Why God is not always “nice”
Why God is not always “nice”
[Bhagavatam class on 9.10.24 at ISKCON, Washington DC, USA]
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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I spoke today on this theme of how God is not always nice that sometimes letting people suffer the consequences of their action is kindness and sometimes forgiveness can be cruel and punishment can be kind so I spoke three main points first point was that being nice is not always nice, so here Ram is speaking very harsh words to Ravan and we may in today’s world of political correctness such words might seem very jarring you are like human you are the lowest you are apprehensible but why is he speaking like this political correctness means sometimes being sensitive or posturing about being sensitive is elevated above being sensible so a doctor needs to be gentle and warm with the patient but even if the child doesn’t want to take an injection, doctor has to do doctor has to be beneficial more than nice and so in that connection Ravan has done a series of horrible actions and because of his lust not only has he violated grossly ethical principles not only has he been cowardly but he has caused the death of hundreds and thousands of people just because of his selfish lusty desire so in the fire of his lust thousands of warriors including his own brother and son have been sacrificed so he has to be made aware of the gross wrongs that he has done and ramp words are meant to jolt him into such awareness so sometimes the only way we can be saved from ourselves or a person can be saved from themselves is by separating them from the body separating the soul from the body because the body has such a strong momentum in the wrong direction that they just can’t be stopped and this is such an emergency situation the second point I talked about the lord is the well-wisher of everyone even those whom he has opposed so he spoke strongly to Ravan and he killed Ravan but then when Vibhishan didn’t want to perform the last rites he told him you have to perform the last rites so the lord’s apparent opposition to someone is only circumstantial it is not intrinsic the lord’s equality is not a simple neutrality the lord’s equality is equal reciprocity the government should be equal to all citizens but that doesn’t mean it gives wrongdoers who are meant to go to prison the same facility as it gives to students who have studied diligently to get a scholarship so the lord’s reciprocity is seen in the Narasimha Leela where both Hiranyakashipu and Prahlad get the lap of the lord but in entirely different ways because their disposition was different and the last point I talked about is that we need to sometimes we need to get the consequences of our actions to grow so overprotected children cannot grow properly so there is a love that guards which is maternal which is feminine which is needed especially in the infancy of the child and in the later ages of the child, the child needs the love that guides so if the child is not exposed to the realities of the world he is always protected from bad people bad things, life’s reversals, life’s refusals then when the child grows up the child is not equipped to face life if somebody is an addict then as a codependent keep protecting them from the consequences of the addiction the addiction goes further and further so the lord does not become a codependent with us in our material attachments so when when something bad is happening in our life and we are praying to the lord it appears as if the lord is not intervening it is not that he doesn’t care it is that he wants us to grow so rather than looking at the material difficulties around us if we can see how can I grow toward Krishna in this situation we will always find some light by which we can keep moving towards him thank you very much Hare Krishna any questions or comments