relieves suffering

"I have brought medicine to awaken every living being from perpetual sleep. Please receive the holy name of the Lord, the Hare Krsna maha-mantra, and awaken." The Katha Upanisad (1.3.14) also says, uttistha jagrata prapya varan nibodhata: "O living entity, you are sleeping in this material world. Please get up and take advantage of your human form of life." The sleeping condition means loss of all knowledge. In Bhagavad-gita (2.69) it is also said, ya nisa sarva-bhūtanam tasyam jagarti samyami: "What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the self-controlled." Even in the higher planets, everyone is under the spell of the illusory energy. No one is really interested in the real values of life. The sleeping condition, called kala-sarpa (the time factor), keeps the conditioned soul in a state of ignorance, and therefore pure consciousness is lost. In the forest there are many blind wells, and if one falls down in one there is no chance of being rescued. In a state of sleep, one remains perpetually bitten by some animals, especially snakes.    (More...)