SPIRITUAL MATTERS.

SPIRITUAL MATTERS. TOI 13.8.2006.

WELLNESS:

H.H. Radhanath Maharaj.

The recent blasts in Mumbai killed hundreds of people in a matter of minutes. The suffering and loss of loved ones will remain etched in our memories forever. Why were so many innocent killed?

We have often seen the most kind, pious and generous people suffering from diseases and leading miserable lives. Why is that so?

The greatest disasters in human history -earthquakes, famines, diseases, terrorism - pose many questions. If God is good how could he possibly co-exist and do nothing about the evil and apparent injustices of this mortal world? This question encapsulates many peoples reason for having great difficulty with the idea of God.

Why were we born in this material world?

According to the Bhagavad Gita, we are part and parcel of the all powerful Supreme Being, God. As fragmental spirit souls we are qualitatively one with God, in that we are eternal, full of knowledge and full of bliss. But quantitavely, we are always subordinate to the Supreme, as a child to a Father.

When we want to enjoy separate from this loving relationship with God and want to be the proprietor rather than serve God, then we enter into material energy. Here we slowly evolve through 8,400,000 species of life to get the very rare human birth. In lower forms of life, there is no free will. In human life, we have the advantage of free will but we are held responsible for our actions.

Laws of Karma

One can get away with certain things under the state laws. If one kills 100 people; the laws of the nature will kill him a 100 times. Everything we say and everything we do is recorded by the laws of nature and we get a reaction.

According to Bhagvad Gita there is sukarma - for every good action we get good result, vikarma - sinful activities produce suffering and akarma - activities which produce neither good nor bad karmic reaction, i.e. service to God.

Why are the good suffering and bad enjoying?

Sometimes, a person may engage in sinful activities but through association and the learning process becomes pious and good. All the sufferings of previous sins have to come upon him; but his future is very bright because he is good.

Similarly, there are sinful people who may have been pious and good in the past and they are enjoying the fruits of prosperity and happiness now but it is just a matter of time till it all comes upon them.

Why do disasters occur?

Slaughterhouses where hundreds and millions of Innocent God's children are being killed every year, exploitation of resources and pollution of Mother Earth for greed - are producing massive planet wise reaction. When millions of people across the world indulge in illicit sex and intoxication every day, not only individual reaction but also enormous cumulative reaction is caused. Material nature then reacts in the form of earthquakes, famines, major disasters; unfortunately, most people do not turn to God unless they suffer.

The most important question is not why I am suffering but how am I going to respond to the suffering and how am I going to help others respond to the situation? Death is ultimate, but old age and disease bring suffering. How does one deal with that? If we live with integrity, faithful to the principles of ethics and morality with faith and devotion to God, then we can pass through all circumstances and attain the ultimate destination of eternal love in His kingdom. One may not understand specifically with a sincere heart, his suffering will cleanse him.

Lord Krishna concludes in Bhagvad Gita "Abandon all varieties of religions and surrender unto me, I shall relieve you from all sinful reactions, do not fear." This is akarma, a universal principle. Surrendering to God means surrendering to His will out of love and affection.

God has appeared within His name and in any situation of life, whether it be prosperity or misery, we can connect our consciousness to perfection by simply calling out with sincere feeling his holy names.

The writer is a member of Governing Body Commission of ISKCON

SPIRITUAL MATTERS... 13.8.2006 REVIEW.

The above cutting from TOI WELLNESS dt. 13.8.2006. The supplement wellness is supposed to enlighten the reader on the problems and progress of medical science. It also used to give information on institutes and hospitals where proper care and medications made available. Lately this supplement encourages people to go for un-scientific 'alternate' medicines and therapies. The writers on this line pretend that they are the all knowing and they also attempt at questioning mainstreams medicine. In that effort the paper carried a feature termed "Spiritual Matters". This feature has nothing about health and medicines or medical practices. Instead it preaches a sanctimonious nonsense about Karma and its effects. Ostensibly the writer and officer from ISKCON wanted to explain why are the good suffering and bad enjoying? He starts with the death of hundreds during the blasts on 11.7.06 in the suburban trains of Western Rly. He mentions 'the most kind, pious and generous people suffering.' He makes query “If god is good how could he possibly co-exist and do nothing about the evil and apparent injustice of this mortal world?” He has no straight forward answer to his queries. Instead he scuttles it by saying that 'we are part and parcel of all powerful Supreme Being God'. If what this gentleman believes based on Bhagwat Gita, there should have been no good or bad in this world since everyone is part of god the Supreme. But in the next sentences he contradicts himself saying that ' as fragmented spirits.....we are always sub-ordinate to the supreme.' He has no reason to support both these statements. He falls a victim to Semitic ideas of god and soul as separate entities. The next sentence is some convoluted reasoning to the concept of individual soul. He seems to claim that the fragmented souls thought of separating from relationship with and so became 8,400,000 species of living beings. He also maintains that they slowly evolve to get a rare human birth. He seems to mouth some Darwinian theory of evolution. Now there are several questions. If souls are fragments of the supreme god, when did the actual separation took and why? Whether fragmented souls are finite in number or infinite? If the second why the supreme god went on fragmenting even after seeing the condition of the world made by the fragmented souls? In the next sentence the writer says that in the lower forms of life there is no free will'. If that is to be believed what is the explanation for evolution? They should be living and acting as per nature assigned to them by the supreme god. There is no reason to be otherwise. There is no reason to evolve or change. If evolution from lower to higher is part of the scheme prepared by supreme god, how long and or for how many births the lower form should take before it takes the next step on the ladder? Also the ISKCON guy should come with an explanation why the supreme god did not allow the lower life forms to be exhausted but continues with fresh fragmentation at the lowest life form? Why the life forms that have no free will turn to be man with free will? Where from the free will emanate? If it was the god's wish why did he keep it out of reach to other forms of life? More and more questions could be formulated from what the ISKCON guy propounded so far.

Next he tells about SUKARMA (good acts) VIKARMA (bad acts) and AKARMA (no act). The last is explained as activities which neither good nor bad! How can this be? All acts produce some good or bad and there cannot be any neutral act. What hierocracy! Yes the ISKCON fellow says that 'service to god' does produce neither good nor bad. A sweeping statement considering that all his emphasis in the write up is about attaining happiness thru service to god. Otherwise nobody is going to devote him in worship or service to any god.

14.8.2006

Next he pontificates: If a good man is suffering it is because of the sins committed by him earlier (was it from previous birth?) but he will have a very bright future. So bear with it. Similarly if sinful people are enjoying today that is due to their being pious and good in the past (Past birth?). But he avoids mentioning past life or birth. Yet he will have to make explanations as to how and why a sinful in past birth take rebirth in a pious one and why a pious in past birth is reborn in a sinning one? Going back to the life cycle how to explain the metamorphisms from the lower life to man?

Now he comes to the most rediculous part of his message. He asks 'why do disasters occur?' and answers ' when millions of people across the world indulge in illicit sex and intoxication every day' and further ' nature then reacts in the form of earth quakes, famines, major disasters! Up to now the idea was that souls are fragments of god. The later gave free will to men and they sinned but the punishment is mated out thru material nature that might be having some separate existence from Supreme God. However, the punishment is not just on sinful men alone, the punishment is meted indiscriminately on men, women, children including new born and unborn. One might console that all were punished because of their present or past Karma (acts) and or of past birth life. Then why the animals and all other living creatures should perish for what sinful acts. They just live a naturally ordered life that is neither pious or sin, since they have no free will to act by themselves. The ISKCON guy must be thinking that other people are just simple ones that they could be fooled by his spiritual discourse and no one will question his own assumptions because of his quoting from Bhagvad Gita.

All his further pontifications fail to answer the first question he propounded. Now the climax! "Surrendering to God means surrendering to his will (how to recognise the god's will?) and finally 'whether it be prosperity or misery we can connect our consciousness to perfection (what is it?) by simply calling out with sincere feeling his holy names'. Adi Sankara is said to have composed the poem "Bhaja Govindam, Bhaja Govindam, Bhaja Govindam Mooddamate". So we are idiots not knowing the course of good ones suffering and disasters pouring. Only call or repeated the name of God Supreme and don't bother what happen to you and around you. The writer did mention that 'the question is not why I am suffering but how I am going to respond to the suffering and how I am going to help others....' Don't laugh at his answer. He is very serious. "One may not understand specifically why one is suffering but one thing we (don't include me in this we. K.N.K.) know, if one turns to god in his suffering with a sincere heart, his suffering is to chant the names of god and forget the condition. A psychologically induced therapy. It might be possible to forget own physical condition for the time of chanting but what is after? You suffer because you are fated to it thru past karma and it cannot be overcome. This basic tenet of karma ideology stood in the way of any progress, in science of health care in the history of Hindu India. Instead of science all mumbo jumbo i.e superstitions of all kinds went on proliferating among people as religious rituals and Tantric sadhanas etc , when disaster visits chant. My own brother is said to have chanted Vishnu Sahasranam on his first flight.

By,

K.N. Krishnan.

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