Krishna’s gifts.
Mahatma Das: Today’s quote is entitled Krishna’s gifts. Krishna’s gifts may come through suffering. They can reform us in a way that we further advance in devotional service.
It is just sometimes that Krishna’s gift wrapping can fool us.
So the idea is that if everything in the world was perfect because we have such strong desire to enjoy we may never come to the spiritual life.
But is the suffering that pushes us. And we all know this, this is why we have become devotees or those of you who are becoming devotees have looked at the world and asked the question: why the world is imperfect. Why am I not always happy? Why is there suffering in the world?
And we also know that through suffering we often learn our greater lessons, through suffering we become stronger and suffering reminds us of Krishna’s teachings.
For example, we know, in Bhagavad-gita, Krishna has described this world as a temporary place, where pleasures begin and end. Where life begins and ends. And that we should be aware of birth, old age, disease, and death. So sometimes we forget, so what Krishna do? When we forget He reminds us. How does He remind us? He creates a situation where there is some pain either physical or emotional, or a pain in a relationship, or pain due to attachment to something that we can not give up. Or pain due to not having something or hankering for. And when we are experiencing the pain then we are actually receiving Krishna’s instructions but in a real life experience.
So sometimes we read Bhagavad-gita and Krishna will say: From the highest planet down to the lowest is a place of suffering where repeated birth and death take place. So we read that, we understand it and say yes, this is my impetus to go back to Godhead, or one of them by understanding the temporary nature of the world and the nature of suffering that exists in this world. But then when the actual suffering comes to us we don’t like it. Specially sometimes someone brings it to us and we don’t like that person.
But let’s look at it this way, that person is bringing the same teaching of Krishna that you appreciate. They are just bringing it as a lesson of life not as an instruction, not as a written text on paper but the text in paper becoming alive. You could call it a life-lesson as opposed to a word lesson.
So they ar bringing the same word lesson that Krishna is given but they are giving it now in a form of life. And so when that person brings that lesson sometimes we have very nasty things to say about them. So we bow down to Krishna, we bow down to Bhagavad-gita and then when somebody brings us the same lesson we don’t bow down to them we call them some nasty names. That’s actually hypocrisy. And if we understand that everything is a karmic reaction and all karmic reactions are ultimately meant to edify us, to enliven us, to instruct us and bring us closer to Krishna then there can be no enemy, there can be no one to hate because all that’s happening and everyone is just bringing us closer to Krishna because whenever we go through difficulty, whenever we suffer it brings us closer to Krishna, we think of Krishna: why am I suffering why is this happening and it is nullifying that tendency to enjoy. So every time we suffer we are chipping away a little bit more of that tendency to enjoy this world.
So that person who brought us the suffering is actually pushing us closer to Krishna and Krishna is using that person to push us closer to Him. So in that way, everything is working to bring us closer to Krishna. If we can just see it that way then everything can be a positive experience. So it’s very important point and very necessary point to understand otherwise when difficulties come will start to blame Krishna, we won’t understand why a loving God can allow this to happen. But really we should hear Krishna saying whatever I’m doing everything I’m doing is just to help you come closer to Me. Hare Krishna!
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