Author Archives: Chaitanya Charan das

Are our present sufferings because of our past karma?
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Question: Are our present sufferings because of our past karma?

Answer:
Basically, there is a cause-effect connection in the world. If your child comes back home and got a black eye, you wonder what happened. He says, no, I just got a black eye. No, no, no, you just got a black eye. What happened? Did you get into a fight with someone? Whenever we see an effect, we presume that there must be a cause. A cause-effect correlation is something which we implicitly assume. Even, science operates that way. I had been invited to speak in Cambridge University. We passed by the same tree when Newton is said to have seen the fruit falling. So, when he saw the fruit falling, he asked the question, what made the fruit fall? And that’s how he came up with the theory of gravity. But the idea is when he saw the fruit falling, he asked what makes the fruit fall? That means he is assuming that things don’t happen just by themselves. There is a cause of the connection.

Both in our daily life as well as in science, we presume that there is a cause-effect connection. But there are times when we can’t see the cause of a connection. If a child has come with a black eye, you’ve got to fight with someone. Find out what the fight was. Sometimes we can find the cause. But sometimes we can’t find the cause with our own intelligence. Then we have two options. One is we can presume that there is no cause-effect correlation. Things just happen at random. Second is maybe there’s a bigger picture in which I can see. I need to place this in a broader framework in which I can see this cause-effect. So, intelligence means to frame things in the right context.

Each and every thing can be placed in different contexts. For example, if we start feeling very warm we could say that, am I getting fever? If we were feverish and we are feeling hot, maybe I am getting fever. That could be one context in which we place it. Another could be, oh, maybe the ventilation in this room is not very good, that’s why I’m feeling hot. Or maybe there’s too much crowding here. Too many people. That’s why it’s hot. Or it could be that the temperature has gone high and the summer has become too much now. Or we could say, oh, actually there is climate change. The temperature of the whole world is increasing and this indicates that we humans are disturbing the ecological balance. So, any of these contexts could be true.

Intelligence means we place things in the right context. If there is a problem that we are facing like the fan is not fast enough. We increase the fan and we feel reasonably comfortable. If a thing can be placed in a small context and understood, then it may not be necessary to go to a bigger context. But […]

Did God help Gajendra only when he stopped helping himself?
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http://www.thespiritualscientist.com/audio/CCD%20QA/2019%20QA/05-19%20QA/Did%20God%20help%20Gajendra%20only%20when%20he%20stopped%20helping%20himself.mp3

 

Transcription :

Transcriber: Suresh Gupta

Question: Did God help Gajendra only when he stopped helping himself?

Answer: It is important to note that even surrender requires trying. Gajendra did not give up sinking in self-pity but instead looked up to call out to the Lord which also requires endeavour. In bhakti, there is a dual dynamic, there is dependence on Krishna and there is also diligence for Krishna, and both are integral to devotion. For things that are in our control, we need to have diligence to do them as nicely as we can. Arjuna practised archery painstakingly where he learnt the art all day and practised all night and that is how he became a champion archer and got the name Gudakesha. He did not think that he will depend on Krishna and shoot the arrow and Krishna will make it hit the target. Instead, Arjuna was practising painstakingly and that diligence was also his devotion. Therefore, for the things which are in our control, we need to be diligent and for the things which are not in our control, we need to be dependent. However, in some situations, we may think that it is in our control and we keep trying again and again but eventually realise that it is not in our control and then we surrender to Krishna.

Draupadi was also in a similar situation. She was trying to protect herself but when her endeavours failed, she finally surrendered to Krishna by raising her hands. But there is a big difference between Draupadi’s and Gajendra’s consciousness. Gajendra was completely in an enjoying mentality when he was out there in the lake for a picnic but Draupadi throughout her life was in a dharmic consciousness and at the time of disrobing she tried to persuade everyone to see dharma by questioning the stand of the elder members of the Kuru family. Hence, it is not that Draupadi was not surrendered before, it was out of surrender itself that she was trying to stay out of that calamity. Similarly, it is not that Arjuna was not surrendered when he was fighting. However, Gajendra was in materialistic consciousness and the emergency in his life put him in spiritual consciousness.

Both Arjuna and Draupadi were throughout their life in devotional consciousness and did their best in the mood of devotion to Krishna but at a particular point when they found that all the diligence was not enough then they shifted to depend on Krishna. In that sense, Gajendra’s evolution is from material to spiritual consciousness whereas for Draupadi and Arjuna, it is always spiritual consciousness, but from diligence in spiritual consciousness to dependence in spiritual consciousness. Both situations are not similar.

Sometimes we get caught in doership mentality thinking ourselves to be the cause and might also not remember Krishna but when things do not work out, we become humble and pray to Krishna. This is how we go from material to spiritual consciousness like Gajendra. At the same time, we should […]

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Does the upside-down tree metaphor of Gita chapter 15 imply that there’s a separate tree for each individual soul?
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http://www.thespiritualscientist.com/audio/CCD%20QA/2019%20QA/05-19%20QA/Does%20the%20upside-down%20tree%20metaphor%20of%20Gita%20chapter%2015%20imply%20that%20there%27s%20a%20separate%20tree%20for%20each%20individual%20soul.mp3
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