“I Don’t Think I Can Ever Forgive Krishna”

I still remember the shock that went through me when I first heard those words. The very idea that a human being could think of forgiving God seemed to me presumptuous and preposterous. And to say that one could never forgive God seemed even more outrageous, even offensive. I was on one of my first trips to America, over a decade ago. Those words came from an American devotee around forty, a tall, bespectacled man with a dignified bearing. But that day he looked disheveled and deeply distressed. Pain seemed written all over his face. He was trying earnestly to maintain his composure, but as he began telling me what had happened, his voice choked. “My son was playing at home,” he said. “Somehow, he got an electric shock. And he died.” He struggled to find his voice. “The details are too painful for me to speak.” Taking a deep breath, he continued. “I feel very angry with Krishna, even though I know I shouldn’t. And I don’t think I can ever forgive Krishna for what happened to my son.” As he spoke, I began to understand what he meant by “forgive Krishna.” He wasn’t making a theological claim that God had sinned and therefore needed his pardon. He was describing a rupture in a relationship he had trusted. He felt betrayed by Krishna, and he didn’t know how he could trust him again. He said he had opened his heart to a spiritual guide, hoping for help. “I told him what I was feeling,” he said. “But he became angry with me. He said, ‘How dare you think in terms of forgiving God? It’s we who are sinful and need forgiveness, not God. Whatever we suffer is because of our own past karma.’” His anguish was palpable. “I was feeling terrible and his words just made me feel worse. I feel completely misunderstood, unsupported, unguided. What can I do?” By then, my initial reaction to his words had receded before the pain from which those words were coming. I held his hands, trying to offer whatever comfort I could. I almost expected him to break into tears, but it seemed as if he had run out of tears. “I am so sorry that you have had to go through all this,” I told him. “I can’t even imagine what you are going through. I know that nothing I say can be enough to address such pain.” Praying for guidance, I said, “But whatever happens, please don’t give up the shelter of Krishna. If someone is making you feel more negative toward Krishna, keep some distance from that person for now. Give yourself time. Somehow, find your way back to Krishna.” Even as I spoke those words, I knew that they were painfully inadequate. Recently, that conversation came back to me when I read a public statement by Aishanya Dwivedi, whose husband, Shubham Dwivedi, had been killed in the Pahalgam terrorist attack. She described how angry she had been with God after her husband’s death and how, despite still having unanswered questions, she had reached a point where she could say that she had forgiven God. A devotee subsequently asked me how I would understand and address her statement about forgiving God. This time, on hearing again the idea of forgiving God, I didn’t feel the same shock. I felt only sadness and sympathy. I no longer felt the same reflexive need to police theology or act as a self-appointed philosophical watchdog of every statement I encountered. I didn’t feel the need to focus on the provocative question that had initially disturbed me so much: How could someone think that they could forgive God—or, worse still, that they could never forgive God? I felt the more pertinent question was: What do we do when unbearable pain fills our relationship with God with anger? That question has gradually led me to understand our relationship with Krishna in a way that I wish I had understood better when I met that grieving father. Giving Anger Somewhere to Go There are two realities we need to hold together when we speak about our relationship with God. One is the reality of who God is. Krishna is not another fallible human being. He is the omniscient, omnipotent and ultimately benevolent Lord. Viewed from that perspective, the notion that I, a finite human being, need to “forgive God” can indeed seem theologically questionable, to say the very least. But there is another reality: this is a relationship. If I want my relationship with Krishna to become real and deep—if I want to invest my heart in that relationship—then inevitably I will experience a wide range of emotions within it. And if something devastating happens when I feel I have tried to remain faithful to God, I may feel that God has failed to do his part by protecting me or by preventing the disaster. I may feel angry with him. What are we supposed to do with such feelings? If the only acceptable emotions in my relationship with Krishna are the emotions I am supposed to have, then I may end up presenting to him a sanitized version of myself rather than my actual heart. My thoughts went to an incident in the Mahabharata. After the catastrophic dice game and Draupadi’s attempted disrobing, Krishna meets the Pandavas during their exile. Draupadi pours out her anguish before him. She recalls the terrible humiliation she had endured in the Kuru assembly and asks how she—wife of the Pandavas and Krishna’s own friend—could have been subjected to such an outrage. Her anguish pours out in tears and anger, and eventually she turns to Krishna as her shelter. Krishna could have responded by focusing on what he had already done for her: made her clothes unlimited. After all, Dushasana had ultimately failed to disrobe her; her honor had been protected. He could have told her to stop feeling as she did and instead be grateful for the protection she had received. But even though the disrobing had failed, the attempt to strip her publicly before that assembly had itself been mortifying. Rather than focusing on what he had done for Draupadi, Krishna focuses on what Draupadi is feeling. He does not shame her for expressing her anguish. He consoles her and assures her that those who had caused her such suffering would face the consequences of their actions. What strikes me about this exchange is that Draupadi’s anguish has somewhere to go. When Krishna comes to meet her and the Pandavas, she interacts with him not merely as God occupying an exalted theological position, but as someone with whom she has a real relationship. And within that relationship, she naturally opens her heart to him and tells him what she has been going through—including her pain, her anger and her anguish. Perhaps this was an aspect of bhakti that I had not sufficiently appreciated. My relationship with Krishna can shelter me at all times—not just when my feelings are settled and spiritually aligned, but also when they are still raw and turbulent. Draupadi’s interaction with Krishna showed me one side of the relationship. Krishna may not hold our difficult emotions against us. But what about the movement in the other direction? What if our own difficult emotions hold us back from moving toward Krishna? My mind went to Arjuna at the start of the Bhagavad Gita. When We Feel Unheard by God After Arjuna has poured out his anguish about having to fight his relatives, elders and teachers, Krishna’s first response is startlingly sharp: he tells him to give up his “weakness of heart.” Arjuna counters with what seems almost like moral indignation. What he is experiencing seems to him to be a profound moral dilemma, not mere weakness. He rhetorically asks Krishna how he could possibly shoot arrows at Bhishma, his grandfather, and Drona, his teacher. As commentators have pointed out, the force of Arjuna’s objection is striking: would Krishna not experience similar anguishing hesitation if he had to shoot arrows at his own grandfather Ugrasena or his teacher Sandipani Muni? Yet despite these strong feelings, Arjuna does not walk away from Krishna. He continues arguing his case. But he soon realizes that, despite his arguments, expressing his emotions has not resolved his confusion about what he should actually do. By 2.7, he turns toward the very Krishna whose initial response he had resisted and asks for guidance. Even when Krishna’s response seemed to mischaracterize his emotion, Arjuna stayed in the relationship. He continued speaking, continued questioning and eventually turned to Krishna for guidance. We don’t have to reject our feelings. Nor do we have to resolve all our feelings before we turn to Krishna. Even when we feel unheard by God, we can take that very feeling to God. Cause, Cure and Comfort When terrible suffering strikes, we naturally ask, Why did this happen? Why did God allow it to happen? Where was God when I was suffering? Before we can address such questions, we need to differentiate between three distinct ways in which we may conceive of God’s relationship with our suffering: God as cause, God as cure and God as comfort. The question of cause asks why the suffering happened. Cure points toward what can ultimately take us beyond the condition in which such suffering occurs. Comfort asks what can help us bear the suffering we are going through now. The first—God as cause—is often the one on which we fixate. Yet it may be the one about which we can know the least. To say simply that God causes our suffering is to overlook the other factors involved in how events unfold, including our own human agency. Moreover, the Gita declares in 5.29 that God is the well-wisher of all living beings. How, then, are we to understand his role when suffering comes? Some people, like the mentor of that American devotee, may attribute a person’s suffering to their own past karma. But does that really help? After all, karma operates under Krishna’s supervision. We ordinarily don’t know what we did in the past to cause a particular suffering, or why its consequence came at a particular time. And if God created and oversees such an opaque system of cosmic accountability, won’t we ultimately end up blaming God for having made the system that way? Thus, simply invoking karma does not solve the problem of blaming God for our suffering. And when someone is in deep pain, telling them that their suffering is due to “past karma” can make it seem as if we are more concerned about defending God than helping them. My thoughts went to an incident in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. In 1.17.18, when King Parikshit asks Dharma personified to identify the cause of his suffering, Dharma replies that it is extremely difficult to ascertain the particular cause because there are differing philosophical explanations. The next verse itself lists several different views about causality. This is Dharma personified speaking—not someone ignorant of the workings of karma. The point is not that suffering has no causes, but that causality can operate at several levels and may not be reducible to the simple explanation we are tempted to give. The Bhagavad Gita 4.17 similarly cautions us that gahanā karmaṇo gatiḥ: the intricacies of action are very difficult to understand. When Dharma himself speaks about the difficulty of identifying the precise cause of suffering, and when Krishna himself tells us that the workings of action are difficult to discern, who am I to pronounce a judgment from a position of certainty? That makes me cautious when the response to someone’s immense pain comes in the form of a pat reply: “It’s your karma.” Sometimes the cause of suffering is discoverable, and understanding it can help us respond wisely. But sometimes it isn’t. And especially amid intense anguish, an explanation at the level of the head may do little to heal the wounded heart. Considering God the cause of my suffering is problematic not just theologically but also relationally. If I hold God responsible for my suffering—whether for causing it, for creating a system that caused it, or even for not preventing it—that will make it harder for me to turn toward him. More than that, it may become my reason, or even my justification, for turning away from him. But if anger at God drives me away from God, the suffering remains, while I lose access to the relationship that can give me solace amid that suffering. That is why the other two perspectives have become increasingly important to me. God as Cure The Bhagavad Gita 2.13 offers a vision in which our present embodied existence is not the entirety of who we are. The core of our being is the soul, which is not destroyed when the body is destroyed, and that soul has an enduring relationship with the inexhaustible Lord. That vision does not make bereavement painless. Nor does it give us a quick explanation for every tragedy. But it gives mortality a horizon beyond mortality. Ultimately, bhakti offers us elevation to a level of existence beyond this world of mortality and misery and the restoration of our eternal relationship with Krishna. That is the ultimate cure. But that cure may seem far away when we are hurting right now. But beyond trying to understand whether God is the cause of my suffering and looking toward him for the ultimate cure for suffering, there is another way I can experience God that is much more immediately accessible. God as Comfort I have not experienced the pain of losing a child, but I have experienced my share of pain. Often, that pain has come upon me without any intelligible explanation. Despite not knowing the cause of the pain, and despite still being a long way from experiencing the complete cure from pain that Krishna offers through bhakti, I have found immense relief and comfort amid my moments of pain. One particular incident stands out in my memory. I was once in the ISKCON temple at Juhu, walking up and down a corridor while doing my morning mantra meditation. I had been walking there for some time. Nobody else seemed to be moving through the area, and there were no obstacles in my path. Feeling especially prayerful and absorbed, I closed my eyes and continued walking while chanting. Unknown to me, someone had come to drink from a large water container with a tap that was placed near the corridor. It seemed that the tap had not been closed completely, causing some water to spill onto the floor. My right foot landed on the wet patch and slipped. My left leg has been affected by polio since childhood and cannot support me well. At that time, I also wore a brace that prevented the leg from bending naturally as I fell. My two legs stretched violently in opposite directions, and my left leg, already weakened by polio and osteoporosis, suffered a severe fracture. The pain was unlike anything I had experienced before. In trying to bear the pain, I almost instinctively began reciting verses from the Bhagavad Gita. And then something happened that remains one of my strongest spiritual memories. As long as I remained absorbed in reciting the verses, I experienced extraordinary relief from the pain. Whenever I stopped reciting, the pain seemed to surge back into my awareness. So through the uncertainty, the assessment of the injury, the X-ray, the journey to the hospital and the eventual confirmation that I would need surgery, I kept returning to the Gita’s verses. I would never wish that pain on anyone. Yet I would not want to lose what that pain revealed to me. Remembering Krishna raised my consciousness above that pain. Looking back, I could easily have asked very different questions: Krishna, I was trying to chant attentively. Isn’t that what you want me to do? Why did that person have to spill water precisely there? Why did I have to close my eyes precisely then? Why should an attempt to chant more attentively end in a fractured leg? Fortunately—or by Krishna’s mercy—my thoughts did not go in that direction. Because the question of cause did not come between me and Krishna, I was able to experience real and remarkable relief amid severe pain. And I earnestly hope that everyone can experience such relief amid their own moments of pain. Krishna’s Love Is Large Enough for Our Anger That grieving father never came to meet me again. But if I met him today, perhaps my words would be more adequate—or at least less inadequate. I would probably say something like this to him: “Krishna won’t reject you because of your anger, and you don’t have to reject Krishna because of your anger. “Don’t burden yourself with guilt for the anger you are feeling. Krishna understands what you are going through, and his love for you is large enough to accommodate your anger. You don’t have to deny or suppress that anger before going to him. You can go to him with your anger and seek solace in him. And perhaps, through the comfort you experience in your relationship with him, you may gradually find that your anger itself begins to lessen. “And don’t let your anger drive you away from Krishna. In any relationship that is deeply important to us, when we feel hurt or angry, we don’t necessarily end the relationship. We try to work through those difficult emotions because the relationship is worth preserving. Our relationship with Krishna is supremely worth preserving. So even with your anger, keep trying to find your way toward him.” As I reflected on all this, I offered a prayer: My dear Lord, when I meet people going through excruciating pain, help me see beneath whatever they may say to the wound from which they are speaking. Let me not add spiritual guilt to their grief. Give me the words to help them work through their difficult emotions without losing their relationship with you. And when pain comes into my own life, let me seek its cause where that search can help me act responsibly. But when the cause remains beyond my understanding, save me from becoming imprisoned by the question “Why?” Help me instead turn toward you and find comfort in your remembrance. *** 05.29 A person in full consciousness of Me, knowing Me to be the ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods, and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attains peace from the pangs of material miseries. The post “I Don’t Think I Can Ever Forgive Krishna” first appeared on Chaitanya Charan Das, Bhagavad Gita ISKCON .