“Why Is There Suffering?”

Because God is always ready to give us what we desire, He has created the material world where we can assume the false position of controller, life after life, for as long as we like. Yet this material creation is marked by unpleasant conditions-birth, death, old age and disease-so that we may question, "Why am I suffering?" The search for an answer to such questions leads us to spiritual life and finally freedom from the cares of material existence. A nice example is given: The king may have all wealth in his kingdom, but the prisoners in the prison house never know it. Similarly, Krsna has His eternal, blissful, spiritual kingdom, but we are suffering in the material world due to our wanting to forget Him. The intelligent person will endeavor to get out of prison, to transfer to the spiritual world, rather than waste his time trying to make patchwork temporary adjustments to life in prison. "From the highest planet in the material world, down to the lowest, all are places of misery where repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains My abode, O son of Kunti, never takes birth again." (Bg. 8.16)

Relatively happy and prosperous societies have existed within this world. But these rare societies were due to the grace of the Lord and His representative kings who followed the scientific Vedic system of organizing society. Such rulers were pure devotees or saintly kings like Lord Rama and Maharaja Yudhisthira. The kingdoms of the devotee kings knew material opulence far beyond anything we know today, and everyone was happy because they were working and receiving consciousness of God at the same time. In the materialistic societies people are not only unhappy and anxious due to their forgetfulness of God, but whatever wealth they do have is taken away by God's agency of inexhaustible time. "Of subduers I am time." (Bg. 10.30) Due to misusing God's property, people in the United States will end up starving in poverty, whereas that society which recognized God's proprietorship over all and appeals to Him, even if it be for material things will flourish.

Material existence is like a blazing forest fire which can be extinguished only by the rain cloud of mercy from the bona fide spiritual master. No one starts a forest fire, yet automatically fires appear. Similarly, no one wants unhappiness in the material world, but automatically problems arise. But just as rainfall easily puts out a blazing forest fire, so the representative of God extinguishes our material suffering. Neither our own efforts nor those of family, friends, planning commissions and governing bodies can save us from misery and death. Only the ocean of mercy, Krsna, and His representative, the bona fide spiritual master, who pours forth mercy as a rain cloud emits water, can extinguish our material existence. Theoretically we can understand that we cannot solve the problems of material life without God, and historically we can see that no society has been happy without God. "I am the goal, the upholder, the master, witness, home, shelter, and the dearmost friend." (Bg. 9.18)