Hare Krishna !
I have few questions as given below.
- We are told that Lord Krishna who is the source of everything, creates individual jivas to enjoy loving relationships with them. But Krishna is cause of all causes and source of everything, then why does he need jivatams to enjoy himself. This means he is not complete by himself and need other souls to be happy. How to understand this ?
- When he created living entities, he must have known that in future millions of them will rebel against him to enjoy independently which will lead to huge suffering and chaos in material world. This means his design was not perfect. Why does he allow billions of living beings to suffer just for his own pleasure ? Why did he allow this imperfect design to manifest ?
- All living entities go through endless cycle of birth & death suffering from karma. We forget suffering of our previous life. When we ask, why we dont remember suffering of past life, we are told that memory of past lives will bring so many painful thing that a person will not be able to tolerate them & go crazy. But if a soul is able to remember only one previous life, he will understand his mistake and stop sinful activities. Instead of this Krishna puts an end to his memory of previous lives and allows him to suffer. Is this not a flaw in Krishna` design ?
Thanks
Replies
thX for the lengthy informative share Prahbu Gee!
Hare Krishna,
1. We are all part and parcel of Supreme Lord. Let us say your thumb is cut off from you are you happy without your thumb? We are all parts of Lord. Have you known the Virat Swaroopa description of Lord. You would not have asked this question only.
For one who sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me, I am never lost, nor is he ever lost to Me. ( BG 6.30)
how do you think you are complete without Lord sitting in your heart? He is within you to make you complete. That is the relationship between atma and parmatma. One cannot live without other. He is in you as parmatma( Supersoul) and also you are present in HIM. You are within HIM. He occupies entire cosmos like a Virat Purusha. Lord as Sarva Vyaapi is present all over everywhere encompassing all three worlds within HIM.
As you cannot live without your heart.. parmatma and jivatma are so much complete with each other. Lord is really waiting for uniting with you.. WE ARE HIS PARTS. WE STARTED TO FEEL WE CAN LIVE INDEPENDENT OF HIM. THAT IS OUR FALSE EGO.
The bubble is born in water, floats on it and finally merges into it. Though the Jivatma and the Paramatma are one there is a degree of difference. Paramatma is infinite while the Jivatma is finite. The former is independent while the latter is dependent.
Parmatama doesn't need you. You need HIM you came from HIM and finally merge into HIM.
2. Nothing is imperfect in HIS creation. Only becoz of False Ego we are thinking all this that HE IS INCOMPLETE OR HE DID IMPERECT DESIGN. Your fingers in your palm are designed in peculiar way why are they not all equal length???
IF you had no pinky finger ( little finger) you would not be having any grip. Try closing your palm and see the strength of the grip? it is only 50% strength without Pinky finger. So everything good and bad are designed by lord to maintain balance.
Everything is designed so perfectly so only you are able to get Sun and moon everyday at same time and seasons balanced. I wonder always How really great the Lord is He must be having 1000000000 heads to plan such a big structured orderly Universe. If we are given any work we do 100 mistakes in that and how wonderful Lord made this Universe. Good and bad rebels and the disciplined all are coexisting so is light and darkness all are required to maintain balance. Everything has time limit. Nothing is permanent except the eternal truth that is Absolute Truth. I cannot imagine to even design such a Big Banyan tree He could fit inside a small seeds inside a fruit. I don't even know who came first the egg or the hen?? seed or the plant. World is all wonderful becoz It is made up of all wonders. We made Taj Mahal and call it one of the Seven wonders. It is ridiculous.
Choas is formed by us.. Flaw is with us We become selfish. Wanted to become independent of HIM. We wanted to lord over the things. We become rebels. If a child pesture /annoys its parent and wants to eat the icecream in cold weather...Father tried to teach him but then he gave free will okay go suffer and realize the disadvantages of having icecream in cold weather and come back. But the father didn't leave the child he was with the child all the while but gave him free will to enjoy. Just like the father..Our Krishna gave us freedom but he is sitting right in you heart as Supersoul and always guiding you NO this is wrong Don't do it. He left you gave you freedom becoz he loves you. Had he been a bad parent he would not let you explore much and would impose HIS will and wish on you and it would be more like bondage then love.
When you love someone Set it free...If it was your it will return. Lord loves you so much that he gave freedom to explore understand and realize HIS worth and come back to HIM. All He wants is you to realize by your own self HIS worth and come back to HIM lovingly with loads of love for HIM and understand that we really are part and parcel of HIM.
3. All this design memory loss of the previous life is only for one good cause. To make you complete your Karma. and come back to HIM. Let us say your enemy in past life came as your son this life...you had to pay back some dues and finish karma with that person this life. But instead if you know that your son was dead enemy of urs.. you wont do ur duty as a father you will rather kill your son... and this will not finish your karma with that person. He lets you finish you karma with the people and move ahead in this way.
From Him comes rememberance and forgetfulness.
(18.61 BG) In his purport Srila Prabhupada elaborates: “After changing bodies, the living entity forgets his past deeds, but the Supersoul, as the knower of the past, present, and future, remains the witness of all his activities. Therefore all the activities of living entities are directed by this Supersoul. The living entity gets what he deserves.”
According to our past activities, remembrance and forgetfulness are supplied to us and are revealed as our propensities, desires, and aspirations. What we ultimately get is a combination of what we desire and what we deserve.
of what value is remembering past lives & mistakes
and where does it say that Krishna will restore our memories
of past lives?
That's coming totally the false Ego talking, you think you & your history
hold some-any(significance) but it doesn't start there surrender that Giant
incorrect ego, plz, it's non-senceacal as was everything we have ever done or known how to do, up until We meet Krishna and started calling on Him, to properly educate us as to what is to be done, or not to be done, in order to understand him better. this clam of Him granting us total recall however,? sounds fishy!
Hare Krsna
Kindly refer to this link for references on creation of living entity
Why do thy exist ?
The highest purpose for existence of living entity is to have loving relationship with Sri Krsna.
Is Krsna not the reason for their existence if krsna is cause of all causes ?
Yes, Sri Krsna is the source/cause of all existence including existence of living entities.
Hare Krsna
Hare Krsna
1. Living entities were not created, they simply exist. Sri Krsna does not need anything outside of Him for His happiness. He is happy by Himself. Living entities need to function in alignment with Krsna to be happy.
2. Krsna made material world knowing well that living entities may want to enjoy separate from Him. But this is not design failure. Because Krsna did not design/create living entities for His own pleasure. Living entities have an option whether to love Krsna personally or exploit His energies. Some living entities chose to exploit Krsna's energies they are put in material world. Material world is meant to give opportunity to living beings to exploit Krsna's energies. In the process living entities realize they cannot do it. So material world is perfectly designed to give opportunity to living entities to exploit Krsna's energies.
3. But if a soul is able to remember only one previous life, he will understand his mistake and stop sinful activities. Instead of this Krishna puts an end to his memory of previous lives and allows him to suffer. Is this not a flaw in Krishna` design ?
This question assumes that memory of a bad experience is sufficient to reform a person. This is far from truth.
Every cigarette packet has a picture of burnt lungs. Does it prevent the smoker from using it ? Does smoker have any doubt that it is harmful ? Most criminals have had a long history of punishments, even if simple things like drink and drive or speeding violations are considered, so many people have paid fines yet they still do it. WHY ?
We have to understand that living entities act in particular ways because they want to. Material energy facilitates this and punishes them for it. But punishment is not the solution. Punishments are not the problem either. Material world works in a very mechanical way, karma, cycle of birth and death etc they are not meant to reform us. They are the rules of the prison. Rules of prison are meant to keep the prisoners inside. They are not meant to reform prisoners.
What will reform the prisoners ?
Krsna consciousness will reform the prisoners. The real problem is our desire to exploit materials energy for our own selfish enjoyment. Krsna consciousness is the solution.
Hare Krsna
Hare Krsna Prahuji,
PAMHO.
I will try to answer your questions, though they appear suspiciously familiar.
1) The lord is atmaram - He doesnt need us, we need Him. He created us for His pleasure. He desired to enjoy with jivatmas. His desire is supreme. And He doesnt need to do any effort to fulfill His desire. Simply by His desire, the entire cosmic manifestation happened.
2) When we plan a city, we also plan a jail in the city, knowing fully well that there will be people who will not follow the law and they will need to be kept away from society. Same way, lord created material world, which is 1/4th, 3/4th being the spiritual world, to keep miscreant souls. Not very intelligent?
You are thinking so many souls are here, so many criminals. Scriptures tell us that since the spiritual world is 3 times the material world, the souls are much much more in number over there.
Suffering and chaos in the material world is our own doing. Lord created this world and created the rules of the world - like creating the hardware and software of a computer. If a bug lands somewhere in the software because of its own doing, you cant blame the hardware or software, right? Where we land in the ocean of misery is our own karma. The day we realise that we suffer because of our own karma, we will stop blaming God and in fact, thanking Him, for all His mercy. Please note that He doesnt get any pleasure at all from our suffering. If yes, why would He repeatedly come to the world, preach dharma in different yugas and tell mankind how to live in this world and how to transcend it.
3) Please read purport of Gita 9.2. SP has explained so beautifully. Each karma will not take the same time frame to fructify. Some are in kuta stage, some in beej stage, some in phala stage. If we remember even one past birth, it will surely be painful for us. I can say from some crude personal experience - I am working in an office where naturally I have to interact with a set of people for my daily work. We were very cordial with each other and wish for occassions, personal and new year kind of wishes also. Then I got transferred from that profile to another, different company in the same group. I was still in the same office, but my sitting place and working colleagues changed. While the new colleagues started to acknowledge me and build working relations, the earlier group of people stopped even recognizing me. I was naturally hurt and wondered how people changed colours. Then I understood what a boon it is to forget the past life. Just imagine, if you remembered that he was a boss in past life who tortured you, and is your son in this life, would you treat him like bad boss or dear son? Similarly, any other relation - wife in one life is daughter in another - which relation you will keep? And suppose you remember, but that boss or wife doesnt remember, how will you convince them? It will be infinitesimally more complicated than it is today. The sorrow quotient would only increase, no scope of decreasing. So it is better memory is wiped out, and we are allowed to start again.
There are no flaws in Krishna's designs prabhuji. Flaw is in our level of understanding and our realisations. The greater flaw than that is in our lack of trust on the lord, our nature to forever question Him and find faults with Him, our inability to surrender to Him even after 20 years of chanting.
Haribol,
Your servant,
Radha Rasamayi DD