17 May 2017
Shri Gangaiah Garu (Advocate & Great Scholar in Gita & Upanishads): Today we are observing several people suffering with several types of difficulties with lot of tension. If God created this world for His entertainment, is it not pleasure of a sadist? God being omniscient, He knows this situation in the beginning itself. Then, He should have stopped this creation. God being omnipotent can change all these people in a fraction of second and put them in right path. God is always in bliss and should not wish for any entertainment. I am asking this question to know the truth in the subject and I am not asking this like an atheist to criticize God.
Swami Replied: I know very well that you are a strong theist. Hence, I know that you have raised this doubt only to know the truth about the planning and administration of God. First of all, we must have firm faith in God that He is omniscient and omnipotent and also that nothing goes wrong in His plan or administration. If any doubt comes, we must know that the doubt is only due to our ignorance since we have limited capacity of knowledge and intelligence to find out the truth in the plan of God. We must take lot of pains in doing analysis with lot of patience. Lot of interest in God is also required for a deep discussion. I will answer all your points one by one gradually step by step. You have not asked this question for your clarification since you are a good scholar of the Gita and the Upanishads. You have asked this [question] on behalf of ignorant souls, who often project this question so that the answer will open their closed eyes.
The Veda says that God created this world for entertainment (Na ramate). It is true that God is always the infinite ocean of bliss. Bliss is different from entertainment. Shankara gave the example of a king, who is always happy without any need. Such state of king can be compared to God with infinite bliss. Yet, the king goes for hunting a deer in the forest and this is entertainment. If the king wishes to eat the flesh of deer, hunters in the forest will immediately bring a hunted deer to the kitchen of the king. Hence, in the entertainment, there is no need. Shankara gave the example in His commentary on the Brahma Sutra (Lokavattu leela kaivalyam). I give an example of a very rich man, who established a college for engaging himself in some good work for entertainment. The entertainment is good angle of doing good work. A king also goes to forest for hunting not only for entertainment but also for doing good work, which is to kill the cruel animals so that the sages in the forests can live peacefully. Entertainment is not the primary angle, which is only a secondary angle accidentally and incidentally associated with the primary angle of good work. Hence, God can’t be compared to a sadist whose activity is always entertainment associated with cruel violence or bad work only.
God wanted to create the world and human souls so that He can engage Himself in guiding the souls with good spiritual knowledge to attain His grace and get developed to the highest plane. Along with such good work, entertainment is only an associated benefit, which is not related to bliss in anyway. After establishing the college, the rich man equipped the college with good teachers and laboratories with good equipment. He saw that the college runs with most perfect discipline and excellent peace. The students always were advised to attend the classes without going to luxuries like seeing cinemas etc. Good and bad were always preached by the founder as well as teachers employed by him constantly. In spite of all these extremely good steps, one fellow became indisciplined and failed in the exams. Such a student was suffering a lot. Now, the parents of that student filed a case against the rich man that he established the college to give mental torture to their son! Their complaint was that the rich man started the college to give torture to his son and enjoy like a sadist. Had all the students failed, at least the compliant may have some meaning. On the other hand, several parents are praising the rich man for giving good discipline and good carrier to their children. You were seeing only the negative side and not the positive side of the administration. Moreover, the cause for the negative side is only the indiscipline of student in spite of continuous advises.
Similarly, God created this world and human souls. He was continuously preaching the human souls by Himself through incarnations and also through His servants incarnating in this world. He was clearly preaching about the results of good and bad deeds. In spite of this, some souls become undisciplined and are spoiled by doing sins. The sins bring punishments resulting in suffering of souls. The question here is that why God did not control the minds of the souls? God is the creator of souls. A soul is awareness and awareness is called as Para Prakruti or creation of God only in the Gita (Prakrutim... Jiva bhutaam). The soul is neither God nor part of God. God is unimaginable. Creation is imaginable and soul is a part of the creation. Hence, the soul has neither total control like God nor partial control being part of God. If the Upanishad told that souls are sparks of God, here, the souls are actually sparks of energy created by God. The word Brahman is used for both God and energy. Any greatest item is called as Brahman. Hence, energy, the greatest item of the creation is also called as Brahman. Thus, Brahman stands for both God and energy. Souls are sparks of energy and not sparks of the unimaginable absolute God. Confusion arises here since Brahman meaning energy is taken as God in this place. Hence, souls have tendency towards freedom or randomness or independence that has every possibility to lead to indiscipline. Those souls following the advices given by God always are happy like the passed students.
God is the cause of every activity but not the cause of any fruit since direction in the activity is not related to God. The Veda says that God is like the bull tied to your life-cart (Abadhnan purusham pashum). The bull is the fundamental cause of your journey. But, the direction of the cart is decided by you and not by the bull. If you go to forest, you are beaten by robbers. If you go to another city in which your friends live, you are honoured there. Bull is not responsible for both the fruits, even though bull has taken you to receive the fruit decided by you. Bull is the power of activity and you are the director of the activity to receive the fruit! The department of electricity has given electrical power to a house. The power can be used for several good benefits. The department also gave warning that if one puts the finger in the plug point, shock will be received. In spite of this warning, if somebody in that house receives the shock, the department of electricity should not be blamed saying that the cause of the shock is the electricity supplied by the department!
God being the creator of souls is Father as said in the Gita. In Krutayuga, the souls obeyed the words of God like servants. After some time, continuous obedience brought boredom in to minds of souls leading to aspiration for freedom. Ethical scripture says that son follows father like a servant up to 15th year. After that age, freedom springs in the mind and father should advise him only as friend and should not order like a master. At this age, father gives freedom to the son understanding the difficulty in his psychology. Yet, the father continues to advise his son like a friend in order to lead him in the right path of justice without doing sins. But, the son becomes adult and develops ego to misuse the freedom. As the son becomes more and more old, his ego also grows and ripens in advanced age, which is this Kaliyuga and which is mentioned as ‘today’ in your question. You are sympathising your brothers and sisters suffering with punishments. If your sympathy is so much, how much sympathy should be in the mind of God, who is the Father? Will the father harm his own children at any stage? The punishments given to sinful souls are only for their temporary reformation at least. Since the preaching of spiritual knowledge, which is permanent reformation failed in these cases, the Father is implementing the temporary reformation in the form of punishment. Punishment indicates the kindness and love of the divine Father towards His issues and not revenge. The intensity in the punishments of the hell indicates the eagerness and anxiety of Father to reform the souls as early as possible. You are criticizing the pain that makes the child to weep while doctor gives injection of medicine and not seeing the health that is going to come after some time. God has long sight and your sympathy shows only your short sight. When the disease becomes serious, the doctor-father does surgery to the children. Krishna killed His own son Samba (who was highly indisciplined to mock the sages) with His own hands in the end! At end of Kaliyuga, final surgery is done when the sin-disease ripens to the last stage. After this operation called as Mahapralaya (ultimate surgery) or final dissolution, again Krutayuga starts with souls having full health. In all this cyclic process, no place is available for you to pass any trace of criticism on God provided you take the suffering as the process of cleaning the child with soap during bath for which the child suffers and weeps towards which you sympathise! All this process clearly speaks about the kindness and love of God towards His issues, which should be appreciated as good work only. Entertainment associated with good work need not be criticized. If you understand that God is Father of all souls having infinite love towards His issues including yourself, this criticism doesn’t find even an iota of place to stand anymore and anywhere.
The omnipotence of God can certainly change the soul in a fraction of second. But, such change will interfere with the freedom of the soul given by God. Without interfering with such given freedom, if the soul changes by spiritual knowledge, such change is appreciable. You are viewing the suffering of souls in negative sense. You are not seeing the positive side of the suffering. Suffering reduces the ego of the soul and makes the soul to be very alert and surrender to God. Happiness increases ego and carelessness to go far from God. When Krishna asked Kunti to ask a boon, Kunti requested the Lord to give always difficulties to her in view of the above said advantages (Vipadah santu nah shashvat...). Difficulties viewed in negative angle will bring also these doubts. If the same are viewed in positive angle, we can understand that God is clearing the soul due to His excess of love. God Vishnu told that He will take away your money when He wants to bless you really (Yasyaanugrahamichchaami, tasya vittam haraamyaham- Vishnu Puranam). We think that excess money brings happiness. In fact, excess money brings several problems and even sons killed their fathers for kingdom! Excess of money is always proned to frequent losses, which bring lot of tension in your mind. The happiness due to excess of money develops ego and carelessness leading you far and far from God. Hence, the very basic concepts are misunderstood by us in reverse way. When God is blessing an issue with spiritual development through difficulties called as ‘Saadhana’, you are sympathising that issue! The life histories of great devotees were always filled with difficulties given by God for their purification. This basic misunderstanding of the truth is like red spectacles on our eyes to see the world as red in colour. If this basic misunderstanding (red spectacles) is removed, we see the truth.
One should not say that due to admission of defective candidates in to the college by the management, failures of students are happening and thus creation of defective souls in the beginning of creation itself is responsible for the suffering of the souls observed today. The simile of college to creation can’t be taken in this point. Simile is always limited to a specific point of the concept. When we compare the face to be pleasant like moon, only the point of pleasantness limits the simile. Other points like moon appearing in night, moon having black spots etc., can’t be extended to the concept. In the concept, God has created all good souls only in the beginning and the souls were good and obedient for very long time (Krutayuga is longest period). This long obedience naturally develops tendency for freedom in a soul, which is a part of creation and not creator either totally or partially. Such tendency is natural and can’t be taken in wrong sense. Even in the presence of freedom some souls obeyed the commandments of God and are always in elevated level. Hence, freedom can’t be argued to be always the source of indiscipline as time passed on. The percentage of indisciplined souls increased slowly and in the present Kaliyuga 90% of souls is indisciplined. Still 10% souls exists with discipline and obedient to God. Hence, one can’t argue that freedom always leads to indiscipline.
Pravrutti is voting for justice against injustice and Nivrutti is voting for God against even justice. God shall be voted against even welfare of the world in Nivrutti. The wise devotee knows that God always works for the welfare of world and for uplifting justice and that God is testing the devotee by appearing in opposite way. Hence, the devotee of Nivrutti always keeps God in the highest place and the fruit of Nivrutti is also highest in which God takes the entire responsibility of the devotee. But, God never encourages Nivrutti and in fact opposes it as far as possible. You may also misunderstand the severe difficulties of a Nivrutti-devotee due to your ignorance about such devotee! God always encourages Pravrutti only, which is related to the peace of entire society. To encourage the path of justice, God provided incentives of heaven. To discourage injustice, He created the hell. For severe good and bad deeds, corresponding fruits are seen in this world itself. Such provision also gives authority of perception of the concept. To eradicate ignorance totally, the permanent measure of preaching spiritual knowledge by God Himself directly through human incarnation is also frequently provided. All these measures show that God is making hectic efforts to protect all His issues (souls) from suffering of sins.
Why these divine measures are failing so that the difficulties always continue in this world? You are forgetting the basic importance of difficulty. In absence of difficulties, the happiness loses its value and continuous happiness brings boredom, which is a difficulty by itself. Hence, even if the difficulties are permanently removed and happiness alone is maintained, the birth of difficulty is inevitable. You can’t enjoy the meals with full sweet dishes only. Alternative hot dishes make the enjoyment of sweet dishes meaningful. Both winter and summer and happiness and grief are simultaneously created for the purpose of the meaningful enjoyment of soul. Ignorance of the basic concept brings misunderstanding of God. God always arranges the life cycles of His issues with happiness and grief arranged alternatively. But, the life cycles of some souls are observed with continuous grief only! The reason is that these souls always insisted God to remove their difficulties in previous births without understanding the good side of alternative arrangement. They think that they have soaped God through prayers and the foolish God cancelled their sin, removed the punishment and gave happiness-award freely. They don’t know that God postponed their punishment loans with accumulated interest and withdrew the fruits of good deeds like premature deposits given to them. Certain souls even perform sacrifice and service practically, which must generate practical fruits. It is true that practical devotion yields practical fruits separately to be enjoyed by the souls, but, don’t cancel any sin. The sins are cancelled only if the reformation comes through spiritual knowledge forever. Towards such permanent rectification, God is coming down in human form to preach the spiritual knowledge directly since any doubt is perfectly clarified by the omniscient God (Jnaanitvaatmaiva— Gita).
The need of the hour at any time in this world is true spiritual knowledge that gives the right direction towards the right goal. In absence of right direction, any amount of devotion (emotion) and service with sacrifice (practice) becomes waste. Walking towards right goal will lead you to the right goal slowly. Running towards wrong goal will lead you to wrong goal quickly. Your emotional force or Bhakti yoga (devotion) and fast running or Karma Yoga (practice) are waste if the spiritual knowledge or Jnaana Yoga giving right direction is absent. This spiritual knowledge is continuously masked by misinterpretations and misunderstandings of souls in every generation. This is the reason for the God to come in human form in every generation. The true knowledge without any doubt spontaneously develops emotion and practice without any effort and leads to goal as told by Shankara (Jnaanaadevatu kaivalyam). The preacher (Guru) is confined to Datta or Parabrahman, who is Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva and this point is projected in the verse “Gurur Brahmaa...”. Datta means the unimaginable God given to souls through incarnation that preaches the right spiritual knowledge.
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