Understanding various ways Krishna protects – Bhagavatam characters analysis

[Bhagavatam study circle at Nasik, India]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Sorry to keep you waiting. So, I’ll speak today on the topic of does Krishna protect us from our mistakes? We say Krishna protects us, but what does he protect us from and how does he protect us? So, we’ll take different incidents from the Bhagavatam and see from the pastimes what is the nature of Krishna’s protection.
I’ll take, depending on the time, I will not go into the pastime, but I’ll analyze the pastime. I’ll look at four or five pastimes. In the first canto, there is the section where the bull and the cow are being tormented by Kali.
And at that time, Parikshit Maharaj comes and he punishes Kali. Before that, he asks the bull the question, who is the cause of your suffering? At one level, this question appears ridiculous. You saw this man was beating me.
If in a class, one child is beating another child and the teacher comes and asks the child, who is the cause of your suffering? You saw this child was beating me. Why is he asking like that? And then the bull replies that actually it is very difficult to determine the cause of suffering. Some people say this, some people say this, some people say this.
And he says it’s difficult, it’s almost impossible to know. And then the bull, Parikshit replies, bravo, well done. He says, I understand that you must be Dharma.
And he gives a very alarming kind of statement over there. He says that the person who points to the wrongdoer gets the same destination as the wrongdoer. How does that work out? If somebody commits, somebody robs a bank, and I say, if I point out he’s robbed the bank, do I get the same destination as the robber? Obviously not.
Here, it’s talking not about specific karmic destination. The whole mood of the Bhagavatam is to not look at the immediate cause, but to look at deeper causes. The immediate cause is evident.
The bull was beating, but the bull was being beaten by Kali, but it’s going deeper. So, the mood of the Bhagavatam is… Can someone translate? Because for me, to prepare in Hindi, I had to mentally prepare myself before the class. Can someone translate? It’s possible? Normally you have in which language? I was told normally it is in English, Krishnadantrao told me.
Or normally it is in? Okay, so I’ll speak something in Hindi then. So, I can do one thing. If my English is a little difficult, if any words are difficult, just raise your hand, I’ll simplify the sentence.
So, it’s going to be mostly incidents. So, in that sense, it should be mostly past tense. It should not be that difficult.
So, the Bhagavatam’s whole mood is to not just look at the immediate cause. If you see, Parikshit Maharaj is cursed by Shringi and there is no blaming of Shringi at all over there. What does he do? He says, this is the arrangement of the Lord.
Now, when something happens in our life, there are three levels of causation. There is an immediate cause, there is an intermediate cause and there is an ultimate cause. So, for example, say if there is some water spill and I slip and fall down.
Now, the immediate cause is, I was careless. I let the water spill and then I put my foot on that. That is the immediate cause.
Now, somebody else may walk along the same area and their foot may not fall on this water or their foot may go over there, but they will not slip. Somebody else, that same spilled water may not cause somebody else to fall down. So, the immediate cause is one cause and when it can be, it should be addressed.
So, if water is spilled, we clean the water. That’s the immediate cause, address the immediate cause. But sometimes, the immediate cause alone is not enough to understand things.
Why did that person alone fall down, not somebody else? There is a remote cause. The remote cause is our own karma. So, I fell down because my own karma was there and somebody else did not fall down because their karma was not there at that time.
And then beyond that, the ultimate cause of all suffering in the material world is for disconnection from Krishna, forgetfulness of Krishna, is lack of spiritual consciousness. So, these are three levels of causation. Immediate cause, which is what are the circumstances there.
The intermediate cause is past life karma. And the ultimate cause, which is the forgetfulness of Krishna. The Bhagavatam’s mood is primarily to address the ultimate cause.
The immediate cause is acknowledged, but the Bhagavatam’s mood is not to focus on that. Parikshit Maharaj accepts that, yes, now it’s my time for that. So, don’t bother about the immediate cause.
Just focus on the ultimate cause. And he absorbs himself in Krishna. Now, in this case, was it a, in the case of the bull, when it is said that, when Parikshit Maharaj one who points out a wrongdoer, get the same destination as the wrongdoer, what that means is that both their consciousness stays only at the level of immediate cause.
Neither of them is going beyond seeing the immediate thing. You did this and this happened to me. So, both of them are in material consciousness.
And this means both of them will get the same destination means both will stay in the same material world. They may go up or down depending on their individual karma, but still they will remain in material consciousness, in this material existence. From the Bhagavatam’s perspective, being in the material world itself is illusion, it’s suffering.
So, now, let’s, this is, in this case, the bull was simply a victim. Bull had done nothing wrong. Kali came and attacked out of Kali’s atrocious nature.
Now, let’s look at cases where there are increasing degrees of culpability. Culpability means the responsibility of making, made a mistake. In Parikshit Maharaj’s case, there was a mistake, but it was a minor mistake.
Now, at one level, we can say the characters in the Bhagavatam, they are all orchestrated by the Lord and there is no mistake. So, that is one way of looking at it. From that, we can be absorbed, but we can’t learn much lessons for ourselves.
So, this analysis, our focus is primarily to learn what we can. So, in Parikshit Maharaj’s case, there was a small mistake on his part, that he, when he was disrespected by the sage, but the sage did not intentionally disrespect him, he angrily put a garland of a snake. You could say that was a, that was more like a petty gesture.
It is not a, it is nothing vicious, nothing malevolent. Sometimes we get angry and somebody wants to talk with us, you know, I don’t talk with you. Sometimes we, somebody gets angry and they may just disrupt some things over there.
So, like that, oh, you know, you did not offer me any hospitality, I will offer you some hospitality. Took a snake and put it around his neck, dead snake. So, no harm done.
It is just an emotional reaction over there. And then, when he was, he was punished to death for that, now, Krishna, he took that as an opportunity to address the ultimate cause. No addressing the immediate cause, just focus on the ultimate.
And he transcended, he absorbed himself in Krishna. Now, if we look at the case of Chitraketu. In Chitraketu’s case, at one level, we could say there was a mistake.
The Prabhupada, in his purports, analyzes in both ways. He says that if there were great sages sitting over there and they were observing Parvati sitting on the lap of Shiva and they did not object to it, then why did Chitraketu have to make any comment about it? Chitraketu should have just minded his own business. So, he laughed and that was an offense.
Now, another point of view, Prabhupada also says that, actually, when she was cursed, he says, Parvati had no business cursing. Because there were great disciples of Lord Shiva, great followers of Lord Shiva, great sages were assembled. They did not consider that to be an offense.
So, why did he have to, why did she have to consider it to be an offense? But anyway, Chitraketu got the punishment. So, in this case, we see that Parvati is not somebody who is directly punished for that. She curses, but that’s the end with it.
The Bhagavatam’s mood, in general, is that those who curse, what reaction they get for an unfair cursing, it doesn’t go into that zone. There are consequences for that also. But the Bhagavatam’s focus is not on that.
Bhagavatam’s focus is on, as if things happen to us unfairly. So, unfairness can be at four levels. One is that, there is no mistake on our part and there is a punishment.
Second is, there is a small mistake on our part, there is a huge punishment. Third is that, we try to do some good and it backfires on us. There is no mistake at all.
Our intention was good. The example of this is, say, Maharaja Nruga. We’ll come to that a little later, if we get time.
The fourth is, we are just going along in our life and just suddenly something happens and something goes wrong and we get cursed for that. So, in a sense, fourth and first are similar. But the difference is, in the first, we just do a normal interaction, just going through a normal life, but suddenly for no reason, we get something bad happens to us.
So, if we look in the second case, where there is some mistake on the part of someone. So, we could say, Parikshit Maharaj, there was a small mistake. Even Chitraketu, there was a small mistake on his part.
Now, there is a reaction came for that. For Parikshit Maharaj also, the reaction came in the form of, his body was destroyed. For Parikshit Maharaj, for Chitraketu also, he got the reaction in the form of, that he got a demon’s body.
If we see, now at the level of the Mahabharata, it is considered that, Prabhupada also says this in the Bhagavad Gita, that Bhishma, he committed a grievous mistake when he remained silent when Draupadi was being dishonored. This is in the Bhagavad Gita. Because of that silence, he deserved to be punished.
So, the way the Bhagavatam balances it is that, Krishna did not neglect Bhishmadeva’s bhakti because of his mistake. All the bhakti that he had done, all the seva, that was remembered. And the reward for that was given was that, Krishna himself came to give him darshan.
At the same time, because of his bhakti, Krishna did not automatically excuse the mistake. It is not that because of his mistake, his bhakti was forgotten. But nor was it that because of his bhakti, his mistake was completely excused.
And we see this kind of practical dealing has to be there in this world if we are to maintain some kind of order in the world. When people commit mistakes, sometimes they can be forgiven. But sometimes, when some serious mistakes are done, some serious action has to be taken.
There is mercy and there is justice. Mercy means that when somebody has done the wrong, they are forgiven. But justice means, they have done something wrong, some reaction comes for that.
So, both these principles are there and Krishna balances both of them. So, in the case of Uttaras, in both these cases, there is a small mistake and the reaction was disproportionate. But neither of them actually did, they didn’t try to counter-curse or counter-react, just accepted it.
So, what happened? At a material level, the reaction came. The body was destroyed. But at a spiritual level, their consciousness actually became more advanced.
In the case of Uttaras, for a particular point of time in his life, he actually acted like a demon. But when the final moment of disaster came or when a great moment of crisis came, at that time, the remembrance of the Lord came. We see this sudden sphurti or we could say sudden direction of the consciousness towards the Lord in several pastimes in the Bhagavatam.
If you see that, I think, in the chapter of the Bhagavatam where Uttarasura is speaking, he is speaking first to Indra and he says, come on, fight. Why are you so cowardly? You have got Vishnu’s weapon, you can kill me with it. Why are you so cowardly? And while suddenly speaking with him, his mood turns.
First, actually there are three distinct moods in Uttarasura’s place. First is, he is telling, I am going to kill you. You are a killer of your own brother, you are a killer of my brother, you are a killer of a brahmana, you are a killer of your own guru.
You deserve to die and I am going to kill you. And he says, then he says, but why are you not fighting? You have got Vishnu’s weapon, you are going to kill me with it. You can win.
Then he says, I am just eager to die because by dying I will attain Vishnu. So, sometimes because of a past karmic, can you close the door? Because of a past karmic complication or a past curse or past karmic complication, there may be forgetfulness for a particular period. But suddenly awakening happens.
This also happened with Gajendra. He was Maharaj Indra Duryodhana. He was cursed at a particular time in his life and then when the danger came, suddenly the awakening came and he was directed towards the Lord.
Now, let’s move forward to two further cases. The first case was just accidental or non-intentional disrespect. That was Parikshit and again another non-intentional disrespect.
That was Achitraketu. But now let’s move forward to an attachment. The example is Bharat Maharaj here.
Bharat Maharaj was very serious in his spiritual life. So serious that he renounced the world and then of all things, he got attached to a deer. The next example comes in the next canto.
That is Ajamil. Let’s look at both of these. But let’s look at Bharat’s example first.
Now, it is said, Prabhupada would often say that, that 2.40 verse, with a little dharma, one can be saved from a great danger. This means that, Prabhupada says, actually that we all can be protected from falling down to a lower species. Even if we have done a little bhakti, we will not go down to a lower species.
But here, Bharat Maharaj had done so much bhakti and renounced the world. He had come to a very advanced spiritual stage. There were tears of love from him in his heart, his eyes and then he not only fell, but he fell to the body of a deer.
So what happens with Trayate Mahato Bhayat? Was he not saved? Actually, there is again an external and internal. Sometimes there are two principles which apply. One principle is, if you practice bhakti, you will not lose the human form of life.
Another principle is, whatever we become attached to, that is what we attain in the next life. So when Bharat Maharaj became attached to a deer, the result of that principle, he got the result. That is, he got a deer’s body.
So again, earlier I said, the law of karma will act at the material level, Krishna will act in the spiritual level. So Bhishma, for him, Krishna did not forget his bhakti because of his wrongdoing, but Krishna did not neglect his wrongdoing because of his bhakti. Both acted.
So at a material level, he got a deer’s body. But the essence is not what body we get, but what consciousness we get. And even a deer’s body, Bharat Maharaj had not just a human consciousness, he had advanced human consciousness.
He had spiritual consciousness. He was more serious about his spiritual life in a deer’s body than many human beings are in their human body. This indicates that he did not lose the spiritual credits.
Now here, what exactly was Bharat Maharaj’s mistake? At one level, we could say that he protected the deer. And that’s a good thing to know, isn’t it? If a deer life form is dying, to protect it is a good thing. The mistake in a sense was that he didn’t just protect when the immediate danger was there, he took on the role of a protector.
While the deer was in danger, he could have jumped in and protected it, that’s fine. But to take on the responsibility of protecting it, that was a mistake on his part. He had earlier been a protector of the whole kingdom.
Now if he’s going to think that, oh, this baby deer doesn’t have a mother, who will protect it? Well, there could have been many orphans in his kingdom who did not have any protection. There could have been many other people in his kingdom who did not have protection. So, if we are going to play a particular role, we have to play it well.
If one is going to be a king, one has to be a responsible king. But if one is going to be a renunciate, one has to be a responsible renunciate. And even there, it is not just that he let himself become, he did not just take the role of the protector, but he became obsessed with it.
So much so that he neglected his sadhana for the sake of a deer. And that’s how that reaction came to him that he got a deer’s body. But eventually, Krishna protected him because Krishna gave him the spiritual consciousness.
And then from the deer’s body, he again got an elevated body, a good human body in the Brahmin family from where he practiced and perfected himself. So, now let’s consider the example of Ajamil. Was Ajamil’s fall intentional or accidental? Accidental.
How many of you feel accidental? Accidental. How many of you feel intentional? Firstly, it was accidental, but later on it became intentional. He knew dharma, but he still got attached.
Yeah, good point. Initially, it was unintentional. He did not plan to go out into temptation.
He was going on his normal duty, but he saw the Shudra and Shudrani and he was captivated by that. He got captivated by that. But now after that, that agitation came, some indulgence came, but the extent to which he went.
Okay, he got attracted to that prostitute. He went and did something with her. But not that.
He just got her into his house and he threw out his own chaste wife. He threw out his parents. Now for a Brahmana to do something like this, there is a whole society which would have censured him for that.
His own parents would have tried to stop him. His own wife would have protested, but he did not listen to anyone. And naturally, if a Brahmana is living with a prostitute like this, nobody is going to invite that Brahmana to do Brahminical priestly activities.
So then, he in order to maintain her had to get into sinful activities. He didn’t have any other way to maintain. Now that would have got further censure.
But in spite of that, when he did that, it became intentional. So even here, he was protected. But the protection was, it is not that when the first Yamadutas came and the Vishnudutas came, he was not immediately delivered.
He was saved from the jaws of death. But after that what happened? He then for 12 years did intense austerities. He renounced the world.
He went to Haridwar, did intense austerities and then he was by the Lord’s grace liberated. If you consider the case of Ajamil, the case of Uttarasur, Ajamil called out to the Lord when the Yamadutas were about to take him. In the case of Chitraketu, Gajendra, when he was in danger, when he was fighting and he realized, I can’t fight anymore.
That was the time again he called out to the Lord. Long prayers are given in the Bhagavatam. Uttarasur didn’t directly call out to the Lord.
In the case of Uttarasur, if you consider these three situations, in the case of Uttarasur, there was apparently no miraculous intervention. In the case of Ajamil, there was a miraculous intervention. In the case of Gajendra, there was directly a divine intervention.
The Lord himself came. In the case of Uttarasur, he died. He prayed to the Lord and he did not actually pray to the Lord, please come and save me.
His prayer was, my dear Lord, when will I come to you? It is not you come to me, it is when will I come to you. I long to serve you, O Lord. His consciousness was very exalted at that time.
But in each of these cases, if we see, the case of Uttarasur is he died. But he was liberated. In the case of Ajamil, he was saved and then he atoned and then he was liberated.
In the case of Gajendra, what happened to him? He became enlightened afterwards. It is described that the Lord came and delivered, killed the crocodile and the crocodile went to heaven. But he got elevated and liberated.
So the point is that here, sometimes there is an intervention that happens in a supernatural way which can be seen at this level. In the case of Uttarasur, nothing was seen. In the case of Parikshit also, if you think about it, nothing was seen, isn’t it? He renounced the world, he sat and heard for seven days and then the Takshak came and bit him and his body burst into flames.
So it is not that actually Krishna came and in a visible way saved him. And yet Parikshit Maharaj’s story is considered to be a success. So here if you see, when we talk about Krishna’s protection, Krishna’s protection is not something which is in its form predictable.
In its principle it is predictable. In principle Krishna will always protect. But in form, how he will protect, that is quite variable.
So Krishna protected Gajendra in a visible way, he protected Ajamila in a visible way, he protected Uttarasur and Parikshit in a way that was not visible. So it is you can see only with the eyes of knowledge, with the narrative that is given in the Bhagavatam, we understand their ultimate destination. So earlier I started talking about the immediate cause, the remote cause and the ultimate cause.
In the case of Gajendra, when we talk about protection at a visible level, the immediate cause itself was addressed. The immediate cause for him was this crocodile was holding on to him. It was taken.
It was killed. It was addressed. So normally our eyes see that which happens at the material level.
Even the material level we can’t see completely. But still something we can see at the material level. Now, when somebody is suffering, it is interesting that practically no one, in the Bhagavatam, whenever anyone is suffering, nobody tells them you are suffering because of your own karma.
Sometimes they may say it themselves, I must have done some bad karma because of which I got this. But nobody else goes and tells them that. Nobody else, nobody tells Pariksit that it is some bad karma because of which this is happening.
Nobody tells Draupadi when she is suffering that it is because of your bad karma. Now, sometimes, in substitution, the knowledge is given and you were like this in the past and you became like this later. But that knowledge alone is not what causes transformation.
I recently wrote a book on demystifying reincarnation. Elaborate. I studied more than that.
That book has 250 pages. I must have read 250 books. One book per one page.
I studied a little over a thousand cases, thousands of cases. And I tried to find the most convincing cases of past life memories among children. And some of them are sensational.
And some of them are stunningly persuasive. But one thing struck me. Actually, I read all the cases and how they prove that this information could not have been known by any means unless that was the same person in the previous life.
But then I revisited this and I did further study. Not one of these boys, none of these boys or girls who remember their previous life, their past life memories did not make them spiritual in this life. Not one of them.
If they had a pious culture, they remained pious. But just the remembrance of the past life does not necessarily make one spiritual. It can, but it does not necessarily.
So, in some cases, the memories were like Bharat Maharaj, he remembered who I was in my previous life. Narada Muni remembered. Of course, in the case of Narada Muni, there was no mistake on his part at all.
Just that he was an ongoing progress from one life to the next life. But the remembrance alone is not what causes the reorientation of the consciousness, the remembrance of the past lives. Remembrance can be an aid, but the primary thing is one’s own intention.
Do I want to move towards Krishna? And while we are functioning in our day-to-day lives, we have to deal with problems at an immediate level. If I lost my job, I do work to find a job. If some family member is sick, I have to take them to a doctor and arrange for the medicines.
So, we do need to deal with things at an immediate level. But we don’t let the immediate consume our consciousness. That means, we don’t let all our energy be sucked with only doing the immediate.
This person is doing like this. This person is the cause of my suffering. No, this person, okay, this person is maybe backbiting against me, maybe doing this, doing that, doing some, you may use the word politics against me, whatever it is.
Okay, then I’ll see how I can deal with it at a practical level. But I have to understand that there’s something more going on also. So, if we just get caught in looking only at the immediate and addressing only the immediate, then we have not really understood the message of the Bhagwat.
It’s not that we are meant to address only the ultimate. We also have to act at the immediate level. Bhagavatam talks for example of when Pruthu Maharaj is told by his citizens that, oh, we are starving, there is no food.
He doesn’t tell them, oh, this world is dukkha layam, we are now realizing the world is dukkha layam. Just remember Krishna and go back to Godhead. When he is a king, he takes the responsibility of being as a king.
He arranges at that level for the provision of the necessities for the citizens. But after that, he himself does a yajna in which Vishnu comes and he, after darshan of Vishnu, he himself instructs his citizens and he himself receives instructions from the sages. Now, Yogendra is described in the 11th canto.
So, the point is that he, when he is in that role of a king, he takes care of the material responsibilities, but that is not all that he does. He takes care of the spiritual side also. When we get too caught in the immediate, then our consciousness can’t stay fixed in Krishna.
But if we stay too caught in the ultimate, then we may create unnecessary problems for ourselves. That means, yeah, if I get too caught only in the ultimate, I may create unnecessary problems for myself. How is that? There are many devotees in the West who lifelong did book distribution and they would carry huge bags for distributing books.
Book distribution is very good, but many times you carry huge bags all day, the bag starts spinning. They say, no, we are doing it for Krishna. He has neglected it.
And now they have got serious bag problems. Some devotees suggested, some devotees are intelligent, practical, said, okay, we have to carry the books, but let’s have bags with wheels. So, some devotees, brother devotees told him, you don’t have faith in Krishna, why can’t you do some austerity for purpose of increasing our service to Krishna? It is that, at one level, we are told, say, for example, Janmashtami we fast, Ekadashi we fast, but then on an average level, what is said, Yuktahara viharasya, eat regulatedly.
It is interesting that Bhagavad Gita says that, one who eats too much or eats too little, naati ashnatas tu yogasthi, na chai kaanta manashnata, na chaati sapna shilasya, jaagruto nahi vacharjuna. That one who eats too little cannot become a yogi. It’s interesting that this verse is talked to, Krishna is talking this verse and referring to yogis who have renounced the world and gone to the forest.
Shucha udeshe patishthapis tira maasana maatmana. Even for them, Krishna is saying, you can’t eat too little. So, the body is a machine and it needs to be taken care of.
Suppose, say, we are driving a car. Now, I’m driving for a program. Yes, but if the fuel indicator says there’s no fuel, I’m driving for Krishna’s program, so Krishna will take care.
And you stop in the midway and then you can’t move. No, I’m going for a program with Krishna, why didn’t Krishna take care? A devotee does not demand that Krishna intervene in the ordinary affairs. We have the famous pastime of Sanatana Goswami and Jiva Goswami, isn’t it? Or Rupa Goswami.
Rupa Goswami was in Vrindavan. He was sitting and doing bhajan and then a tiger came over there. Oh, Raghunatha Goswami, sorry.
Raghunatha Goswami was there and a tiger came over there and Krishna was standing with a stick to protect. Another time, he was doing bhajan in the sun and Radharani was protecting with her own chandar. Now, what does Sanatana Goswami say? We are here to serve Radha Krishna.
We are not here to take service from them. He says, make a kutir for yourself. Because the kutir is mundane.
I don’t care. No, but that is not the mood of a devotee. The mood of a devotee is that for practical affairs, what I need to do, I will do it.
Suppose, if I have to travel by train, I don’t take a ticket. And then I say, I am going for Krishna’s service. My Lakshmi is used for Krishna’s service.
I will not pay the money and Krishna will protect me from the ticket conductor. No, we can’t demand like that from Krishna. We do what we can at the immediate level to address things, but we don’t get caught at the immediate level.
So, taking care of only the ultimate and neglecting the immediate, that may lead to aggravating our problems unnecessarily. Similarly, if you take care only of the immediate and neglect the ultimate, then the immediate has no end. One after another and after another immediate will keep coming.
So, we have to, okay, this much I am going to address the immediate, but I am going to focus on the ultimate. My time for the ultimate is there and I am going to use it that way. So, conclude with two points now.
First is that when we talk about suffering, the point I was making is, sometimes the memory is given about, okay, you did this, you got this, but never is somebody made to feel bad, you are suffering because of your past bad karma. So, when somebody is going through problems, why they are going to problems is a mystery. We may say it is because of karma, but we ourselves don’t know.
Can we know for sure why somebody is suffering? Do if you say you are suffering because of your past karma, do I really know what karma that person had done? I don’t. So, in terms of philosophy, I may accept the principle, but there is always an element of mystery over there. So, when somebody is suffering, we don’t focus on making them, on making them feel bad that it is because of their karma they are suffering.
Our focus should be not on what is their karma, our focus should be on what is my dharma. In this situation, what is my duty? So, if a baby is crying, should the mother think the baby is crying because of her own karma? Obviously not. The mother has to think, what is my dharma? And I have to take care of the baby.
In all religious traditions, practically, there is this big problem of why bad things happen. So, in the Bible, in the Old Testament, there is a story of a character called Job. So, this Job is a very pious, virtuous person, lives in charity and worships God and suddenly starts losing everything.
In his farms, fire breaks out, his ships which have gone for shipping, they sink, his family members get sick and they die, his children die, he is left with nothing. And at that time, he has some friends who come and tell him, they are trying to, they are all religious people, so they are trying to defend God in that situation. He says, as you sow, so shall you reap.
So, Paul, you must have done something bad, that’s why you are getting this suffering. God is just. And they keep telling him that, keep telling him that.
And in this case, there is no knowledge given, in the Bible, there is no direct reference to previous lives in general, but there is no explanation given. And eventually, he protests, he, you know, why am I suffering like this? It’s better I may not have been born itself. My life is filled with so much suffering.
He queues, he queues well to his feelings. But eventually, the suffering becomes invariable, he calls out, Oh God, why is this happening to me? And then God’s voice comes over there. He says, do you know where you were, when I fashioned the whole earth? Do you know where you were, when I created the mountains? Do you know what happened in this world, through all that happened before you were born? So, basically, he, God does not give any specific reason.
But he points out the limitedness of the knowledge of Job and the unlimitedness of the knowledge of God. And on hearing this, Job surrenders. He says, God, let die will be done.
And then, after that, when he does the surrender, then Job gets everything back. He gets, his farm gets restored and becomes wealthier than before. Now, he has many children, he has a good family, and he becomes more and more prosperous.
And then he has the opportunity to get back at his friends, but he doesn’t do that. So, sometimes people want to help us, but in the name of helping us, they make us feel bad. Now, that is not what we are meant to do.
Our purpose when somebody is suffering is not to defend God or to even defend our faith. Sometimes we get into that mood, bad things happen. You know, they must have done some bad karma, that’s why it’s happening.
God is fair. At that time, the point is not to try to prove our faith or to try to prove God’s goodness. The point is, at that time, we don’t have to prove God’s goodness, we have to manifest God’s goodness.
That means, just be kind, just be helping, just be gentle, just be there for them at the time of the grief. So, the second point I want to make is that, we are going towards spiritual health. But while going towards spiritual health, we also have to take care of our emotional health.
Spirituality is meant to be not just spiritually healthy, but also emotionally healthy. So, what do I mean by emotional health? Say, if somebody has had an accident or a fracture, and they got wounded, they are in bed now. Now, they are going to need time to recover.
And that recovery, during that time, we have to be understanding. Yes, this is a difficult situation, and if we can help them in some way, we help them. And then gradually recover.
Now, if somebody’s got a physical fracture, we easily understand, they can’t function normally. They’ll be in bed, and they need some help. So, similarly, just as physically people can get wounded, sometimes in life, people can get wounded emotionally also.
And we don’t have to think that my spiritual advancement is seen by how I act as if I’m not wounded. Sometimes somebody has lost some loved one, and they start, they may try to conceal their grief, because they will think, oh, people will think I’m so attached. No, there is a healthy process for grieving.
When a person is wounded, that wound has to be healed. In the Ramayana, in the Mahabharata, when Abhimanyu is killed, Arjuna gets devastated, he cries, he actually is broken down completely. And then after that, he lashes out at his brother, he says, what is the use of all your weapons, you couldn’t protect my son? Are they just bangles for show? And he turns to Krishna, Krishna, you must have known.
Why didn’t you tell me? Now, Krishna himself doesn’t try to defend himself, doesn’t say, no, don’t you have faith in my perfect plan? Krishna doesn’t say that. Krishna is understanding. Krishna tells him that, oh, Partha, grief comes in the life of everyone.
But great people act in a way to decrease others’ grief, not to increase their grief. See, your brothers, they are all grieving. Don’t speak word that will hurt them further.
Krishna is understanding, Krishna is there with him. Krishna is not a God up there judging him and condemning him for his anger. Krishna is there with him, helping him to deal with that anger.
Similarly, when Draupadi is disrobed or attempted to be disrobed, then we know that she gets an unlimited saree at that time. But nobody sees where that saree is coming from, it just comes. And people think that because she is so chaste, she is miraculously protected.
She calls out to Krishna, but Krishna doesn’t directly come over there. When she meets Krishna in the forest, after they’ve been exiled, Krishna comes there and she’s so upset, she’s so angry, she says, Krishna, I called you, why didn’t you come? And what does Krishna say? Again, Krishna doesn’t say, if you are my devotee, she says, I’m your devotee, I deserve your protection. He says, if you are my devotee, you should have faith in my plan.
He doesn’t say like that. He says, I didn’t know what happened. He says, there’s a demon who had attacked Dwarka, and I was fighting against him.
I was completely busy. As soon as I came to know, immediately I’ve come here. And he encourages her, he consoles her, he strengthens her.
So when for us, something wrong happens in our life, we may get wounded emotionally. And at that time, when we are emotionally wounded, it is not that, or if somebody else is, firstly, from our side, it’s not that we necessarily have to suppress those emotions. We don’t have to express the emotions to the whole world.
But expressing to some close friends, that is essential for grieving and healing. There are emotions within us, unless we grieve, the emotions don’t get healed. So now, if somebody keeps grieving for a lifetime, that is in the mode of ignorance.
But to say that something terrible has happened, we should not grieve at all. That’s suppression of emotions. If my hand has got fractured, there will be pain.
Now, for the rest of my life, I keep thinking, oh, I’ve got a fractured hand, my hand got fractured, that I’m staying obsessed with that. That’s not good. Just as physical wounds heal over time, emotional wounds will also heal over time.
But just as we don’t expect that just because I’m a devotee, I should act as if I’m not physically wounded. No, the physical wound is there, I’ll have to adjust myself accordingly. So this emotional wound, I have to adjust myself accordingly.
So, the same principle we apply with others, that we want to deal with the ultimate. We want to deal with the ultimate cause that is absorption in Krishna. But at the same time, that absorption in Krishna is not meant to make us stone-like and desensitized to all normal human emotions.
Actually, our emotional capacity is not to be suppressed, it is to be expanded. That means, yes, it is bad, this person did like this to me, this happened, I feel bad about it. But I look beyond this person to Krishna.
So, the way this person has acted, that’s going to cause me pain. But when I see Krishna, I understand Krishna has some plan. So now, it is not that everything that happens is good.
Bad things happen in life. And nobody tells Draupadi, when she’s dishonored. You know, it’s not like that.
It’s a bad thing. And everybody condemns that bad thing. But from the bad, good can come.
And Krishna will bring good from the bad. So now, why that bad happened? If there’s something which we can learn, by which we can reform and make amends, that’s good. Otherwise, going into the zone of why that bad thing happened is not very helpful.
We focus on simply healing, which will be by the appropriate process on the immediate level. And say, if I’m hurt, I express my emotions at the immediate level, address them. At ultimate level, I absorb myself in Krishna.
And thus, we can go over the distresses that we face in life. So, I’ll summarize what I spoke today. I spoke about the nature of Krishna’s protection.
That, is it that Krishna protects us from our past karma only or from the mistakes that we make in this life also? So, we discussed how the bull refuses to assign any cause to his suffering. He doesn’t identify Kali. And Pariksit appreciates him for that.
So, the whole mood of the Bhagavatam is to not get caught with the immediate cause. So, problems come, there’s an immediate cause. I slip and fall on water and get a fracture.
The water being spilled or my walking on the water, that’s the immediate cause. My past karma is the remote cause. And my forgetfulness of Krishna, because of which I’m in the material world, that is the ultimate cause.
Bhagavatam’s mood is to address the ultimate cause primarily. But that doesn’t mean that we look only at the ultimate. So, then how important is the immediate cause? We look at Pariksit Maharaj.
He, a small mistake, but big reaction. But he didn’t blame the immediate cause, he focused on addressing the ultimate cause. In the case of Chitraketu, again a small mistake in terms of disrespecting someone, big reaction.
In that case, as well in the case of Gajendra, the reaction came that he went to another life, he got another body. And in that the consciousness covered for some time. But then when it emerged, it emerged amazingly.
The same evolved spiritual consciousness was there, that came back. Now, if you consider where there is a mistake, not just in terms of not just interaction with someone, disrespect, but it is an attachment. Jadbharat and Ajam will discuss.
So, Jadbharat, the material level, because of his attachment to a deer, he got a body of a deer. But at the spiritual level, even the deer body he had advanced, not just human, but spiritual consciousness. So, that means, at the material level, the reactions may come.
But at the spiritual level, the consciousness will be protected. With respect to Bhishma, Krishna did not overlook his sin, his wrongdoing because of his devotion. But Krishna did not neglect his devotion because of his wrongdoing.
And then Ajamil’s case, what started off intentionally, unintentionally, became intentional eventually. Krishna protected in different ways. Sometimes, he protects by intervening in a visible way at this level, as it happened with Ajamil, he has Vishnu Uttas, and with respect to Gajendra Hakeen himself.
Sometimes, Krishna may not intervene at immediate level, as it happened in the case of Dhritarasura and Pariksit. But still they were absorbed in Krishna. So, we should not get so consumed in the immediate that we neglect the ultimate.
At the same time, we should not get so caught in the ultimate that we neglect the immediate. We balance both. And when somebody is suffering, the point is not the cause of the suffering.
The point is the cure for the suffering. Rather than worrying, what is their karma, we should focus on what is my dharma. And rather than trying to point out, must have done some bad karma because of which you got this, we focus on the principle that actually our knowledge is finite, Krishna’s knowledge is infinite.
I talked about the story of job from the Bible. And we just try to connect with Krishna at a practical level, connect with Krishna in whatever way we can. So, when somebody is suffering, we have to acknowledge the emotional wound.
It’s not that venting our emotions is a sign of attachment. What is, is that the physical wound will take time to heal, emotional wound will take time to heal. So, just as somebody because they are emotionally, suppose they got a fracture and they don’t do any exercise only.
They don’t try to heal only. They stay forever in bed. That’s not a good thing.
Similarly, because of an emotional wound, one stays forever wounded and doesn’t try to get over it. That’s not good. But to not give them any time for healing and expect them to just be normal, that is also not proper.
So, we focus on how rather than trying to defend God’s goodness, we manifest God’s goodness. And by that, we can help others to move towards Krishna and we can ourselves move towards Krishna. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. Any questions or comments? I have a question. It’s a corollary to what you just explained that when we say concentrate not on the immediate but on the ultimate, the corollary is when we try to do bhakti or when we try to do any activity, we try to do that concentrately at that moment, trying to be in the present.
But many a times it is observed we normally are not in the present. We try to think of future and past. We get entangled playing with that game.
We worry about the past and we plan good things for the future. But we are not in the present. Is it the right thing? Similarly, I was thinking in practical life how we handle this.
So, if we are not in the present, we are caught up in the past, the future, what to do. In the mode of goodness, we are in the present. We try to be in the present.
In the mode of passion, quite often we are in the future. I will get this. I will enjoy this.
I will achieve this. In the mode of ignorance, we are in the past. This went wrong.
That went wrong. This happened like that. That happened like that.
Now, in the mode of transcendence, we are with Krishna. Now, living in the present is good. At the same time, our goal is not to live for the present.
We want to live in the present for Krishna. So, the live in the present can be just people can say, oh, youth is temporary. Just enjoy while you have the youth.
Live in the present. That is not our philosophy. Our purpose is live in the present for Krishna.
So, sometimes if there is a great pain in the present, living in the present can actually be painful at that time. So, that time, if somebody is very sick, in the hope that in the future, there will be recovery, that is what can keep them moving onwards. So, we have to see if I understand that I am a servant of Krishna.
And how best can I serve Krishna? Sometimes I may have to think about the past and learn from the past. Sometimes I may have to look at the future and plan for the future. And both of these learning from the past and planning for the future can be done in the mode of service to Krishna also.
The problem comes when the mind takes control. It is not that being in the past or being in the future is the problem. It is who is in control that is the problem.
If I have consciously taken my mind to the past to analyze and learn from it, that is essential for growing. And if I consciously take my mind to the future and plan, that is also essential for doing a responsible service. But if the mind is in control, it is taking me here, taking me there, taking me there, then that will only make me more and more powerless.
So, then we have to try to get ourselves back to the present. So, one of the ways to do it is, there is material reality, there is spiritual reality and there is material imagination. So, when the mind goes off into the past or the future, it usually goes into material imagination.
There is the absent-mindedness of Lord Chaitanya described in Chaitanya Charita Amrut, where he is absorbed in Krishna’s past tense. He is not in the present, he is with Krishna in the transcendence. So, he is in spiritual reality.
We go into material imagination. So, a simple way to get ourselves to the material reality is, to get ourselves back to the present is just to become aware of the material reality. That means while doing something, we are aware of whatever, what we are doing.
So, usually to pull our mind back to the present, there are three simple questions which we can ask ourselves. What am I doing? What am I doing right now? Okay, so I am attending a discussion on the Bhagavatam. Why am I doing this? Because I want to remember Krishna.
Because I want to understand the philosophy of Krishna Bhakti more. I want to learn about the Bhagavatam. Whatever it is, we find our uses.
How am I doing it? It’s a long class. I’ve got bored now. I’m just feeling bored.
Yeah, but it’s not only just ending now. So, let me focus now. So, these three questions if we ask ourselves, what am I doing? Why am I doing? How am I doing? These questions will force our mind back into the present.
And then we can become aware. So, whenever we start getting irritated, when we start getting worried, whenever we start getting angry, we start getting bored, just ask these three questions and get the mind back to the present. And sometimes you can even need some aids also.
So, why am I chanting? At that time, your thoughts may come. Then maybe if you have some diary or some place where you have written, why is chanting important for me? I read it one, two, three, four. Yes, I have taken any decision.
Wow, I want to take any decision. Wow, this is a yoga dharma. Whatever reasons we feel most convincing, we keep them with us.
And then we move forwards. Okay, thank you. When we do some, let us say, some person comes to us for counseling, we talked about this dharma, what is your dharma? Instead of karma.
So, how do we understand? Understand what? Dharma. Okay, how do we understand what is our dharma? Yeah, that person’s. Okay.
So, if somebody is in trouble, and then when we have to respond, I said, we should not focus on our karma, on their karma, but on our dharma. So, how do we understand what we should do in that situation? Prabhupada writes in the 10th chapter purport that intelligence means to see things in proper perspective. So, if I have the overall purpose of my life clearly defined, then in the light of that purpose, I can look at other things.
So, say, if I am going along the road, and I see a beggar who is starving. Now, what is my dharma? If I have some prasad, I can give some prasad to that beggar. Now, that is, okay, I am going to the temple, this just takes a few moments for me.
But suppose there is a natural calamity somewhere. Now, isn’t that I should, I should take leave from my office, not only temple, and I go and do some food relief over there. Okay, if that is my service, if I’m a part of, say, a devotional food relief program or something like that, then I may do that.
But otherwise, I may not do that. Maybe we can just pray for the victims over there. So, we have to see that I have a primary purpose in my life.
And I am a finite living being. So, I cannot solve too many people’s problems. In fact, I can’t even solve all of my problems.
But so, I see in the light of my purpose, where do other things fit in? So, if somebody is a person who is like our counselor, whom we are taking responsibility for, then we may have to spend time with them and we try to assist them. And we should see how much we are in a position to assist. Sometimes when somebody is grieving, we just give them a ear to hear.
They feel better by that. But then you have to see what happens if somebody is in a mood of complaining about others. And then we hear their complaints, and then our consciousness goes down.
And then what happens is that we cannot take that for too long. So, there’s one devotee. I was talking to one senior devotee.
I met him over there. So, he told me that, he told his Prabhupada disciple, a sannyasi in a moment, he said, he told his servant that, you know, I’m not going to meet anyone for the next one week. I’ve been traveling and preaching.
I’m extremely tired. But then, still, I told him, I had gone to America, I said, can I meet him for some time? And I told the servant, and then he told Maharaj Maharaj, I said, just call him. And then we talked for more than two, three hours at that time.
This servant was quite a close friend of mine. So, he asked me that, then he said, he told me after that, he talked with Maharaj Maharaj, I said, you said, you don’t talk with anyone. We spent three hours with him.
That, he has not come with any of his problems. He has come to discuss philosophy. That gives me strength.
So, the point which I was making here is that, in association also, there is some association which gives strength, and some association which saps strength. So, we have to make sure that we stay strong enough. If I’m just hearing this person’s problem, this person’s problem, this person’s problem, it’s too much for me now.
But with somebody, I just discuss about Krishna. Look forward to that, you know. We discuss this philosophy, that philosophical point, discuss this pastime, discuss this verse.
That’s relishable. That doesn’t mean that we never discuss problems. We also have to help people where they are at.
This is a challenge. That means, you know, we have to be where people are, so that we can lift them up, and we can bring them to Krishna. But in going where they are, we don’t want to get stuck over there.
It’s like, say, somebody, we are, somebody is caught in a flood, and say, I am above, and I want to pull somebody from above out. If I keep pulling one person, second person, third person, and by that I get tired, and I lose my grip on top, and then I fall down, and I can’t help anyone. So, we have to make sure that we are ourselves connected with Krishna well, and then we can help others also.
So, we have to keep our purpose clear in our mind. And then, in the overall perspective of things, then we can see what is the dharma that I can follow in this situation to help this person. Does that answer your question? Thank you.
Like, you know, like they say, put on the mask. Put on your mask first. Yeah, that’s true.
Correct. We’ll stop here. Thank you very much.