Who is Narayana? What is the difference between Krishna and Narayana?

From: Roshan Hota

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Bhai Charan Prabhu. How much does exercise, medication interfere with one’s destiny? Answer. Destiny is not static.
It is dynamic. And we have to understand that we have a duty towards what we do in this life, towards our bodies and our possessions even in this life. When Swamiji Prabhupada got the news of some devotees in America who had met with a road accident because of rash driving and had actually passed away in that accident.
So, the devotees reporting said, Prabhupada, it was their destiny. Prabhupada said, no, it was not their destiny. It was their carelessness.
Prabhupada emphasized the point, it was their carelessness. So, now, of course, nobody dies unless they are destined to die. But the point actually Prabhupada was making is that it is our responsibility also to act properly.
If you look at the past time of Vasudev and Kamsa, then Vasudev is telling Kamsa, oh Kamsa, if it is your destiny to die, then how can you stop it? What is the use of killing your sister and trying to avoid destiny, which you can’t avoid in any way. I know Vasudev is not turning the argument around to himself and thinking, okay, if it is Devaki’s destiny to die, then what can my efforts do? Let her just die. What is the point of my trying anything? And there is a verse and a purport over there where Shri Prabhupada explains that it is the duty of a person to make his best efforts possible to protect his life.
And further in the Bali Maharaj section, in the 8th Canto of Shri Madhya Bhagavatam, there is the reference that only when the tree is alive, then it can give fruits. And similarly, it is said that only as long as one is healthy, can one actually practice Dharma and ultimately get the fruits of Artha, Rama and Moksha. So, the point is that taking care of the body is also a duty.
And in the first context, Vasudev is arguing and reasoning to stop Devaki’s death. And in the second context, Shukracharya is telling Bali Maharaj, don’t give away your Artha to this Vamandeva, because then you will have no way to live. So, again the point is that it is our duty to take care of our body.
And a part of the duty is medication, exercise, etc. So, they don’t interfere with destiny, they comprise duty. Now, there are other questions on destiny, if you just give a search for destiny over here on the website, you will get several other questions on destiny, which talk about the balance between destiny and duty.
The important point, which I will just summarize here, is that as I started, destiny is not necessarily static, it is dynamic. So, our karmic bank account is something which has a fixed quantity from what we have done in the past, but what we are doing in the present is also adding to it. So, if a person smokes recklessly and then gets lung cancer, the person can’t say, it’s my destiny.
You know, it’s that person’s stupidity that in this time, in this life itself, see that person acted so thoughtlessly and intelligently that he got that particular consequence. Similarly, if a person overeats and gets a stomach upset, then the overeating is the cause of the stomach upset. And the person cannot say, oh, it is my destiny to get a stomach upset.
We have to understand karma in terms of its balancing principle of dharma also. Karma means that we will get some karmic reactions, but dharma is what we are supposed to do. So, taking care of the body and doing exercise and medication, they are a part of our dharma.
And Shri Prabhupada writes in the Vasudeva Purport, that if after one’s best efforts to try to save one’s life, if one is not able to save, then one is not to be blamed for that. Similarly, after doing exercise, after doing medication, then if we are not able to take care, still we get some problem in health, we understand that that is destiny. So, the knowledge of destiny is meant for two purposes.
First purpose is to not become unusually over-ambitious about material things and distract ourselves from spiritual endeavors. And the second is to know that even when we endeavor sometimes in material life, if we don’t get some results, we understand that it’s destiny. But it is not meant to be used as justification for giving up our duty.
So, if a student is studying and the student says, I want to study 16 hours a day, it’s not practically possible. I want to study 16 hours a day or 18 hours a day or whatever, and therefore I don’t have any time for my spiritual life. Then that person has to be told, ultimately you have your destiny.
And by neglecting one’s Krishna Consciousness, one is not going to get more marks than what one is supposed to get. But if that person says, okay, if it’s my destiny, I’ll get whatever marks I want. So, I will not study at all.
Then that person is neglecting the duty. So, then that person has to be told, no, you have to do your duty. And if a person does his duty very well and still doesn’t get the result, then that person has to be told, yes, sometimes destiny may work out an unfairly for us because of some past bad karma.
So, in these two extreme situations, when one is over-endeavoring in material life, and secondly, when one endeavors in material life and doesn’t get the result, at that time one needs to look at the principle of destiny and incorporate that into one’s thinking. But in normal situations, destiny should not be used as justification for giving up one’s duty because then there is no upper limit to this abdication of duty. When an infant is crying for the mother’s milk, the mother may think, oh, by giving my baby the milk, I will be interfering with his destiny because that crying and suffering for the baby may be his destiny.
So, where do we stop over there after that? Certainly, the Vedic culture is not absurd, it’s not hard-hearted, and it defines dharma as an extremely important principle. And doing our duty is essential. So, doing our duty should never be considered as interference in one’s destiny.
When we need to be reminded of our destiny is when we get so caught up in the material duties that one doesn’t want to spare time for spiritual life and one doesn’t want to consider the fact that sometimes even beyond my hands, beyond my control, factors may work out and not give me the desire to exercise. Somebody starts saying, I want to do exercise and take medication, and so I have no time for chanting Hare Krishna. Then that person should be told, no, you need to adjust your lifestyle a little bit so that you can do both.
Somebody says, I want to, just to have a fit body, I want to do six hours bodybuilding every day. That is not required, that is over-endeavor. So, there should not be any prayas, and at that time a person can be told about destiny.
But in general, one should not use destiny as a justification for neglect of duty. And if we use, if we consider that exercise and medication are interfering with one’s destiny, then actually what we are doing is we are creating further bad destiny for us, ourselves. Because if, just because what is bad, what, how is destiny created? Destiny is created by bad karma.
And if I neglect my body now and don’t take my medicine, then what am I doing? I am doing, in one sense, bad karma. And you can look at it another way, rather than interfering with destiny, we can see it another way that, okay, I have to go to the doctor and take this messy treatment. So, this undergoing the suffering of taking the treatment is also part of my destiny.
If at all one wants to look at destiny in that way, say somebody has to spend some time and doing exercise. Now, exercise is not something which most people look forward to. But then one has to understand that maybe it is by my destiny that I have got a sickly body.
And therefore, it is a part of my destiny to have to do this exercise. So, to conclude, the principle of destiny can be interpreted by anybody in any manner. So, how do we understand destiny? We have to look at it in just one simple understanding.
Whatever is favorable for my devotional service, I will accept that. Whatever is unfavorable, I will reject that. So, in general, for our long-term practice of devotional service, health is important.
And for the sake of health, what is unequal? Taking, doing some basic exercise, doing some basic meditation is essential. So, accept it. And we need not use destiny to neglect our body and then complain to Krishna, why Krishna, you are not protecting me.
No, Krishna has given us dharma and through the dharma, when we do our duty, that is also one way Krishna, through the wisdom of the scriptures, is protecting us. And we need not neglect that particular wisdom. So, keep this underlying principle in mind that, whatever is favorable for devotional service, I should not reject that.