When thunderstorm and lightning strikes we run inside our house, and when the earth shakes we run out of our house. Is there any place where we are safe? In this world there are dangers at every step – padam padam yad vipidam(S.B 10.14.58).  A father and a mother cannot protect their child, in fact they can’t even protect themselves.  A doctor and a medicine cannot save a patient. A boat on the ocean cannot protect a drowning man. From womb to tomb uncertainty and fear and anxiety accompany us like a shadow. 

When we suffer we always without fail blame others. We feel that the entire world is conspiring against us. But Prahlad never blamed his father who was torturing him mentally and physically and was employing cruel means to kill him. He said, “I am suffering because of my own activities.” SB 7.9.16 

How many of us accept that we are the cause of our own misfortune? We may be suffering now not because the Supreme Lord wants us to suffer but because we had indulged in certain prohibitory activities, which is considered sinful by the Vedic scriptures. 

A prisoner cannot complain that why he is not happy in the prison house.  Similarly we the spiritual beings who have been exiled from the spiritual world and sent to this material world, which is just like a prison house should not expect that we can enjoy here. Krishna in Gita 8.15 very clearly says that this world is duhkhalayam asasvatam– temporary and miserable. 

Sometimes seeing the good conduct of a prisoner, the jail authorities may recommend the constitutional authority to reduce his sentence or even recommend to set him free. Similarly we the residents of this world also have the chance to get freedom from all the miseries. The jail authorities of this world may be heartless, biased or corrupt but the Supreme Lord is unbiased and our best well-wisher. He has the complete authority over this world and is always eager to take us back to His abode where there are no miseries. In fact even in this world too once we take complete shelter of Krishna, He will free us from all sinful reactions and protect us in all situations. 

In fact once we enthrone Him in our hearts then we can live happily and fearlessly forever, even in this world.  As Prahlad says,” I am not at all afraid of material existence, for wherever I stay I am fully absorbed in thoughts of your glories and activities.” S.B. 7.9.43

* * * 

(Purushottam Nitai Das is a member of congregation at Iskcon Kolkata. He works in IBM as an Advisory Consultant. He writes at http://www.discoverursupersoul.com)