22 Oct 2022
[Ms. Thrylokya asked:- Swami, in a hypothetical situation where a devotee is being attacked physically, what is the ideal thing a devotee can do?
a) Pray to God with unshakable faith without defending oneself
b) Defend oneself without praying to God
c) Defend oneself and also pray to God simultaneously
If You say that one's effort is definitely needed in overcoming an obstacle, how can we give credit to God? Please enlighten me. At Your Divine Lotus Feet, Thrylokya]
Swami replied: If you are strong enough to defeat the enemy, you should defeat the enemy and then thank God because whatever strength you possess is given by God only. After all, you are the creation of His will only. Even if you don’t pray in the beginning in such a situation (because you may not have sufficient time to pray) you must thank God after your success. Otherwise it will be the case of ego based on your ignorance about the actual truth. The next case is that you may not have sufficient strength to fight with the enemy. In such case, don’t fight with the enemy and instead you should run away as fast as possible. Foolishly fighting with a stronger enemy is said to be your ignorance blended with foolish ego. After running away, you pray God to do justice and then God will do the needful justice. Needful justice does not mean that God will punish your enemy immediately. Don’t be surprised if I say that God is not going to punish your enemy on any day. This can happen because you had already beaten your enemy in the previous birth and today, your enemy has come to beat you in retort. This is a retort case and you are totally unaware of this and in such a case, you will mistake God and scold Him for His silence and inefficiency. Even if it is a fresh case, God will give sometime for reformation of your enemy and your enemy after reformation in future may come to you, touch your feet and ask apology from you. In such a case, since you have left everything to God with lot of patience, God will bless you with some extra compensation. Hence, the wisest is one, who leaves everything to God without taking the law into one’s hand since the previous background is known only to God and is not known to any soul (tānyahaṃ veda sarvāṇi, na tvaṃ vettha paraṃtapa – Gita). Had Draupadi kept silent without provoking her husbands for the war and had she left everything to God Krishna, even then, the Kauravas would have been killed and in addition her five sons would have been alive!
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