devotee's karma

[Guest guest]

My dear Sri Visnupada,

Please accept my most humble obeisances. All glories to you!

 

In one letter Srila Prabhupada said "The devotee should always see his

difficulty in this light, that Krsna is so kind upon me for creating this

condition of struggling, thus He is relieving me of so many billions of

lifetime of sinful reactions by this very insignificant and temporary

condition of suffering something." (SPL to Vaikunthanatha, 29.12.72)

 

On the other hand in SB he writes "As Krsna takes away all the sinful

reactions of a person immediately upon his surrender unto Him, similarly the

external manifestation of Krsna, the representative of Krsna who acts as the

mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, takes all the resultant actions

of the sinful life of the disciple immediately after the disciple’s

initiation. Thus if the disciple follows the principles instructed by the

spiritual master, he remains purified and is not contaminated by the

material infection."(SB.4.21.31.pp)

 

These 2 statements seem contradictory because on one hand Srila Prabhupada

says to an initiated devotee that he is suffering (in a much reduced form)

due to his past sinful reactions and on the other hand the spiritual master

removes those reactions at the time of initiation - how to understand these

2 statements in relation with each other?

Your servant always,

Citralekha dd