Inquiries Into the Absolute: Digest 161, Source of Envy

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Digest 161, March 24th, 2006. Answers by His Holiness Romapada Swami Maharaja

**You are welcome to send in your questions to HH Romapada Swami at

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What is the source of envy?

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Q: What is the source of envy which brought us to this material world in the

first place? I asked this question in one of our Sunday program and the

speaker told me that there is no answer to this question. This really surprised

me because I was thinking that Krishna could still be the source of the envy

but yet unaffected by it. Just like 'maya' for which although Krishna is the

source He is not affected by it. Please clarify.

 

Ans. Anything in existence, indeed, has its source in Lord Krishna and yet it

is not that He explicitly created such things as evil, misery or envy toward

Himself. Srila Prabhupada explains this using the analogy of darkness and light

– darkness is nothing but the absence of sunlight; there is no meaning to

darkness independent of the existence of light, and yet the sun itself does not

literally ‘create’ darkness.

 

Similarly by misuse of their tiny independence, the living entity can turn away

from the all-pure Lord, and thereby experience envy and its corollaries. In the

language of Bhagavad-gita, the experience of envy etc. is due to ‘desire’ and

‘hate’ – iccha dvesha samutthena. (BG 7.27)

 

There is attraction and aversion without any tinge of inebriety or material

duality in the spiritual world; even something that resembles worldly envy is

seen when the gopas or gopis compete to satisfy the Lord ever- increasingly,

but there is no malice therein, only the desire to see Krishna’s pleasure. When

desire and hatred are misdirected, however, due to misuse of freewill, one

becomes deluded to desire to be the lord himself and envies Krishna’s supreme,

unique position as the master.

 

In one sense, the answer you were given is right, in that it is quite

inexplicable that the living entity would exhibit envy towards his most

well-wishing benefactor. There could be no sensible reason for his doing so and

it can simply be understood as a foolish choice by the fallible living entity –

in *this* sense we could say there is no answer as to how and why envy for the

Lord came about. Misuse of free will, and in turn the entire material

experience, arise without "a good reason".

 

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Christ, spiritual and material relationships and morality of Lord Krsna's

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