bhaktidd

Dear Guruvani, it is preaching like this, which I have heard many times throughout my 27 years as an initiated ISKCON devotee, which confuses devotees and makes them feel like they have no control over what's going to happen to them when they surrender to Krsna. "If I surrender to Krsna, He might make something really terrible happen to me, just to purify me. So maybe I'd better not surrender to Him." Lord Krsna only and always gives us exactly what we ask for. The only problem is, we don't know how it is that we are doing our "asking". Lord Krsna says, "as they surrender to Me, I reward them accordingly". Therein lies the answer of our asking. Our ONLY relationship is with Krsna. We can either accept Him or reject Him, and all we receive is due to grades of our acceptance or rejection. When devotees use terminology like: "mysterious ways", it makes it sound like Lord Krsna did something to the living entity which was not in direct relationship to how the living entity related to the Lord. This is actually against Krsna's own teachings. We surrender to Krsna with our consciousness, with our prana, our very being. That is why Krsna says: "Whatever state of being one remembers when he quits his body, that state he will attain without fail." So the answer is that Krsna is not punishing anyone, if there is any punishing to be done, you have asked for it previously (perhaps in a past life) through your consciousness. In effect you are punishing yourself. The only thing Lord Krsna can be "accused" of, is setting the whole system in place, other than that, we do it to ourselves. This in no way can excuse anyone for performing atrocious activities upon others. One cannot consider oneself Krsna's agent, and use that as an excuse to cause others to suffer. And it is not that we become callous, and say: "oh well, he/she had it coming to him/her". Yes, it is Krsna's mercy that we are in an eternal relationship with Him. But He does NOT cause our suffering. We do. In fact, He promises us shelter: "Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear." So here He promises us that when we fully surrender to Him, knowing Him to be the source of our existence and the supplier of all our needs, He takes away the reactions of all our consciousness mess-ups. He doesn't say: "surrender unto Me and I'll make sure that I'll give you some suffering so you can be purified", He says: "I will reward you accordingly." That means: if I relate to God by expressing envy in any of my dealings with anyone (remember our ONLY relationship is with Him, also played out through our relationships with others), He will return our envy with situations through which we will have to again experience envy of others. ...an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth... that's why: violence begets violence, hate begets hate, feeling like a victim begets more feeling like a victim, feelings of lack produce more lack, BUT if I surrender with Love, He returns Love. If we study the gita carefully, we come to understand that God, Krsna, has established a Perfect and Fair system of existence. There IS NO mystery, there IS NO guess work. It is all very clear. And that's why the learned sage is peaceful. He/She is totally at peace, knowing that all is just the way it is supposed to be. There is no more of this: "Why did God do this to me?" stuff, because you will know that Krsna only and ALWAYS gives us exactly what we have asked for in our vibrations. What you VIBRATE (in your state of being, your consciousness) is REPAID.

Yes. Everything IS as it should be, as not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the Lord. Everything He does is perfect. He created us to have a relationship with Him. A true relationship is a voluntary one, and therefore He has given us choice. So whether we choose Him, or we turn away from Him, that is our only choice. And because He has given us that choice, He knew that we could make "mistakes", i.e. NOT choose Him. And this is why God's creation is perfect. Even when "mistakes" are made: because it is all for our growth, for our ultimate realization that there IS no other relationship than the one we have with Him. All our other relationships are given to us by His grace. They are reflections of our consciousness, resulting from the choices we have made. He gives us whatever it is we want. Therefore, it is NOT POSSIBLE, to enjoy separate from Him, because all we experience, both GOOD and BAD, are due to His having created it, us and the choices we make.

I'm surprised no-one has yet posted this answer: Theoretically God can make mistakes, because He is able to do anything. Whether He does or not is a different matter. Just like the gopis, theoretically, could fall down from their service to Krsna, into the material world. They just choose not to. It's almost like being challenged by school buddies to do something, which you know is wrong: Of COURSE you are capable of doing the wrong thing, but if you don't do it, that doesn't mean you can't do it. ALSO: We are simultaneously ONE with God, yet different from Him. So I suppose God is making His mistakes through us. And yet He simultaneously provides the structure for our spiritual evolution, so that in the end, there's no harm done. i.e. the spirit soul can't be cut, burned, dried, can't perish, etc.

This is where it boils down to Lord Krsna's law of attraction. You see what you want to see. You don't see what you don't want to see. For you to be able to understand anything, you must want to understand it, otherwise you will always attract to you, all those understandings, circumstances, paradigms, etc., which back up what it is that you don't want to perceive. A digression here as to why this is so. From our Krsna Conscious viewpoint: Lord Krsna is all attractive - WHY ? Not just because of His possessing all six opulences in full: all beauty, all knowlege, all strength, all wealth, all renunciation, all fame. He is not all attractive only because "He's the most beautiful and therefore He appeals to me" etc., BUT He is ALL ATTRACTIVE because He is the source of our creation, our existence. We exist on a vibrational level, because of our creator, because of Him. Because He is what we are made up of. And so, when devotees come in direct contact with God, with the source of our existence, we recognize that quality of energy, from which we are created. It's like coming home - it's familiar. He (to an infinitesimal degree) is who we are, because we are simultaneously one with Him, and yet different from Him, because we have our own unique personality. So Krsna is all-attractive = everyone is attracted to Him, because He is the source of the energy of their existence - their basis, and at every moment he continues to cause all living entities to exist. Krsna is all attractive = He attracts ALL which resonates with His energy, and it ALL does because it was created from Him. and Therefore, because we are tiny, infinitesimal fragments of Him we also have this same quality of all-attraction. We attract everything which resonates with us, with our consciousness. So if you want to prove that God doesn't exist - you will find all the ways and means to do so, because you are attracting that by your very consciousness, by your very being. And if you want to prove that God DOES exist, you can do that also, because you will attract all those arguments, experiences, etc., that resonate with your conviction of the non-existence of God. In other words, it comes down to this. For ANYONE to accept that GOD or anything else for that matter exists, they must WANT it within their very consciousness, within their very BEING. Otherwise it is not possible to change anyone's mind, if that mind wants to keep a firm viewpoint of the opposite of what you are trying to convince them of. And this is exactly what Lord Krsna means when He says: Bh.g.10.9 mac-citta mad-gata-prana mat-gata-pranah--their lives devoted to Me It is interesting that Krsna here uses the word "prana", meaning that his devotees are devoted to Him, HOW ? with their prana - with their very life air, their very BEING. With their consciousness which pervades their entire existence. Any thoughts?

my question is: what makes you think Krsna is blocking Himself?

or literally: by all knowledges I am to be known. and so by any form of knowledge one can prove the existence of God, if that is one's intention. I saw "what the bleep do we know" and what stuck in my mind was the statement about quantum physics: "Quantum physics has proven that there cannot be a universe without a conscious perceiver". and so, by this very statement they have proven that there must be God, because it's one thing to say that each of us experiences our own universe, that we each are a conscious perceiver, BUT: I am only one perceiver, perceiving one viewpoint, and you also are only one perceiver, perceiving only your viewpoint. SO... WHO is that BEING who consciously perceives all of our viewpoints simultaneously, because all of us who exist do all exist and have different viewpoints simultaneously, so for that to even be possible, according to their own statement, there must be ONE PERCEIVER, who perceives all of us at once.... Exactly like Lord Krsna explains in His gita ch13v3: I am also the knower in all bodies.

And the answer would have to be: because there are always souls who fall down to this material existence in order to deny Krsna, so that they can attempt to enjoy, thinking themselves to be the cause of their enjoyment. So there needs to be unwanted progeny to accommodate the variety of these souls' consciousness.

I guess then the real question would be: Why would Lord Krsna want to cause Lord Shiva, as Shankaracarya, to delude people so that unwanted progeny comes as a result of that? Why would Krsna want to create unwanted progeny?

And so the appearance of Shankaracarya is also due to the need and asking of various living entities who want what he has to offer. This is true in every universal cycle.

You cannot enjoy separately from Krsna, (I do not mean the usual conception of this: if you don't surrender to Krsna He's going to give you a hard time), but I mean, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE to enjoy (good or bad) separate from Krsna, because EVERYTHING YOU ENJOY - good AND bad - you enjoy (experience) because of Him, because you asked Him for it and He is supplying it according to your consciousness.

And so the only relationship we have IS with Krsna, played out in our relationships with others and the choices we make. Lord Krsna lovingly and abundantly supplies us with all and more than what we need. It is only our consciousness, our choice in denying Him which cuts us off from His supply of Love and abundance in any area.

Why Does Lord Krsna always give us what we want? He created us to have a loving relationship with Him. Loving relationship means it must be voluntary. For it to be voluntary we must have a choice.

Re: the need or purpose of Shankaracarya's advent. Lord Krsna always and only gives us exactly what we ask for. The problem is: we are not aware of HOW it is that we are asking, and then we are surprised when it shows up. The way I see it is that not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the Lord, and everything has its purpose. Because some living entities have a need to be confused, Lord Krsna will provide them with a teacher who will confuse them.

I remember asking something like this question of HH Tamal Krishna Gosvami, in I think 1982, Mayapur. "If due to Lord Caitanya's movement all living entities return back to Godhead, what is the need for Lord Kalki to come? He answered that Lord Kalki will just appear in another universe, and is not going to miss our universe when it is liberated. It's like one grain of sand on a beach of countless universes.