Let There Be Calamities
In this very interesting verse, it is described that vipadah—calamities or dangers—are very good if such dangers and calamities remind us of Krishna.
tat te 'nukampam susamikshamano
bhunjana evatma-kritam vipakam
(SB 10.14.8)
How does a devotee receive dangers? There must be dangers because this material world is full of dangers. But foolish people who do not know this try to avoid the dangers. Thus they struggle for existence. Everyone is trying to become happy and avoid danger. This is our material business. Everyone is trying for atyantikam sukham, ultimate happiness. A working man thinks, "Let me work very hard now and put money in the bank, so that when I get old I shall enjoy life without working." This is the inner intention of everyone. No one wants to work; as soon as one gets some money, he wants to retire from work and become happy. But that is not possible. One cannot become happy in that way.
Here Kuntidevi speaks of apunar bhava-darsanam [SB 1.8.25]. The prefix a means "not," and punar bhava means "repetition of birth and death." The real danger is the repetition of birth and death. That must be stopped.
The material world is full of dangers (padam padam yad vipadam [SB 10.14.58]). For example, if one is on the ocean one may have a very strong ship, but that ship can never be safe; because one is at sea, at any time there may be dangers. The Titanic was safe, but on its first voyage it sank, and many important men lost their lives. So danger there must be, because we are in a dangerous position. This material world itself is dangerous. Therefore, our business now should be to cross over this sea of danger as soon as possible. As long as we are at sea, we are in a dangerous position, however strong our ship may be. That's a fact. But we should not be disturbed by the sea waves; instead, we should just try to cross over the sea and get to the other side. That should be our business.
As long as we are in this material world, there must be calamities because this is the place of calamity. But even with calamities our business should be to develop our Krishna consciousness, so that after giving up this body we may go back home, back to Krishna.
Written by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
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