If a horrendous calamity happened in your life, would you still believe in God?

Question

for example, your child raped and murdered, your family tortured, you become completely paralyzed, all your material assets destroyed, your dog gets run over, you get an incurable disease without reason, terrorists bomb a huge number of innocent people that you knew.. etc etc...

you get the idea..

Why would you still believe in God, or Why would you discontinue to believe.

All such beautiful answers!!
Too bad more people don't have your level of faith.

:-)

luvdalz68, your answer is beautiful, i have heard the story before, but told a little differently, reading it now, brings tears to my eyes. :-)

awwdrat, what if your son died on that day? then what would you have believed? perhaps a stupid question, since it wasn't God's will, but for some, their prayers go unanswered, what do you tell them?

muke how strange your outlook is. it's ok though, you can continue answering any questions you like.

kaal, I strongly agree and empathize with you. I had to go through some things, and my faith was tottering, but I too know that it is karma past lives etc, that come to play.


ssrvj, I wish i could talk to you, you are a good person- I feel it. Do not be disheartened by this horrible, temporary world.. what else can i say? sometimes i am angry at God for what happened to my family, but i will not disbelieve, and when it comes down to it, i know that it is my own responsibility, my and everyone's own karma.

yes ebay singh, The Srimad Bhagavad Gita is full of wonderful vedik wisdom by Sri Krsna. another Gita I recommend (after reading ISKCON's version) is 1 by gaudiya vedanta samiti

mari athenen, what you said is noteworthy. Many times we are miraculously saved, other times though not. there is a saying:
"if God wants you to die, nothing can save you, if God wants you to live nothing can harm you"
this is examplified by Prahlad Maharaj and others.


Very nice Krsna :-)

Aradhana, very rightly said. a person cannot but draw near God again even if he tries to turn away out of anger, whether in this life or the next. And how true about burning the karma. Sooner or later, everyone will come to the path of knwing God

muthu this is very sad, but it is good your mother taught u well.

sweetbreeze, this is so sad to hear.. sounds like you learned alot from this experience. good to hear that you have so much faith in God still.

Answer 1

Yes we must understand that all calamities happen by the grace of the Lord and all obstacles are His servants He gives us to remind us that we are in a very dangerous situation but He never gives calamities more than you can digest,each of us who are practising bhakti will get according to our level of surrender to Krishna not more than that but He wants to see how we are taking it positively or negatively but remember behind any misery given by Krishna there is always a great happiness hidden or something good is going to happen.This is also a test by maya who wants to see our attachement to Krishna,when everything is good we are happy but the real test is when everything is against us how do we respond.
The devtas lost all their heavenly kingdom and Brahma prayed to the Lord in SB10.14.8 Purport

The word su-samiksamäno indicates that a devotee earnestly awaits the mercy of the Supreme Lord even while suffering the painful effects of previous sinful activities. Lord Krishna explains in the Bhagavad-gitä that a devotee who fully surrenders unto Him is no longer liable to suffer the reactions of his previous karma. However, because in his mind a devotee may still maintain the remnants of his previous sinful mentality, the Lord removes the last vestiges of the enjoying spirit by giving His devotee punishments that may sometimes resemble sinful reactions. The purpose of the entire creation of God is to rectify the living entity’s tendency to enjoy without the Lord, and therefore the particular punishment given for a sinful activity is specifically designed to curtail the mentality that produced the activity. Although a devotee has surrendered to the Lord’s devotional service, until he is completely perfect in Krsna consciousness he may maintain a slight inclination to enjoy the false happiness of this world. The Lord therefore creates a particular situation to eradicate this remaining enjoying spirit. This unhappiness suffered by a sincere devotee is not technically a karmic reaction; it is rather the Lord’s special mercy for inducing His devotee to completely let go of the material world and return home, back to Godhead.
Also we must know that all calamities & obstacles are His servants and can be removed by the Lord if the devotee fully surrenders & gives up the last remains of attachments if there are any still in his mind.

While we are discussing there are devotees in Kazakhastan who have been rendered homeless by the muslim Kazakh govt few days back because they dont like the muslims becoming devotees of Krishna but the devotees there are so attached to Krishna even though they have lost their very homes in front of their eyes they are still chanting Krishnas names,this is called bhakti

IN russia few years back when communism broke up the same thing happened the army broke the temple & beat up the devotees & they lost everything but to day again the devotees built another beautiful temple for Krishna I read the article in BTG

In bangladesh during Indo-pak war 3 sannyasis who were preaching in dacca while on return to Mayapur temple were caught by the army & were sentence to firing squad since they were all westerners suspected CIA but the 3 sanyasis put their hands inside their bead bags & were prepared to face the firing squad smilingly & the army officers changed their mind & let these 3 devotees go-this is the power of bhakti a devotee is not affected by external conditions & he becomes stronger & more fixed in bhakti

there are so many instances in my own life but can it stop us no it can never stop us because Krishna is always there for us like the pandavas who lost everything but got everything by mercy of Krishna

mare krishna rakhe ke
rakhe krishna mare ke

bengali words: who can save us if Krishna wants to kill us & who can harm us if Krishna wants to save us (quoted by my Guru maharaja HH Srila Jayapataka Swami Maharaja)
By getting miseries we must understand that Lord has specailly seen us more closely to rectify us and purify us but an atheistic materialistic person will commit suicide becoz he has no power to tolerate this misery but a devotee can ,misery given by Krishna then tolerance also given by HIM

Answer 2

Yeah, kindof. At least, I lost a whole lot of faith. When I was in 8th grade (I'm now a junior in college), my Grammy found out she had cancer and she passed away within the next month. She was pratically my second mom, and I remember crying and praying that she would be saved becuase I still needed her.. there were so many things she wanted to see me do before she died thatI hadn't accomplished. And whenever she died, I lost faith because I thought that if there really was a God, then he would've kept her here for me. I know that was selfish, so people, please don't waste your answer space telling me how selfish I am. I've grown up a lot since then and although I do believe in a higher being, I'm not totally sure I believe in the Christian God.... and I think part of it's becuase I lost faith 7 years ago.

Answer 3

Yes I will always believe in God, I do not believe in coincidences. There are too many to be statistically possible. I believe in both free will and fate. Some of the horrible things I have witnessed heva been the cause of someone else's free will, like murder. I have also seen where God has intervened, when for example someone moves to another room in a house seconds before a tornado demolished that room because "something" just told them "get out now" It would be wonderful if more of us regularly made an effort to improve our conscious contact with God using prayer, meditation, and practicing spiritual principles in our interactions with our fellow man. As for the rest, we are in a physical world where all things are in a continual process of change, a constant moving toward of matter, equilibrium, then moving away: a constant state of molecular motion. In other words, all physical things are made to be broken.

Answer 4

There is no 'if' factor. Such H incidents happened in life to me.I still believe in God. I did discontinue for sometime but a realisation came that only HE can do something for me.I sincerely believe judging by incidents in my life that life is just accounting credit and debit balances.I strongly believe in past life because no logical reasons can explain some of the H incidents.I do not want to add any further debits. I also believe that because i have trust in God all such gory incidents seem moderated and I was able to face without losing my sanity etc.Its hard to agree to my thinking but I believe in God no matter what.

Answer 5

A horrendous calamity did happen in my life. It may not seem like much to some people, but I lost two brothers, and then my mother. Then, when I was still in my teens, my father killed himself, leaving me orphaned, alone and homeless. My belief in God got me through it all. My faith increased and strengthened me during those dark times. I didn't even know where my next meal would come from or where I'd sleep at night, or if I would ever be able to go to school again, but my faith in God gave me a solid emotional grounding, as well as hope and dignity to cope with whatever was my lot in life.

Answer 6

I saw your soothing words in another post.Thank you very much.I am 70 years old-for 62 years(that is from my 8 th yearonwards) I was very Religious-I did Adhyayanam of Krishna Yajur Veda -Taitriya Saakhaa under a learned Guru.-I can recite the entire Upanishad fro my memory with Chandas.Then I learned on my own the entire Sri.Bhagavad Geetha,Brahma Sutram and Bashyams by varous acharyas.I can perform poojas like many Preists.Every satur day i was performing sri.Nrsimha Pooja ,methodically.sri.Bhajagovindam'sphilosophy of life ,i learned by heart

Now I feel it is all in vain.My mind does not accept for any Prayers,Pooja or recitations.

Answer 7

God works in mysterious ways...like when thousands of people die violently, now thats mysterious, especially when it seems like such suffering and tragedy might be needless, its all part of gods plan...so remember, when that van full of teenagers in presbyterian youth group, returning from performing gods work, was burned alive in that terrible auto accident, or there is a natural disaster, or terrorist attack, God is the author, and its for our own good, just keep believing that...and if it happens to you, then tweak the faith so that the explanation reads that God is here to help us "heal"...

Answer 8

When my son was hit by a car the doctors and nurses would tell me "If he makes it". I would tell them when he makes it. I was by his side praying except when he was in surgery then I in the waiting room praying. We were orginally told our son would be in the hospital at the very least a week. Three days later he came home from the hospital. He was told he would never snowboard, skateboard, drive, roller blade. Well he does it all.
So when life tries to bring me down pray to God that he wants the same out come as I do. My son was twelve when he got hit he is now 26 and making wedding plans. Praise be to God.

Answer 9

Mr. ssrvj. I am pained to read your reply. I am not saying that you learnt so much, studied so much and what you believe has gone waste. No my friend, knowledge never goes waste. You have done what your religion asked to do. It is good you read your religion so thoroughly, at least now you have command on knowledge and no one can mislead you. Just like you, Sikh Guru Nanak studied Hinduism when he could not get inner satisfaction and could not find his answers he studied Quraan and went to Mecca to perform Hajj. My request to you is very humbly, why dont you study Quraan, may be you will feel contented and completely fulfilled and get all the satisfaction you are looking for. Just by studying Quraan it does not mean you will be converted to Islam, it is just you will attain more knowledge or perhaps you will get your answers.

Answer 10

I too have experienced horrible things, but almost everyone living has or will in some point in thier life. Why lose faith over a temporary situation? God will never give you more than you can handle. He is tempering us like steel for a fine-honed sword.

Answer 11

Yes, because Lord Krishna says in Gita, that the meterial world is full of miseries and uncertainities.We are like pigs playing in dirt and we do not know.Read the Gita published by the Hare Krishnas or one by some Dr whose name I currently do not recall.