Why do people who live religiously suffer terribly?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Sometimes religious people who have lived a religious life throughout their life they fall terribly sick Why does it happen? I understand what you are saying There are three levels of understanding this First is that we don’t practice religion simply as an insurance from suffering That is what many people may have an idea but the nature of this world is that everybody has to suffer Everybody will grow old, everybody will get diseased, everybody will ultimately die Whether it is religious or non-religious it doesn’t matter Imagine there are two people who are sick, they are in hospital, they are in pain So now one of them is taking a treatment, one of them has been diagnosed and the treatment is in progress For the other there is no diagnosis and no treatment also, there is speculation going on At one level both of them are in pain but their future is very different For the person who has been diagnosed and treated, the person is on the path to recovery The other person is going to suffer more and more Similarly when somebody is trying to be devoted to God That means that they are like a patient who is still in the hospital But they have been diagnosed properly and the treatment is in progress But as long as the sickness is there the pain will be there So we, while the soul is in this world, pain comes in some form or the other For some people we see pain coming from physical disease For some people pain comes as emotional distress For some people pain comes as financial anxieties For some people pain comes as being in an environment which is filled with danger So this is inevitable So our purpose in practicing in devotion is not protection at the horizontal level At the horizontal level life is a journey towards death and destruction And that will not stop me The protection which we seek is elevation to a higher conscience So expecting that our religion will protect us from suffering That expectation indicates an incomplete understanding of religion Yes there will be protection but there is a nature of the world which will not change Sometimes some people may suffer Now of course this raises the question that not everyone gets that kind of painful disease So what we understand here is that we all get, we all have different kind of karmic pasts And sometimes the reactions to certain actions are distributed over a wide period of time And for some people during some phases many reactions come at a particular time Sometimes people say this is a bad period going on in my life Bad period means it’s not just one thing, one, two, three, four, so many things start going wrong So sometimes our karmic reactions, they come in a concentrated dose Sometimes they come distributed So especially for those who are very devoted to the lord At that time it is quite possible that this life is their final life That means they are going to be liberated from material existence And for that liberation to be affected Sometimes the reactions which would have been distributed over many lifetimes They may get concentrated in one dose towards the end of this lifetime And by that those reactions get exhausted And then they can get liberated So it’s extremely painful when it happens But rather than seeing this as god not protecting You see that from a longer perspective This whole entanglement in this world is being ended At a third level you see that If especially somebody is deeply devoted Then when such distresses come What happens to them? They take deeper shelter of the lord When they take deeper shelter of the lord Then they themselves realize There is a physical level, there is a material level, there is a spiritual level So the material level when distress comes We normally fight to counter the distress at the material level And as long as we are living, we do, that’s a part of our duty When disease comes we take medicine Cold comes we wear warm clothes But at a particular point of time This fighting at the material level Becomes unproductive The forces, like an old age, that is approaching So at that point, at that time The point is to raise our consciousness to the spiritual level When we raise our consciousness to the spiritual level The body may be breaking down But the soul is absorbed in Krishna And because of that absorption in Krishna One does not undergo as much pain As one would have if one had been absorbed in the body So actually that time I know many devotees who have had difficulties In the last days, severe difficulties Was so absorbed in Krishna Actually what we experience Depends on where our consciousness is We may be in a comfortable situation In an air-conditioned house But if somebody is watching a horror movie Their consciousness in the horror movie, they are suffering They are suffering terribly Their consciousness is over there So similarly, somebody may be Somebody loves cricket And they are in a crowded cricket stadium Where everybody is sweating, it’s hot It’s congested But their consciousness is on the cricket field And they are enjoying Physically, they are in a very uncomfortable situation But because their consciousness is over there Somewhere they enjoy Actually they are at that level enjoying Basically the point which I am making is We experience reality Not just based on our bodily condition But on the location of our consciousness So for those who are devoted to the Lord They see bodily distress As an impetus for accelerating The raising of their consciousness to a spiritual level They take shelter of the Lord So normally when people are in distress They may cry out For those who are devoted They call out Krishna The loved ones will facilitate them The remembrance of the Lord And by that elevation of their consciousness to a spiritual level So many times we expect release from problems When we pray to God But what God sometimes offers Is not release from problems But relief amidst problems The problem remains But our consciousness gets elevated to a higher level If I am in a two storey building Then the ground level there is no air conditioning I am extremely hot And sweating and burning Scorching And in upper level Where actually there is air conditioning It is cool, comfortable So then we may not normally want to go to that level So hot over there Let me go there And once we get to that upper level But suppose somebody goes to the upper level Opens the door of the room where there is air conditioning But they keep the door open And goes down again They expect that Oh that air conditioning should come to the ground level That may take a long time to come So what we need to do is We sometimes want to use the spiritual To improve things at the material level Things at the material level By the grace of God will improve But they may take their own time So what we need to do is Raise our consciousness to the spiritual level So such kinds of great distress When even the devoted suffer They take this as an opportunity to Absorb themselves In devotion And their loved ones can also assist them In their absorption And thus they can Even when they have their body suffering They can transcend that suffering By raising their consciousness to the spiritual level In the Bhagavatam the third cantor has said that The various distresses of multilingual existence Come upon people But for those who are devoted to the Lord Their consciousness is absorbed in the Lord And therefore They do not experience the distress Because their consciousness is elevated upwards So we see such distressing situations As impetuses for raising the consciousness upwards And thereby they can transcend Thank you very much