Tough Answers, part 2

Naughty Krishna holding a piece of candy

Introduction

July. Warm evening air. But nothing to write about. My mind was blank. Then I saw an article on Microsoft News (MSN).
The title: “Nineteen Tough Questions Atheists Want to Ask People Who Believe in God.”

But the questions were not so tough. After all, Lord Krishna is tougher than any atheist. And I needed a topic to write about anyway.

So I decided to answer the questions with the teachings of Hare Krishna. It will take more than one post, of course. But please bear with me and see if my “tough” answers to “tough” questions are not also logical.

Question 2. How Do You Explain Natural Disasters?

ugust 2024. An election year. On November 5, people all across the United States will jump in their cars, turn the key in the ignition, and head to their local polling stations to drop their ballots in the slotted box.

It happens every four years, ready or not.

And as usual, the two main candidates, fiery enemies this year, have agreed to debate against each other on television. Let us all see who’s the smarter. Or whether either one is even smart at all.

What will they debate about? First and foremost, taxes, jobs, abortion, the war in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East, the hordes of Central Americans fleeing extortion and murder in their own countries as they march northward through Mexico to finally climb over the border fence.

The question: Should we give these tan-skinned people refuge in our United States?

Still, the candidates will surely skip over issues that directly affect the lives of many citizens: the proliferation of bedbugs and disease-carrying ticks, the deadly new viruses.

Not to mention the unbearable heat in the Southwest, the hurricanes in the Southeast, the tornadoes in the Midwest, and the wildfires along the Pacific Coast.

But why will they debate about the wars and not about the weather? Because they can talk big about having the solution to the problem of war, but what can they say about the tornadoes?

Still, their job is to protect the citizens from bugs as well as from bombs. Joe Citizen may worry about the war in Ukraine, and rightly so. But he will worry more when his daughter is in a hospital bed with tick-borne Lyme disease or when his home in Florida is washed into the sea by the waters of a hurricane. Certainly. And what can the president do?

Ever hear the old saying, “Everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it”?

Well it wasn’t always like that. There was a time when people knew what to do about the weather and the disease-carrying bugs. There is an answer.

The Srimad Bhagavatam tells about Krishna’s friend, King Yudisthir, who ruled over the world five thousand years ago:

Because of the King’s having no enemy, the living beings were not at any time disturbed by mental agonies, diseases, or excessive heat or cold. (1.10.6)

And more. Prabhupada writes:

Formerly, when there were responsible kings, up to the time …when Lord Krsna was present, the king was liable to be blamed for the untimely death of a child in the presence of his parents. (Krishna Book 89)

How was it possible?

Because the king—and his subjects—knew something that even the greatest scientists and educators of today do not know: that the forces of nature are controlled by conscious living beings.

It was common knowledge in the ancient world even as far back as the kingdom of Lord Ramachandra a million years ago. And that’s no exaggeration. The Greek and Roman writings speak of gods, but Srila Prabhupada calls them demigods because they are subordinate to the Supreme God, Krishna. The sun god, the earth goddess, the wind god—they are his agents in this world.

But why do the demigods give us tornadoes and wildfires? What do they want from us?

In the Bhagavad-Gita Krishna tells us:

In the beginning of creation, the Lord of all creatures sent forth generations of men and demigods, along with sacrifices for Visnu [Krishna], and blessed them by saying:

‘Be happy by this yajna [sacrifice] because its performance will bestow upon you everything desirable for living happily and achieving liberation.
‘The demigods, being pleased by sacrifices, will also please you, and thus, by cooperation between men and demigods, prosperity will reign for all.’ (3.10,11)

But why offer sacrifices to Krishna and not to the demigods themselves? Aren’t they the ones we want to blow away the hurricanes and dry up the floods? Prabhupada explains this in the Bhagavad-Gita (13.14)

Demigods like Indra, [Chandra] and Varuna are appointed officers who manage material affairs, and the Vedas direct sacrifices to satisfy these demigods so that they may be pleased to supply air, light and water sufficiently to produce food grains.When Lord Krishna is worshiped, the demigods, who are different limbs of the Lord, are also automatically worshiped; therefore there is no separate need to worship the demigods.

The demigods are also Krishna’s police officers. When we break the laws of nature, the demigods punish us with disease, natural disasters, and wars.

Like the weather, everyone complains about war, but no one does anything about it. People are unwilling to eliminate the root cause. Srila Prabhupada explains:

In this age of Kali [the present cosmic age] the propensity for mercy is almost nil. Consequently there is always fighting and wars between men and nations.

Men do not understand that because they unrestrictedly kill so many animals, they also must be slaughtered like animals in big wars.This is very much evident in the Western countries. In the West, slaughterhouses are maintained without restriction, and therefore every fifth or tenth year there is a big war in which countless people are slaughtered even more cruelly than the animals.(Srimad Bhagavatam 4.26.5)

War is also the domain of the goddess Kali, as Prabhupada explains in Srimad Bhagavatam 2.4.18:

There is a popular picture of goddess Kali in which she wears a garland composed of the heads of the asuras [demons] and holds in her left hand a captured head and in her right hand a great khadga, or chopper, for killing asuras.

Great wars are symbolic representations of Kali’s devastation of the asuras and are actually conducted by the goddess Kali.

Wait. Is Kali the name of a goddess or a cosmic age? The two names look alike in English though spelled and pronounced differently in the original Sanskrit.

The name of the cosmic age is pronounced kully with a short U as in dull.

The name of the goddess almost rhymes with jolly but with the vowels stretched out, like KAAH-leee.

That settled, one more question arises: Vegetarians may also be killed in wars, and innocent people may be hurt in natural disasters. Why?

Prabhupada answers this in the case of Krishna’s mother Devaki. She was not hurt in a war or disaster, but the six sons she gave birth to before Krishna, one each year, were killed right after birth by her evil brother, King Kamsa.

Nor did Devaki have the pleasure of raising Krishna. He was taken away to be raised by Devaki’s friend Yasoda while Devaki and her husband, Vasudeva, were held prisoner by Kamsa until Krishna grew up and killed the cruel king. Some years later Krishna reunited Devaki with the six boys.

But all in all, Devaki endured years of anguish. Why?

Prabhupada answers (quoted from memory):

Why did Devaki have to suffer? She has no karma. She is sinless. She is Krishna’s mother. But she had to suffer just because she came into this world. Suffering is the nature of this world.

⁓Umapati Swami, August 16, 2024