(3/17) 'Why Am I Suffering?'

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Bolpur, evening, 19 January 2019, part 3
Translated from Bengali

It is said in the scriptures that the soul keeps changing bodies. We have got a human body today, but tomorrow we can be sent to a dog's body – we can be born as a dog, cat, cow or any other species. As you sew, so you reap. We will have to reap the result of our own actions. Not everybody in this world is born as humans – it is said in the scriptures that the number of animal and plant species is actually much bigger than the number of human species. You think that there are so many people in this world, but you can see that when people celebrate during the Kartik month or before the Durga-puja festival, thousands and millions of insects fly towards the lights and die. Have you never seen it? There are so many living entities in this world! Compared to all other species, the number of human species is quite small.

In this world, people say that karma (making effort to achieve something) is the highest life. Among each ten million of such workers, there is only one wise person (jnani); among each ten million of such wise people, there is only one liberated person (mukta); and among each ten million of such liberated souls, there is only one devotee of Krishna (Krsna-bhakta). You can imagine this. A devotee of Krishna is very rare, but just one such devotee can rescue the entire universe. So, it is not so easy to become a devotee of Krishna! You do not become a devotee of Krishna just by putting tilaks and wearing Tulasi neckbeads. You cannot recognise a devotee by the cloth. I spoke about being a devotee of Krishna earlier today and yesterday also.

We must think about who we are and what is good for our souls. The next question is why we are suffering in a blazing fire of threefold agony. They say that people are dying of starvation in this country – that farmers are so deep in debt that they hang themselves. This is what newspapers write. But people suffer not only here. You can see the example of California, the richest state of the US. There, people have millions of dollars. When a child is born, the child gets twenty or twenty-five cars as birthday presents. Some children there get aeroplanes(!) as presents – on top of their houses, there is a place to land a plane! They are so rich, but why does the statistics say that more people commit suicide in this California than in other places around the world? Why is it like that? Because people suffer mentally. You are sad because you do not have money, and you think that because they have money, they must be happy, but many of them have so much money, but they still take their lives... In their country, everybody can have a gun, even without a license, so many people shoot themselves. Why is it like that? Because of mental suffering (adhyatmik-jvala) – their minds create such an agony that they cannot take it anymore. There are three kinds of suffering: adhidaivik (আধিদৈবিক, miseries caused by the nature), adhyatmik (আধ্যাত্মিক, miseries caused by by one's own mind) and adhibhautik (আধিভৌতিক, miseries caused by other souls).

(1) What is adhibhautik-jvala? The Lord creates various living entities, and those living entities nag and harass each other. Sons beat their fathers, fathers beat their sons, husbands kill their wives, wives kill their husbands, cows eat grass, we cut rice paddy and eat rice. All living entities suffer from each other. Adhibhautik-jvala is the suffering caused by other living entities. Even though humans are herbivorous, we still eat rice, wheat and other plants – we survive at the expense of killing living entities... (2) Adhidaivik-jvala is the suffering caused by gods. By the will of gods, there are earthquakes, flood and other calamities that happen and make everybody suffer. (3) And adhyatmik-jvala means mental and physical diseases. We get sick, we get old, we suffer mentally, and so on.

So, why are we suffering from all this agony?

কৃষ্ণ ভুলি' সেই জীব অনাদি-বহির্ম্মুখ ।
অতএব মায়া তারে দেয় সংসারাদি-দুঃখ ॥

krsna bhuli' sei jiva anadi-bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsaradi-duhkha

'Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primaeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

We are suffering because we have forgotten the Lord! We have forgotten who our real father is, and as the result, we end up here, with the fathers and the mothers who only give us material bodies. You can see goats and cows – if a cow gives birth to a calf and you try to take its calf away, the cow will start making a lot of fuss. People are also like that – if a woman gives birth to a child and the child is then taken away from her, she will start fussing. Our situations are the same. Animals and other species live the same lives as we do. Everybody eats, sleeps, fears and procreates. Dogs also eat, they also sleep, they are also scared (somebody can beat them), and they are also busy increasing their progeny. Everybody does these things. You live in a two-storey house with a nice tiled bathroom, but some people sleep on the street or at train stations, some people live in thatched houses, some people live in mud houses. Everybody's circumstances are different, but everybody is alive – everybody has a place and some food. You can see dogs living on the street everywhere, but there are also dogs in this world that have passports and travel by plane! When people take dogs with them, they make passports for them. When I went to Singapore, I saw a man with a dog at the airport. I asked him how he was taking the dog with him, and the man showed me his dog's passport. So, some dogs are very fortunate – they live in A/C houses, their owners take them to other countries, making passports and visas for them.

So, when even animals do all the same things that we do, what is the difference between humans and animals then? What is the meaning of a human birth? For example, a goat cannot understand the value of its life. I saw in Jamalpur that when people worship Buroraj Lord Siva, all goats that are to be slaughtered stand in a line and eat grass peacefully. You can also see at the market when the butcher is cutting a live chicken, other chickens carry on eating. But if somebody was to tell you that you are going to be hung in a month, you will stop eating. You have some consciousness, so you will think, 'I am going to die in a month! I must appeal in High Court! I must do something!' – you will feel so anxious that you will forget to eat, to bath, etc. But when a goat is standing in a line and sees another goat die, it does not think, 'My turn will be next' – it just carries on eating grass. Such is the power of their consciousness.

There are different degrees of consciousness, or chetan-sakti: achchhadita chetan (fully covered consciousness), sankuchita chetan (closed, subdued consciousness), mukulita chetan (budding consciousness), vikachita chetan (blooming consciousness), and purna-vikachita chetan (fully blossomed consciousness). Human beings have purna-vikachita chetan, the highest power of consciousness, and as humans we can think about the Lord. But instead, we only think about these bodies and about the pleasure of our senses. We only think about our own happiness, but we forget Him who has given us life, who has given us our souls.

কৃষ্ণ ভুলি' সেই জীব অনাদি-বহির্ম্মুখ ।
অতএব মায়া তারে দেয় সংসারাদি-দুঃখ ॥

krsna bhuli' sei jiva anadi-bahirmukha
ataeva maya tare deya samsaradi-duhkha

'Forgetting Krishna, the soul turned towards the external illusory world in primaeval times. As the result, illusion (Maya) gives such a soul various material miseries.'

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, 2.20.117)

Because we forget the Lord, we are suffering in this blazing fire of threefold agony. We forgot that our souls were given to us by the Lord, that our Supreme Father is the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna. As the result of this forgetfulness, we are suffering so much now. The only way to get relief from this suffering is 'Bhagavata pada Vaisnavera sthane, ekanta asraya kara Chaitanya-charane (ভাগবত পড় বৈষ্ণবের স্থানে, একান্ত আশ্রয় কর চৈতন্য-চরণে) – read Srimad Bhagavatam under guidance of a Vaishnav and take exclusive shelter at the lotus feet of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.' This is the remedy.

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READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Self-Realisation
2) Seek Soul's Solace
3) 'Why Am I Suffering?'
4) Relief from Reaction
5) Escaping Life of Sin
6) Highest Attainment
7) Learn to Love Lord
8) From Hell to Heaven and Back
9) Sadhus' Clothes and Sadhus' Hearts
10) Genuine Gurus' Mission
11) Money Does Not Buy Devotion
12) Higher and Highest Devotion
13) Learn the Conception
14) Start Practising Sincerely
15) Make Effort
16) Cure from Material Misery
17) Live for the Lord