How much can we suffer?

[Jahnu]

There is no end to how much we can suffer in the material world. The
material world is designed to be a place of suffering. Of course,
suffering is relative. Some people may enjoy eating a bloody steak. To
me it would be pure suffering to eat a slab of cadaver.

The illusory energy of God, called maya, has two basic potencies -
avaranatmika and praksepatmika - she covers over the soul, and she
drags it down.

Imagine you’d have to eat warm stool. It would be pure suffering. But
for a hog, a pile of fresh stool is totally yummy. For a hog, stool is
considered nice halava.

So for a soul to enjoy eating stool, it has be covered over by maya.
First it’s dragged down into a pig’s body, then it’s covered over by
illusion to the degree that it thinks stool is yummy.

Or consider a worm in stool. The worm lives in shit, it eats shit. The
worm basically lives in hell. But it’s covered over by maya, so much
so that it thinks it’s enjoying life. That’s the power of maya.

Lord Kapila says:

The living entity, in whatever species of life he appears, finds a
particular type of satisfaction in that species, and he is never
averse to being situated in such a condition. --SB 3.30.4

Srila Prabhupada explains:

The satisfaction of the living entity in a particular type of body,
even if it is most abominable, is called illusion. A man in a higher
position may feel dissatisfaction with the standard of life of a
lower-grade man, but the lower-grade man is satisfied in that position
because of the spell of maya, the external energy.

Maya has two phases of activities. One is called praksepatmika, and
the other is called avaranatmika. Avaranatmika means "covering," and
praksepatmika means "pulling down."

In any condition of life, the materialistic person or animal will be
satisfied because his knowledge is covered by the influence of maya.
In the lower grade or lower species of life, the development of
consciousness is so poor that one cannot understand whether he is
happy or distressed.

This is called avaranatmika. Even a hog, who lives by eating stool,
finds himself happy, although a person in a higher mode of life sees
that the hog is eating stool. How abominable that life is!

[EXLEX]

As much as I allow.




--
EXLEX

[Jahnu]

Post by EXLEX
As much as I allow.

Welcome to the law of karma. The law of karma is a natural law, and
just like the law of gravity, it works whether you believe in it or
not.

The law of karma dictates that people create their own destinies
according to their activities - how they treat other living entities.
Or, like it says in the Bible - as you sow you shall reap.

Note, how this statement from the Bible does not make sense without
reincarnation. We reap right from our very birth. We reap a certain
family, destiny, gender, nationality, abilities etc. When would we
have sown that if not in earlier lives?

So the law of karma can be understood properly only in connection with
reincarnation. When seen in terms of many lives, the question - how do
bad things happen to good people? - poses no problem.

If bad things happen to good people in this life, it’s a reaction to
bad things they did in a previous life. Similarly, if bad people are
seen to enjoy a happy life, they are enjoying the karmic reactions of
pious activities performed in a previous life.

Someone might object - do you really mean to say, when a person is
born ugly, this is his or her own fault? How is that fair?

According to the law of karma, our actions in this life - how we
behave and treat other living entities - will determine our next
birth.

In contrast to this we have the material conception of things -
whether I am born into a nice, caring, wealthy family, with good looks
and good education, or I get born to a junkie mother and an abusive
father; whether I am born as the king of Arabia or I'm born in Syria
to a family on the run from bombings and war - it is all just up to
good or bad luck.

According to the law of karma everyone enjoys or suffers according to
the activities the have performed.

--but, but if you believe in karma, if you believe that people create
their own destinies, that will make you uncaring and uncompassionate,
you will be indifferent to the plight of others, because when you see
a person suffer, you will know it's his own fault and you will think
that he just gets what he deserves.

Lets examine the logic behind this idea for a minute. So you are
saying, that if I know the reason behind someone's suffering, if I
know that the person created his own suffering by his own actions,
that will make me less compassionate towards him? And if I think it's
all just random chance, how people suffer or enjoy, that will make me
a more compassionate and caring person?

How does this make sense?

Say, a doctor tells Mr. Olsen - don't smoke three packs of cigarettes
a day, you will get lung cancer. Then 10 years later Mr. Olsen is
diagnosed with cancer. Does, the doctor then tell Mr. Olsen - I told
you so, it's your own fault, now, get out of my office. Or will the
doctor still feel sorry for the man and try to help him? What do you
think?

Or a mother tells her child, don't stick your hand in the fire, you
will burn yourself, and then the child goes and does just that -
sticks his hand in fire. Then, when the child comes running to his
mother, crying - I burned myself, it hurts.

Will the mother be tender-hearted towards her child and try to comfort
him/her? Or will she say - I told you so, now stop your whining.

It makes absolutely no sense to say that knowing the law of karma,
makes a person more uncaring and cold-hearted than if a person
believes it's all just random chance. It's like saying that knowledge
makes a person less compassionate than ignorance.

If you say, that everything is ultimately random chance, what you're
really saying is that you don't know the reason behind it. You are
professing ignorance and trying to make that into some kind of noble
reasoning.

Let me give you a practical example. According to Manu-samhita,
someone who kills a cow will have to take birth as a cow and be killed
in the same way, as many times as there are hairs on the cow's body.

So I know that all the cows being slaughtered in modern society, used
to be people who killed cows. Do I feel less sorry for the cows
standing in line in the slaughter house, waiting to be killed? Nope. I
still feel sorry for them. I'm still a vegetarian because I don't want
to support this senseless mass-murder on animals.

Even though I act as the instrument of another's karma, I still have
to suffer or enjoy the karmic reactions. Thus karma is an endless
cycle that binds us to the matereial world, life after life

I know for a fact that even though I know the law of karma and how it
works, it doesn't make me feel less sorry for the suffering people of
this world. In fact, knowing that people are ultimately the makers of
their own destinies puts me in a better position to help them, rather
than if I think, - too bad, it's just chance.

How can you guard yourself or others against chance? The answer is,
you can't.

Krishna says:

One who is not envious but is a kind friend to all living entities,
who does not think himself a proprietor and is free from false ego,
who is equal in both happiness and distress, who is tolerant, always
satisfied, self-controlled, and engaged in devotional service with
determination, his mind and intelligence fixed on Me – such a devotee
of Mine is very dear to Me. --Bg 12.13-14