Thread by @yaajnaseni

I remember asking my mother when I was young - If there is God, why should I study. If praying works, then I will pray, and I should get good marks.

She told me story of a Krishna-bhakta that I still remember.

https://twitter.com/mkatju/status/1249541952984338433

I am not good at telling stories but here it goes:

A sanyasi, on the marg of bhakti-yoga, lived alone in a hut. With time he got old and weak. The time of death was near.

One day, he got terrible diarrhoea.

With no one to look after him, he just lay on the floor, doing nama-japa.

Weakness takes over and he closes his eyes.

A minute later, he hears something, slowly opens his heavy eyes. It takes him a minute or two to make sense.

He then finds Sri Krishna himself, as an adolescent gopa (the form of Srikrishna he had seen as his ishta), cleaning him.

Krishna washes him, changes his clothes, and gives him some water to drink. Then he picks up a broom and starts cleaning the house.

After drinking water, the sage regains some strength.

Krishna then lovingly asks, baba, do you want more water?

Tears start rolling down sage's cheeks.

The sage says, "O my beloved Krishna, I always wanted to host you. But see the tragedy, when you have come, I am lying down and you are cleaning human waste"

"The lord of the universe is cleaning up after me!"

"O Krishna! I am old and feeble, my end is near. Why have you come here to do my seva? Just sit beside me. Don't embarrass me like this"

"For long, I have being living a sanyasi-life, away from the give and take of samsara. At the end, don't make me a rini of the universe"

Krishna smiles, doesn't say anything, and continues cleaning.

The sage is sick again. Krishna rushes to help him. Patiently cleans him up again.

The sage then says, "How long will you stay here doing this? O Krishna, let me leave this samsara and see you in Goloka sitting on a simhasana with Radharani, not like this"

No response.

The sage further says, "Alright, if you can't do that (let him die), then cure my sickness, make me well again, for I don't want you to clean up after me".

Krishna then tells the sage:

"O sage! the situation that you're in, is a result of your karma. Nobody can escape the result of their karma. In whatever form or way, the karma surely catches up."

"But yes, as your beloved, I will help you, be with you, clean you, do your seva. I promise to be there for you when you want me to"

Moral of the story: Krishna didn't invent antibiotics and give him, didn't magically cure his pain, and also didn't leave him alone.

Why? Because moksha=liberation/absolute freedom. This freedom is spiritual domain is mirrored by free-will- karma siddhanta in samsaric domain.

Dharma, Artha, Kama and ultimately Moksha - these are called four purusharthas - meaning, these are begotten by effort/action.

Even Moksha that is the end of Karma-bandhana cannot be attained by akarmanyata.

We don't expect god to cure coronavirus because we also don't expect him to send one.

Hindus are not big fans of a powerful god playing his own wish in the world.

That's why we have elaborate arrangements to control exercise of power:

plurality- many gods
separation of power- specific job descriptions
democracy- diff forms tailor-made to personal needs (specialisation)
decentralisation- no one book/person
avatar- don't just sit there as god but suffer like us, we'll judge you
rule of law- karma sidhant etc

Look around.

In India, you will find gods, from under a tree, to greasy slab of a chowmein thela, to a pan wrapper, because Indians expect god to be what, where and when as they want.

"No point being omnipotent and omnipresent if I can't access you as per my convenience"

Will not discuss Bhakti-yoga here because the thread is already too long. But to give an example, see what Chokhamela, a 14th century vishnu-bhakta who was born in an ‘untouchable’ caste writes:

Vedas and the Shastras polluted;
Puranas inauspicious impure;
the body, the soul contaminated;
the manifest Being is the same. Brahma polluted, Vishnu too;
Shankar is impure, inauspicious.
Birth impure, dying is impure: says Chokha
pollution stretches without beginning and end.

True to the concept of Bhakti, not only Chokha shares the divine love of Vithobha, but Vithobha also shares the socially imposed ‘pollutedness’ of Chokha. If Bhakt Chokha, who is one with the Lord is ‘impure’ and 'inauspicious', then what is not?

That's some moksha-level dialogue going on there.

Those of us who have reached Chokha's level- no self-centred samsaric sukha kamana (which essentially is at cost of something- someone's labour, natural resources etc), can surely rely only on Krishna to take care of everything.

That's a personal arrangement.

But there is no free lunch in samsara. No responsibility = no freedom. And the same rule applies to our gods too.

Think about idol-worship. Could there by a more "scientific" representation of gods?