents were christian his wife was christian and um he was very well versed in the bible and at a certain point in his life his young daughter who was like four or five years old she died due to some disease contracting something she died and darwin could never make sense of why he writes in his biography why an all loving and kind god would allow this an innocent person like his daughter to die in this way he just could not make sense of it furthermore darwin himself had a lot of health problems he had intense pain in his stomach so he couldn't understand why god had given him a body that had so much pain there's actually one small uh side point on this david hume a very famous western philosopher he mentioned he said just take your little toe you know think about your little toe how much pleasure can your toe give you well maybe you could you know massage it with some oil or make it hot or these things and then he says how much pain can that toe give you so much pain right if we get it under a under a truck or something you can get so much pain so it seems like the body is meant to give us more pain than there is more pleasure so darwin also observed this he said why would god give me a body where there's so much pain but in his own christian tradition he could not find a satisfying response with the resources that he had of course times have changed and furthermore what he believed to be the greatest evil was eternal damnation he could not understand why a loving god would send people to hell and that completely didn't make sense to him so then as a result he started to go on his voyages and do research and then he found that in nature there was so much pain and suffering he came up with this idea that actually there is no ultimate purpose or goodness in this world this world is simply a blind struggle for existence it's a struggle for existence where the fittest survive so even someone like darwin famous people they they could they didn't find satisfying responses to the problem of evil as i think the vedic tradition has a very wonderful contribution to make in this regard yeah this is very important i also like that your earlier point that explanations have to you cannot answer specific questions without addressing fundamental worldview questions so while evolution to some extent can explain the lived reality of the world that there is so much suffering but it it it doesn't really provide anything to make life meaningful so it is it is in a sense it is it is a very cold way of looking at the world and you know richard dawkins is like a much more extremist inheritor of darwin so there is a striking he this he also uses the problem of evil to to to you could say to beat a beat beats but then when i read his writings to much of what he's speaking doesn't really apply to the dharmic tradition or rather we could say his critiques are often quite specific to the abrahamic religions and his problem of evil he doesn't even seem to be aware that there are any other explanations and if you take it further actually actually darwin himself was not certainly not an anti-theist he was whether he was a thesis also open to questions more of agnostic he did talk about you know maybe the creator breathed life into the first life forms or something like that so but if we take the darwinian worldview as an absolute explanation for the world then it then it doesn't allow atheists to use the problem of evil because within the reductionistic worldview there is no such thing as good or evil simply nature is existing and we are products of nature and all our experiences are nothing but neurochemicals firing inside the brain cells electrochemical signals firing in the brain cells so in that sense it's a that world view if so if i'm mentioning this if we compare the atheistic worldview we compare the christian worldview or broadly the abrahamic worldview there is a significantly stronger explanatory potential within the bhagavatam's worldview that has not yet been tapped and brought into the mainstream discourse and there is a lot of opening for that absolutely yes i i could not agree more um uh there are so many people who are who are um you could say who are wanting to to have so so to have a worldview that is satisfying to the heart in other words um uh one thing that i realized very quickly in my studies is that that our choices in this world are not to uh choose between between something that is proven or not proven right there's no you know no one can prove uh you could say in in in objective terms or absolute terms that the worldview of the bhagavatam is correct as opposed to the worldview of uh some other tradition or some other place right but what we do is that we choose the worldview that is most appealing amongst the worldviews that we have that makes the most sense amongst the worldviews that we have right that's what we do there's no way to put it in a test tube and say well this one's right and this one's wrong we choose the one that that is most satisfying and logical and makes the most sense to us so like you mentioned about evolutionary theory it does answer the questions about why there's you know it does apply to questions about meaningless suffering in this world the struggle for the existence but then it doesn't make sense in terms of why do we look for purpose or meaning in this world right it doesn't answer the question why would someone look for purpose and meaning when they're simply meant to survive in the forest surviving in the forest does not mean that you will want to know why the forest came but we as human beings are not just trying to survive in the forest we're also trying to figure out why is the forest there and how can I play music in the forest but the bhagavatam is then answering both so it's a more satisfying world viewpoint than the evolutionary the evolutionary couldn't be right but it's more satisfying because it's saying this is why there's a struggle for existence we've answered that question but this is also why we search for meaning and purpose in the world because we're also spiritual beings that want to search for meaning and purpose why is it that we have the fear of death why is it that we want to be eternal why is it that we aspire for a place that's higher than us if we are matter it's natural for matter to die why do we aspire for eternality it's because we are spiritual beings so the bhagavatam is not giving the only world view or the only possible world view or the only right world view but i see it as giving the most complete world view the one that satisfies us the most and there's a verse in the bhagavatam which says this i forget the sanskrit but it says that the bhagavatam sees truth everywhere it sees threads of truth present in all books so many different books but what the bhagavatam offers is the most complete form of truth most comprehensive form of truth so you take all those threads together you tie them together that's the bhagavatam and and you actually also see it just from an academic point of view how it combines so many different philosophies it brings it together it it it actually responds or it includes them and then it presents the the ripened fruit of all those different knowledges so that is the yeah that's beautifully put you know that that means rather than looking at simply the logical aspect or the argumentative aspect we look at the holistic way and it's we can focus on the most complete it's a beautiful note to maybe conclude usually i try to summarize at the end of a podcast i mean we went over many different subjects but i'll try and then you can add some concluding words if you like i think we discussed on broadly does karma answer the address the problem of evil and then within that we started by discussing about how karma has a logical aspect that appeals but it is not so much suited when people are actually going through suffering and then you brought in the there are different problems of evil so the logical logical problem of evil that can be addressed reasonably well by karma we discussed the free will defense and that explains why suffering exists but it doesn't really explain why why i am suffering but if you bring in free will defense along with karma and reincarnation then it becomes much much more coherent and then then you can go back to the causal chain and where it starts so where did karma begin so we discussed about how karma is that the idea of beginninglessness that's what we discussed and very very good point you made that what is beginningless is is we have free will our existence is beginningless our free will is beginningless but suffering is not beginningless because it is in the there are two categories that which is that is which is eternal that which is temporary and suffering there is repeated declaration scripture that it can end so if it can end that means it doesn't belong to the eternal category it belongs to temporary category therefore it will it if it is ending then it also needs to have a beginning and then we also went to a little bit side side discussion on further about the mode of presentation of the Bhagavatam that how the Bhagavatam doesn't really in our scriptures they don't address the problem of evil so much directly because it's presumed that the world is a place of distress and it's and the solution is we discuss it later that it's it's coming out of avidya so because of that there's not that much of a focus then discuss two three conversations especially the Dhruva the Dhruva conversation to address how bias and discrimination is dealt with not so much by getting back at those who are discriminating against us but by pleasing the Lord then Bhishma's pastime as well as Bhishma as well as the Dharma and Parishad conversation so we discussed also the evidential problem of evil that's where where karma doesn't may not seem adequate because why so much suffering so the idea is there's a plan of the Lord and then a if we become there's a part of the call for devotional heroism by which we can all take up the suffering and grow through that suffering and the Bhagavatam gives many examples of if you go to Prabhupada saying that every psychological situation can be understood from the Bhagavatam that is striking and then when you talk about phenomenological so there also we discussed a little bit about mindfulness and the Buddhist approach the middle way so by decreasing our entanglement and illusion we can actually we can suffering will be experienced less and in that sense that's also a that's also a wave in which we can help so logical is at one level for education but for for helping people at a level of grief the other two approaches are also there in that sense the Bhagavatam offers the multi-pronged approach as we talk about how chaplaincy the Bhagavati book which is not just a it's a pedagogy pedagogy and it's also a book of you could say pastoring or counseling and then toward the end you mentioned Maya your book and Maya I like the idea of three things Maya as creative energy Maya as the illusion created within us and the Maya as the divine mother so and the Bhagavatam worldview has a lot of potential to not necessarily to be proven right but to to be seen as the most fulfilling worldview or the most most complete worldview so if you contrast the the Christian worldview it focuses a lot on sin and it really can't address because of the lack of various factors the pre-existence reincarnation you mentioned how Charles Darwin also that idea of eternal damnation it also makes the what was the greater good suffer greater good argument also it makes it yes it makes it incoherent so and then if you consider the reductionistic worldview from materialism or evolution and that is not at all it doesn't tell us why we should have a purpose why we long to have a purpose and how we can find a purpose also so the worldview is very empowering in that sense and thank you for this discussion you want to add any concluding words you actually summarized it very well Prabhu I also just wanted to say that through this conversation I myself you know learned so much I started to realize that how much of a you could say a rigorous philosophical discourse this discussion is in the Srimad Bhagavatam looking through it by the logical problem evidential problem and phenomenological problem of evil that actually in the in the area of western philosophy there's so much to contribute here that the Bhagavatam has and the way that I primarily looked at it before was through the narratives through the teachings so not only does it offer you know the response to evil through its narrations but also there's you know through this conversation what becomes so evident is that there's also such a vibrant philosophical discussion that is present here and and you know your questions and your comments really brought that out that we you know there's there's a something that we truly have to contribute to this discourse and I really enjoyed my time with you thank you very much thank you for sparing your time it is wonderful having you and hopefully we will have some future discussions again sometime thank you very much yes and I myself am a fan of your podcast so I've become a fan of your podcast and today actually this is kind of off off call but today we discussed so many things and our you know our discussion went in so many ways so please feel free to you know take whatever you need so we don't have to you know cover the whole thing because it's a very broad topic there's so many different avenues and directions and we can go in so many different ways so please feel free to just take whatever you need from that conversation I think everything was relevant although it might not be focused on one of the attractions of this format is the spontaneity of the discussion also it's not so much like a it's not a discourse it's a discussion so I think everything is important over here thank you very much once again wonderful thank you for all thank you Krishna.