Hare Krishna,
I had a doubt some 7-8 mnths back. I tried to clarify this doubt but nobody could help me with exact answer.
I was said that I will understand this with time but this question
is related to mind not to heart. It is related to concept not conviction.
Bcoz of this long persisting doubt, I am not able to practice full heartedly.
Plz help me wid following:
My question is:
The purpose of creation is
1. to make us understand that we can not be
happy with out Krishna
2. to reform us (to make us understand our mistake)
But I have doubt if soul is actually a given chance to be happy. It is bcoz of following:
1. There is pre-requisite which facilitates the main event. For being
happy, pre-requisite is absence of misery.
2. But, the way this world is created (to be miserable), itself
contradicts the claim that we are given chance to be happy.
Doesn't matter how much good karma one has, he has to undergo miseries
as birth, old age, disease, death.
There are innumerable other miseries a person suffers daily such as
financial problems, family problems, emotional problems, pollution, traffic jam,
stress, material anxiety and this count is endless.
I remember Radheshyam pr saying that happiness in this world is time
between two miserable events.
3. Being surrounded by so many anxieties, person thinks that cause of
his not being happy is presence of miseries but not absence of
Krishna from his life. And these 2 things (presence of miseries and
absence of Krishna) are mutually exclusive (I meant it was
possible to have a material place without problems listed in point 2).
Figure attached herewith:
We can get convinced that we can not be happy without god when we are
on Y axis: when there are no miseries and we still feel unsatisfied at heart.
But, in this world we are put on -ve x axis (yellow region), so person
thinks miseries are cause of unsatisfied heart.
4. So, a person doesn't get a chance to check out if can be happy
without god or not. As per scriptures, he has to assume that his
anxieties are not because of miseries but bcoz of his forgetfulness of Krishna.
But he thinks it is bcoz of miseries and try to curb miseries life
after life after life but design of material world is such that
it is unbreakable bond. And this cycle continues.
I understand that souls in higher planets don't have to undergo misery. Then
it is easy to understand that happiness is not inverse function of
misery but it comes from souls connection to Krishna.But on this
planet, unlike higher planets, midst of so many problems, soul cant even
try to be happy.
A person in problems knows what is solution of problems, e.g. - ill
person can see that there is healthy person, a poor can see that there
is rich person, problem is there but driven by laws of Karma, person
does not have access to what he thinks is the solution.
Soul can try but he can never get to a position which is free from all
miseries, which is pre-requisite of state of being happy.
What I want to understand is, when we say a soul can 'try' then he
should be at point when he has suitable circumstances to do that. But
this is not condition in world.
So how is a soul supposed to understand that his state of not being
happy is because of being away from Krishna, not because of problem he
is undergoing.
Sorry if i have used any wrong word by mistake.
Replies
Hare Krishna Prabhu
Dandvat Pranam
Very Nice question. I would like to try to explain according to my limited knowledge. First of all what I get as your question is that you are not sure how to confirm that the statement that our misery is because of forgetfullness of krishna.
In mathematics, many questions make assumptions like let this be x and that be y, and then you solve for them. So assumption is every where. Whatever doubts you are having are also based on an assumption that human intelligence is capable of understanding scriptures by speculation. Think about it. Isnt that an assumption. Wherever you are sitting reading this answer, you are sitting peacefully assuming that the building wont fall or there would be know earthquake after 5 minutes. What I mean to say is that at every juncture of life you have to place faith in something.
But then the question comes that wouldnt it lead to blind faith?
Blind faith arises when you make assumption without post-verification. So the vedic way of education is that you first assume the sutras to be true, apply them in your life with sincerity and then verify them by checking the results.
To summarise my answer I would like to say 2 things
1) Assume -> Apply -> Verify
2) Assumption is everywhere. Blind faith is when you stop at the application stage, conviction comes when you go on tll verification.
Forgive me for any wrong statements.
Your servant
Vishal