When envy is the cause of our material bondage, how did Shishupala’s envy lead to his liberation?

Transcript

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Thank you. Question, if you want to. Envy is the cause of our coming to material existence and staying in material existence.
So, if somebody has envy for Krishna, as Krishnapal had, then how did he become delivered? There are two different principles of acting over here. One is the generic envy for Krishna, which basically means that we are self-conscious rather than Krishna conscious. We think that I will be the enjoyer.
Although we may say that it is envy to Krishna, the center is not Krishna in this case. The center is my own self. Most people who, we say, call it the philosophy of envious of Krishna, they don’t even know Krishna, they don’t care for Krishna, they may not even believe in the existence of God.
They are self-conscious. So, what causes our bondage is forgetfulness of Krishna and obsession with ourselves, because of which we do bad karma. Now, that is of course a result of envy of Krishna.
But in the envy of Krishna, there is no Krishna consciousness. There is no consciousness that I am envious of Krishna. There is only self-consciousness.
Whereas, in the case of Shishupal, when he was envious of Krishna, yes, the envy was there, but there was consciousness of Krishna. So, what purified him was not the envy. What purified him was the consciousness of Krishna.
And this is the distinctive teaching of the Bhagavatam, that any attitude with which one thinks of Krishna, if one is thinking of Krishna, one will become purified. That is the potency of Krishna. So, now… Our Acharya has given the example that we say that a demon is killed by Krishna, and that demon gets delivered.
So, should we ourselves try to become demoniac and let Krishna come and kill us? No, the problem is that we will never become so demoniac that Krishna will come and kill us. And before we come anywhere near that, we will have so much bad karma, we will get other reactions for that. So, certain examples are given in scripture to illustrate the breadth of Krishna’s mercy, the magnitude of Krishna’s mercy.
And when those sort of things are shown, the examples of, say, people who are very much immoral or reprobate or distorted morally, when it is shown that the connection with Krishna they have delivered, the focus in them, the focus in those examples is not that one can also be as morally distorted as they are. The focus is that how powerful is the Krishna connection. And whatever… If I have some Krishna connection, that will surely purify me.
The focus should be on the Krishna connection. So, now, that’s why in that same section, in the Bhagavatam it is said that there is Maharaj Yudhishthir who was a pious king and who was persecuted. And in the Bhagavatam, there is also a story of another pious king who was also persecuted.
I think Maharaj Nalla. So, now, his story is told quite elaborately, but he is not a devotee, he is a dharmic king. So, he is not glorified in the Bhagavatam.
Although he was dharmic and although he was unjustly persecuted, because his center was not Krishna. Yudhishthir was glorified because his center was Krishna. So, in our case, our focus should be, we have envy, we have lust, we have greed, and Shishupal had envy, but that envy was directed specifically towards Krishna.
And although he was envious, it was because of Krishna consciousness. And that Krishna consciousness gradually purified him of the unworthiness which was there. And, of course, it is also true that those who approach Krishna with a negative motivation will not necessarily attain the same exalted destination as those who approach him with a positive intention.
Because, say, they may get liberated, but whether they will go to Goloka Vrindavan or whether they will go to an arena where they can personally serve Krishna, that will vary. Generally, the potency of Krishna is so great that he can cleanse the negativity within us. But then it is for us to develop the positivity or to show the positivity.
That means, the impurities may go away by contact with Krishna, but after that, the positive inspiration to serve Krishna, that will come only when either we desire it or we associate with some devotees who give us that desire. So, in Putana, we see that she had some desire to serve Krishna. Actually, the desire to serve Krishna was not there in this life.
In the previous life, she was the sister of Bali Maharaj and when she saw Vamana, she was just a nice boy. I would like to love him like a mother. And the Lord noted just that.
In the next life, He delivered her. So, that is how it is. There has to be some trace of service attitude and the Lord can magnify that by His mercy.
But because the negativity is focused on Krishna, it’s purifying. But for the full result of purification, there has to be positivity also. And for us, we should focus more on developing the positivity in our devotional service.
And whenever we see people who are negative extremes and who also get Krishna’s mercy, the focus is not on the negative extreme, but it’s focused on the potency of the connection with Krishna, of the meditation with Krishna.