Question 8

QUESTIONER: ONCE WHEN KRISHNA IS ON HIS WAY TO DWARKA HE MEETS KUNTA WHO REQUESTS OF HIM A GIFT OF PAIN AND SUFFERING. BUT KRISHNA ONLY LAUGHS; HE DOES NOT EVEN SAY THAT SUCH A REQUEST IS NOT RIGHT. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

When a devotee prays for pain it is very meaningful. And there are reasons for it.

To pray for happiness seems to be somewhat selfish. It is. When one prays to God for happiness, he does not really pray to God, he only seeks happiness. His prayer has nothing to do with God, it is only concerned with his happiness. If he can find happiness without God, he will gladly give him up and move directly toward happiness. He prays to God only because he believes that happiness can be had through him. So he uses God as a means; happiness remains his end, his objective. Therefore a true devotee will not pray for happiness, because he would not like to place anything, not even happiness, above God.

When a devotee prays for unhappiness, he simply means to say to God, "Even if you give me unhappiness, it would be far better than happiness coming from somewhere else." A devotee will prefer unhappiness coming from God to happiness that comes from the world. Now there is no way left for this person to move away from God. Man is in the habit of moving away from unhappiness and chasing happiness. The devotee seeking happiness can part with God, but one who asks for suffering cannot; he has now burned his bridges.

A prayer for unhappiness is immensely significant. It is asking for the very thing which people avoid at all costs. A true devotee asks for unhappiness.

There is yet another side to this prayer to God for unhappiness. You can easily risk this kind of prayer, because God can never inflict unhappiness on you. His gift is always happiness. In fact, whatever comes from God is happiness. And if happiness is the only gift that comes from God then why beg for it? There is some sense in seeking happiness from those who cannot give it. And it is safe to pray to God for unhappiness, because he is incapable of granting this prayer. He has only one gift to make, and that is happiness. This devotee is trying to be clever with God; he is playing a joke on him. Really he is telling him that he would not ask for happiness, because whatever God gives is happiness; he can easily ask for the opposite. He is putting God in an awkward position. It always happens in a love relationship -- lovers have fun at each other's expense. In a way the devotee is kidding God, because he knows that although he is omnipotent God is nevertheless incapable of inflicting pain on his lovers.

There are other reasons too, which are psychological. Happiness is transient; it comes and goes. But suffering is lasting, once it visits you it will not leave you so soon. And happiness is not only fleeting, it is very shallow too. Happiness lacks depth. That is why happy people also lack depth, they have a superficiality about them. Suffering has great depth and it lends its depth to those who suffer.

There is a depth in the life of people who go through suffering, there is a depth in their eyes, in their look, in their whole demeanor. Suffering cleanses and chastens you, it gives you a sharpness. Suffering has great depth which is utterly lacking in happiness. Happiness is like Euclid's point which has neither breadth nor length; it is virtually non-existent. You cannot draw a point on paper; the moment you draw it there is a little length and breadth to it. So it is with happiness; it exists in your thoughts and dreams, it does not really exist. So there is no point in praying for happiness.

A devotee asks for something enduring, some thing lasting, that can broaden and deepen his being By asking for suffering he is asking for all that is pro found and everlasting in life.

And the last thing: There is a kind of joy even in the suffering that comes to you from the one you love. And even happiness that comes from an unloving quarter is devoid of this joy. Has it ever occurred to you that suffering has its own joy? This joy has nothing to do with the pleasure Masoch used to have in flogging himself.

A masochist is one who receives a kind of pleasure by inflicting pain on himself, by torturing himself. Gandhi was such a masochist. The suffering a devotee prays for is something entirely different from masochistic pleasure. He is talking of the joy that comes from love's suffering, which only lovers know. Love's suffering is profound. Ordinary pain is not so devastating as the pain of love. Love's pain wipes out the lover, while ordinary pain leaves your ego intact. Love is the death of the ego, which remains unaffected by ordinary suffering. So the devotee prays for a suffering that can efface him altogether. He prays for love s suffering.