I stopped trusting Krishna because of problems. How to regain my faith in Krishna?
A male devotee (Name hidden) asked like this:
Hello Sir, Thank you for maintaining this excellent forum. I am getting to know a lot about Krishna Consciousness. I am 40+ years old and I used to be God-fearing and Spiritual person till 30 years. I used to pray, go to temple every week and do poojas, etc. But, some tragic incidents in my personal life questioned my spiritual beliefs and I slowly lost hope in this journey and eventually stopped this journey by not doing any poojas, stopped praying, chanting, etc. Now, I am a logical person believing in facts and discarding any theories that do not fit into a scientific factual state. For eg. when someone says that Lord Krishna is the Supreme God, then my mind is asking me a question “Why did Lord Rama worship Lord Shiva at Rameshwaram if he is the Supreme God?” (I know these thoughts come to my mind because of my shallow knowledge in the subject) So how can I get back into Spiritual path again? How can I train my mind again to believe in Lord Krishna as the Supreme God? I started reading Srila Prabhupada’s Bhagavad Gita As It Is. Do you have any other recommendation for me? I would like to be Anonymous. Please do not share my name in the forum. Thank You.
REPLY:
Only some individuals, religions and spiritual organizations are making these divisions. They make a deity superior by speaking ill about other deities.
That is why, many devotees develop a distrust in the religious system existing in India.
In spite of these divisions, the religions are making strong impact in India.
Reason?
All religions are talking about getting upgraded from one’s existing life.
There are different paths for getting upgraded. Every path takes us to a certain level in higher planets. That’s all. None of the paths will take us to the hells. That is sure.
Krishna Consciousness is the topmost way of life one can follow that will take us to the topmost position as the direct servant of Krishna in the topmost planet Goloka, that is the kingdom of Krishna.
This is the end benefit in following Krishna Consciousness.
When will it be successful?
Only if we follow the path without doubt and hesitation.
Our entire life time runs on the platform of trust. We trust our parents as good. We never doubt our sisters. We always believe that our related persons will not deviate from their life.
If you trust your parents and sisters, why can’t you trust your creator and eternal soulful relation Krishna?
Because, you feel your parents and sister as if close to your heart.
How that closeness came?
Because of your excessive and natural attachment with them.
How that attachment came?
Because you are seeing them directly all the time and they are close to your heart and body.
Right?
Then, Krishna is present more closely even within your heart as paramathma. He is closer than all your relations. They are related to your body only. Whereas, Krishna is your soulful relation and hence He is our eternal relation.
Since you do not believe that He is present within you, you are unable to FEEL Him.
Why are you unable to FEEL His presence in you?
Because you are giving more importance to the problems only. The problems are only for this body and mind. YOU (athma) does not have any problem. It is unaffected by any external problems.
However, you are thinking that you are suffering. Only your body is suffering because of bodily relations. Not You.
Thus, you identify yourself as a body. If you identify yourself as soul, the pains and problems will not affect your consciousness. You will take them as the reduction of karma done through the body.
Just because we waste our life time to care and worry for the body related pleasures and problems, we feel that we are suffering or enjoying.
The real enjoyment is getting free from all material attachments and getting attached to our eternal relation Krishna. The real problem is that we are unable to concentrate in this liberating and blissful process.
You involved in devotion to Krishna. Recognizing that, Krishna started to purify your karma reactions. How can He purify you? Only by giving the problems in a bearable level.
For non devotees, the reactions of karma will be in their actual seriousness, whereas, for the devotees, Krishna moderates the reactions to the bearable level and also fastens the karma clearing process so that you can become pure from reactions soon that will make you eligible to go back to Krishna.
When Krishna was doing that, you again backtracked and forgot Krishna.
This is what happened to you.
So, trust that Krishna is giving problems only to purify you from karmic reactions.
And, as far as the theories on Gods are concerned, you need not take them serious. There will be different types of concepts for different level of devotees. For thamo Guna persons, Lord Shiva is encouraged. For satva guna persons, Krishna is recommended. This is like giving different medicines for different types of diseases.
All the forms of Krishna respect Krishna; similarly, Krishna respects His own forms and creations. That is why, Lord Rama offered His honours to Lord Shiva.
Only the devotees are fighting with the followers of different forms of God. Whereas, Krishna and all His forms are offering their full honour to each other.
In India, you can see the leaders of the political parties are meeting in conferences and offering respects to each other and even eating together in canteens. AT the same time, their party followers will be fighting at the lower level.
This is also like that. Krishna and His forms are united. The followers fight and preach against each other. That’s all.
In a nutshell, I can tell you to believe Krishna instead of not believing. By not believing, you will not get anything. By believing, you have bright chances to get His mercy and service in His kingdom.
So, believing is better than not believing.
Hope this helped you.