Why do devotees sometimes suffer and don’t get relief despite praying?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Sometimes when devotees suffer terribly, and then they are praying to Krishna and there doesn’t seem to be any relief. So why do such sufferings come? Firstly, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, they themselves depict, on some occasions, defeat of the devotees, death of the devotees.
Chaitanya was killed by Ravana. Abhimanyu was also killed by the Kauravas. And the scripture does not fight shy from the reality that sometimes even those who are dharmic may be defeated.
And in fact, this theme is taken in the Bhagavatam to an extreme, where the Bhagavatam starts with the hero going to die. Normally, if you see movies, they talk about happily ever after. But here, the Bhagavatam starts with the hero about to die.
And in the whole Bhagavatam, there are so many stories. But what happens? At the end, he dies. You wonder what’s so great about it.
It seems to be like a very pessimistic narrative. We come to know about a person who has got a diagnosis of cancer. And then some book depicts about last one month of their life.
So there is no miraculous intervention in the Bhagavatam whereby Parishad Maharaj is saved of death. And yet, the whole Bhagavatam’s mood is never gloomy. The Bhagavatam’s mood is that Parishad Maharaj, by hearing about Krishna, by absorption in the remembrance of Krishna, will transcend the trauma of death.
He will not escape the event of death. The event of death will happen, but the magnitude of suffering caused by that event depends on the investment of our consciousness in that event. Say, for example, say there is an India-West Indies cricket match going on recently.
Now, if I am attached to cricket, then India losing the match causes me distress. But if I am not attached to cricket, okay, just an event. So the event becomes an experience to the extent I have consciousness invested in it.
And if my consciousness is not invested in it, then I don’t experience too much in relation with that. The whole Bhagavatam’s message is that, not that distress or disaster or death will not happen at the material level, but rather, by absorption in Krishna, one will be able to transcend the misery caused by these things. And whenever we say, tapatrayon munanashinam, the Bhagavatam says, all the threefold miseries will be destroyed.
That is talking about the destruction of the miseries, not so much in terms of the miseries not coming, rather in terms of developing the capacity to transcend those miseries by the practice of bhakti. So, in one sense, the central guarantee of bhakti is that, if we strive to remember Krishna, not necessarily the problem will be solved, but our affliction by that problem will be minimized. To the extent we raise our consciousness or we by absorption in Krishna, raise our consciousness about the problem, to the extent we will suffer less.
So even with respect to devotees, when they get some terrible accidents or whatever, we will see that, or even in our life, when we get some sufferings, actually if we think that if we had to go through those sufferings without having the shelter of bhakti, you know, we would have been in far greater trouble. Somebody gets a disease and then, if somebody is a materialist, then a disease means back to the end of enjoyment and what is the purpose of life left now? But for a devotee, life still goes on. Life may not go on in the same way, but there may be substantial changes on occasions, but still there is an opportunity to practice bhakti and to experience the shelter of Krishna.
And sometimes, when there is distress, at that time, when the normal material shelters that we have, when they are threatened or taken away, at that time, we take shelter of Krishna and find a shelter in His remembrance. Then we realize truly that this shelter is transcendental. Oh, I am sick, I am having a financial insecurity, this is wrong, that is wrong, and still I absorb myself in Krishna and I feel relief.
I feel some joy. It is extraordinary. How does this happen? That happens by, that actually demonstrates the transcendence of Krishna bhakti, the transcendence of the shelter that comes from remembering Krishna.
So, having said that, at the material level, the principles of karma largely apply. So, that means, to actions there are reactions. And Krishna is not directly involved with the action-reaction cycle.
So, Krishna is indirectly involved in the sense that He is the supervisor, and for the devotees, He takes charge of their lives. But it is not, in general, taught in scripture that we see that if some problem is coming in our life, it is not that Krishna is doing it. Suppose I have an accident, it is not that Krishna caused the accident.
It is Krishna allowed it to happen. There is a difference between the two. Krishna is not the cause of the suffering.
Krishna is the sanctioner, upadrashta, anumantacha. So, He is the overseer and the permitter. And sometimes He may allow certain things because of certain karma, but He is not the cause.
Now, bhakti gives the vision of God, not that He is somewhere up there and is watching us suffer and is not doing anything. Krishna is in here with us, and He is there to help us deal with the suffering. So, Krishna is not like a sage on a stage.
No, He is a guide by the side. He is a guide next to us, and He will give us shelter when we seek that shelter through bhakti. So, to see the suffering, we shouldn’t see the suffering as coming because of Krishna in any way.
Krishna is the ultimate cause of all causes, we say, but there is a difference between a sanctioning cause and a stimulating cause or initiating cause. When rains fall on the ground and there is weeds that grow, and the rains fall on the ground and crops grow. The rains are the cause of everything, but the rains are not responsible for the weeds or the crops growing.
That is what was shown over there. So, Krishna is like the rains. It’s our karma which determines what happens to us.
So, we don’t see that Krishna is causing this. Rather, Krishna is not the cause of our suffering. Krishna is actually the cure for our suffering.
By absorption in Krishna, the cure happens at different levels. First is, when we come to get the knowledge of Krishna bhakti, that at the very least, we know this is right, this is wrong. We avoid doing further bad karma.
Second is, Krishna bhakti frees us from the desire that makes us do wrong things. Sometimes we know something is wrong, but still we are impelled to do it again and again. Krishna bhakti, to a large extent, decreases our desire for doing those things.
Third is, this is with respect to what we are doing. Second two are part of what happens to us. So, in what happens to us, Krishna, the same problem may come in our life, but through absorbing Krishna, the impact of that problem will be minimized.
So, we won’t suffer as much as we would have if we did not have the shelter of Krishna. In that sense, Krishna offers us that shelter by which the suffering becomes minimized. And fourth is that sometimes Krishna may remove the karma itself entirely.
Now, if we reduce our expectations in Krishna, or rather we reduce Krishna bhakti to this fourth thing only. If I am practicing Krishna bhakti, then I should not get any problems. Then our expectations will be frustrated, and we are not having a holistic vision of what Krishna bhakti is doing in our life.
So, at the material level, just as, in a sense, just because somebody is a devotee, old age, disease and death are not going to stop. The pattern of nature is going to take its course. Similarly, within the pattern of nature, sometimes there can be accidents, sometimes there can be some infectious diseases, sometimes there can be robberies.
These things can happen. And it is not that we are meant to see that these things are good. There is a Hindi saying, whatever happened is good, whatever is happening is good, whatever will happen is good.
Now, this is not the teaching of the Gita, as far as I have seen. I think we discussed this in the class. So, everything that happens is not necessarily good.
Everything that happens can be for good. Krishna can bring good out of it. So, sometimes some things do happen that are bad.
In Abhimanyu’s scale, Krishna is upset. Krishna is angry the way Arjuna is angry. In the Upanishads, Krishna is angry about that later when he meets her.
So, overall, there are bad things that can happen even when you are practicing bhakti. And we are not meant to imagine that they are good somehow. They are bad.
But through the bad, Krishna can bring some good out later. And Krishna bhakti helps us in multiple ways and the guarantees that we practice bhakti, you know, our own lower desires will go away. We will get the knowledge of how to act in life so that we don’t get karmically implicated.
We will get shelter when life’s sufferings come. So, these three things will all happen. And the fourth thing, it may or may not happen.
And if you have too much expectation of this fourth thing, then we will always be insecure in bhakti. So, Krishna says, if you become conscious of me, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace. Krishna is not saying the obstacles will not come, you see.
You will be able to raise your consciousness and pass over the obstacles. That’s why what we should focus on is, this is not, we don’t create any insecurity necessarily for us. What we can see is, okay, whenever I have opportunity right now to practice bhakti, let me practice it enthusiastically.
And when problems come, Krishna will give me the strength to deal with them. And we can see this as insecurity or this uncertainty as insecurity, or we can also see it as a spiritual adventure. It’s not exactly, when we get suffering, it’s very difficult to see it as an adventure.
But the point is, that we can actually experience that when we lose some of the things which we had earlier felt that I can’t live without. And then at that time, we find the shelter of Krishna even then. Then the conviction over Krishna bhakti that we get, that is extraordinary.
So, that’s how it is.