Why did Krishna save Parikshit but not Abhimanyu?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So why did Krishna choose to save Parikshit but he chose not to save Abhimanyu? Was it destiny? Yeah, if you see that way, when Parikshit was cursed to die in seven days, you could say Krishna chose not to save Parikshit at that time, isn’t it? So the point is that the scripture gives us a picture of the totality of reality. That means scripture tells us of incidents when God intervenes and miraculously saves his devotees. And scripture also tells us of incidents when apparently God doesn’t intervene and disaster strikes.
So in the same Mahabharata if you see, on the 13th day Abhimanyu is killed, on the 14th day when Arjuna is about to die, at that time Krishna intervenes. Arjuna is about to immolate himself. Krishna intervenes and covers the son.
So you could say Krishna could have done the same thing the previous day only and saved Abhimanyu. This whole thing would not have happened. But no, the thing is in this world, sometimes God intervenes and protects in a way that we can see and sometimes God’s ways are that we don’t understand.
But in either situation, the devotees take shelter of Krishna. So Vyasadev tells Yudhishthira when Abhimanyu is killed, he says that actually Abhimanyu has attained the destination that is your aspiration. It is the aspiration of everyone.
So he says he has gone beyond this world of temptation and illusion. Why do we need to lament for that? We attained an auspicious destination. We need to work so that we attain a similar destination.
The spiritual perspective is often different from the materialistic perspective. So Krishna always protects. But the way he protects will vary.
And what his plan is, we can’t know in advance. So, we could say it is destiny. Now, we could also say it is Krishna’s plan directly.
Destiny basically means that it’s our own karma coming upon us in some way. Karma is Krishna’s plan. Krishna himself has some plan over there.
So, basically, when we practice bhakti, we can know for sure that if we take shelter of Krishna, Krishna will protect us from, Krishna will protect our consciousness. Sometimes we may get into a terrible, terrible situation, terrible health issue or whatever it is. Now, if we take shelter of Krishna, the body may be in pain, but our consciousness will be sheltered if we are absorbing ourselves in Krishna.
The body’s pain, the body, whatever it is going through, that will anyway be there. Okay, if Krishna intervenes miraculously and, say, protects us from some bodily disease and youth. But eventually, by the nature’s course itself, the body is going to grow old, it is going to get deceased and it is going to die.
So, as devotees, we don’t focus on Krishna’s protection at the material level. Naturally, the material level is important for us and if Krishna protects us at the material level, that’s wonderful. But we don’t base our relationship with Krishna on His protection at the material level.
That means, if Krishna protects me, oh, God is so good! And if Krishna doesn’t protect me at the material level, God doesn’t exist only. No, it’s not like that. As devotees, we understand that Krishna’s primary protection is that He will always protect our consciousness.
That means, the world may give misery, but if we take shelter of Krishna, we will be sheltered from that misery. So, we don’t have to go into worrying too much about whether Krishna will protect or not. We focus on whether I am trying to practice bhakti, whether I am trying to absorb my consciousness in Krishna.
If I am doing that, then the absorption in Krishna is itself the ultimate protection. Does it answer your question? Hare Krishna!