Hare Krishna Prabhujis and Matajis,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev.
In the last five offerings we have seen the below points to prove the impartiality of Krishna.
1. Krishna is transcendental to material qualities.
2. The prominent mode becomes victorious.
3. Everyone enjoys the fruits of his qualitative activities (karma).
4. Krishna responds according to one's receptiveness.
5. Time's influence is impartial.
6. Krishna is not under the time factor and therefore impartial.
7. Krishna is not only impartial but very merciful as well.
Now we will continue with more evidence of His impartiality.
8. Krishna is unaffected by dualities like blasphemy or prayers: Krishna does not feel pleasure or pain when He is blasphemed by His enemies or praised with prayers by His devotees. In answer to Maharaj Yudhishthira's question to Narada Muni about why Sishupala received saayujya mukti even when he was always envious of Krishna from his very childhood and always blasphemed the Lord, Narada Muni responds in Srimad Bhagavatam verse 7.1.25,
yan-nibaddho ’bhimāno ’yaṁ tad-vadhāt prāṇināṁ vadhaḥ
tathā na yasya kaivalyād abhimāno ’khilātmanaḥ
parasya dama-kartur hi hiṁsā kenāsya kalpyate
Because of the bodily conception of life, the conditioned soul thinks that when the body is annihilated the living being is annihilated. Lord Vishnu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the supreme controller, the Supersoul of all living entities. Because He has no material body, He has no false conception of 'I and mine.' It is therefore incorrect to think that He feels pleasure or pain when blasphemed or offered prayers. This is impossible for Him. Thus He has no enemy and no friend. When He chastises the demons it is for their good, and when He accepts the prayers of the devotees it is for their good. He is affected neither by prayers nor by blasphemy.
We are affected when someone disrespects us or we are pleased when we are praised. This is due to our ignorance. What is our ignorance? The ignorance is that we do not know ourselves factually. We think we are so and so, we attach ourselves with our body, our family, our possessions, our status in society, relatives and everything else but Krishna. The moment we realize that we are not this body, we are free. If we link to the second chapter of Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna talks to Arjuna about saankhya yoga, that the soul is immutable, it cannot be destroyed, it has no death, it lives forever, we realize that soul is not affected by anything as it is part and parcel of Krishna and Krishna is not affected by praise or blasphemy. He does not look at what we give Him, He looks at our bhaav, how many times we utter His name. Because His names are as purifying as the Lord Himself, it will purify us.
We have taken this material body to suffer, duhkhalayam asasvatam. The reality that we are not this body, has to be drilled into us time and again. Even when we are in devotional service we are affected by the bodily concept of "Me" and "Mine". The basic reason is not keeping Krishna in the center of all our relationships and activities. Our relationship with everyone has to be changed and it should be based on the understanding that we are all parts and parcels of Krishna. The moment this happens, our relationship with Krishna is established again. We are now not thinking about Him at all. He is with us but we are not with Him. Deity worship is a process by which we can re-establish our relationship with Him. In olden days, all the activities of the household were centered around the Deity of the house and people considered the Deities as the owner of the house. Same way if all our activities and relationships with others are also centered around Him, then all our sufferings will vanish. All the pain is for the body, not for the soul. Because our soul has associated with this body and identified itself with it, we feel all the sufferings and are affected by praise, chastisement, blasphemy, etc.
As stated in Bhagavad Gita verse 13.3, Krishna is within our hearts as Paramatma, together with the individual soul. But He is detached from all the activities of the body and mind. If we can be detached from the activities of the body like the Supersoul and instead offer all the fruits of the activities to Krishna, we also will be unaffected by praise or blasphemy by others just as the Lord is unaffected by praise or blasphemy. However when the devotee offers nice prayers to Him, the devotee is benefited because it gives him pleasure thinking of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And when the enemy of the Lord blasphemes Him, the Lord is very kind and because he is always thinking of the Lord, he also benefits. Either through enmity or friendship if a conditioned soul thinks of the Lord, he becomes attached to the Lord and thus receives great benefit. When the Lord punishes a person like the demon, it is for his ultimate good. For example He punishes him for one life by putting him in a lower species, and when the soul gets over the habit of blaspheming and the soul becomes completely pure, the Lord takes him back to Godhead.
Krishna willing, we will discuss further points in the next mail on this topic.
Thank you very much.
Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev,
Uma Prathap
Abu Dhabi.
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