God's Perfect Sovereignty

Written by David Bruce Hughes

The Kingdom of God, the spiritual world, is perfect. There is no unhappiness, no suffering, no scarcity, no ignorance, no sin, no illness, no old age, and no death. Every one of the citizens in God’s kingdom is a perfectly self-realized soul. Therefore even though each one has his or her individual desires and activities in ecstatic love of God, everyone lives together in complete harmony.

Bhagavad-gita [8.16] calls this material world duhkhalayam asasvatam: a temporary world, full of miseries. Why? You will be surprised at the answer: Because the Supreme Personality of Godhead is not visible in the material world or by material vision.

We come to this material world because we are envious of God; we do not want to love or serve Him, and we want to live separately from Him. Therefore everyone from the highest to the lowest in this material world is selfish, full of lust, envy and violence against others.

And the leaders of this material world are the most envious, the most violent. In past ages the kings and leaders ruled according to God’s injunctions in the Vedas. Therefore even though they were envious and lusty for power, their material tendencies were controlled to some extent, and people were more or less satisfied under their rule.

But in this fallen age of Kali-yuga, the leaders are not ruling properly according to the Vedic injunctions. Therefore the citizens are suffering. Political leadership requires military power for subduing the thieves and rogues who would attack and plunder the citizens. Military strength is required to keep the kingdom peaceful, but not for aggression against others’ country or property. Misusing military power for self-aggrandizement is not allowed in the Vedic injunctions.

Therefore the political leaders are creating so much bad karma by abuse of their military power, and the citizens are suffering. Because the military power of the government is being misused, so many violent storms are causing far more devastation than any terrorist attack. This is karma. But because the leaders are spiritually ignorant, they do not realize the change in the weather is the effect of their policy.

Because the rulers are not self-realized, they are fighting unnecessarily. It is natural that if a leader has no God consciousness, no spiritual wisdom, then he will misuse his strength and opulence. But one who is a self-realized, God-conscious soul will use his strength and opulence properly to protect and benefit the citizens under his care, so that no one is in anxiety.

According to the instructions of the Vedas, the rulers of the state are meant for giving protection to the citizens, to train them to the Vedic conception of spiritual life. But they are not doing that; in fact they are doing the opposite. According to the Vedic conception of society, the government leaders are meant for representing the Supreme Personality of Godhead. But instead they are doing the opposite because they ignorantly consider themselves to be the proprietors.

Actually, Kṛṣṇa or God is the proprietor of everything, sarva-loka-mahesvaram [Bhagavad-gita 5.29]. He is the proprietor of everything: sarva-loka. Sarva-loka means all the planets, all the universes. He is the proprietor because they are emanated by His bodily effulgence, the brahmajyoti. Just like so many planets are created by the sun, similarly, innumerable universes are created from the brahmajyoti, the bodily effulgence of God.

Here is a beautiful Sanskrit verse from the Esoteric Teaching:

yasya prabha prabhavato jagad-anda-koti-
kotisv asesa-vasudhadi-vibhuti-bhinnam
tad brahma niskalam anantam asesa-bhutam
govindam adi-purusam tam aham bhajami

I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is endowed with great power. The glowing effulgence of His transcendental form is the impersonal Brahman, which is absolute, complete and unlimited, and which displays countless variegated planets, with their different opulences, in millions and millions of universes. [Bs. 5.40]

So according to the Esoteric Teaching, everything is the creation of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa says, aham sarvasya prabhavo mattah sarvam pravartate: “I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me.” [Bhagavad-gita 10.8]

Everything has emanated from Kṛṣṇa’s body, therefore He is the proprietor of the universe. If I have created something, then I am the proprietor. It is very easy to understand; it is repeated in every scripture. In the Vedas also, it is said eko narayana asit: “Before the creation there was only Narayana.” In the Esoteric Teaching also it is said, aham evasam evagre, “Before creation there was only Kṛṣṇa.”

When we speak of only Kṛṣṇa existing before the material creation, it does not mean Kṛṣṇa was alone or that there was nothing. The spiritual world is eternal; therefore Kṛṣṇa exists eternally with His form, His pastimes, His paraphernalia, His entourage, in the unlimited variegatedness of the spiritual world.

When we speak of a king in this material world, it does not mean the king alone. As soon as we speak of the king, we must understand the king’s form, the king’s kingdom, the king’s secretaries, the king’s ministers, the king’s queen, the king’s palace, and so many other things associated with him.

Similarly, when the Vedas say that eko narayana asit, “Before creation there was only Narayana,” they mean Narayana with His paraphernalia, with His expansions, associates, pastimes, qualities and innumerable spiritual abodes. Narayana or God has innumerable expansions in the spiritual world, vaikuntha jagat, and innumerable spiritual Vaikuntha planets. The opulence and power of God is unlimited.

In the spiritual world, all the planets are called Vaikuntha planets. Kuntha means anxiety. So all the planets in the spiritual world are Vaikuntha, without anxiety. Here in this material world, there are only kuntha planets. On any material planet, anxiety will be there. This is material.

Why anxiety? The Esoteric Teaching says, sada samudvigna-dhiyam asad-grahat. In the darkness of materialistic life, one is always full of anxiety because of having accepted a temporary body. We are in anxiety because although we are eternal, we have accepted something asat, which will not remain. But we are eternal; our natural position is eternity. Therefore we try as much as possible to save the body. But it cannot be saved. We are suffering because we have accepted something temporary, which is not compatible with our real existence.

The materialistic leaders of modern civilization do not understand this. They think that death is normal. Of course, death of the material body cannot be avoided. But for the soul, death can be avoided by practice of self-realization. The materialists do not know how to avoid death, although how you can avoid death is clearly mentioned in Bhagavad-gita and other literature of the Esoteric Teaching.

Birth, death, old age and disease, anxiety and suffering: these are the real problems of life. They materialistic leaders do not know how to solve these problems. They are simply engaged in some temporary business of politics. They are making so many big plans, big diplomacy, and so much unnecessarily fighting, simply increasing the problems in the material world. They do not touch the real problems of life, because they do not know how to solve them.

The leaders claim that they are working on solutions to problems like crime, poverty and terrorism. But this is a false promise, a post-dated check. If they really knew how to stop these things, they would have stopped them already. The materialistic leaders have had more than enough time to stop these problems, but they are not stopping them. If anything, the statistics show that they are making them worse.

This proves the materialistic leaders are incompetent to stop the problems of life. The leaders want to solve these problems, but because they are ignorant and materialistic, they cannot understand how. We students of the Esoteric Teaching are non-violent; we do not want to overthrow the leaders, but we want to educate them. This is our value proposition: They are wasting so much time, effort and money on ineffective solutions. We want an opportunity to show how this Esoteric Teaching can solve all the problems of material existence.

In God’s kingdom there is no scarcity, no crime and no anxiety. If one wants to free oneself from anxiety, one should immediately take shelter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in Vaikuntha by chanting His Holy Name, om namo bhagavate vasudevaya. You should understand this fact: this Esoteric Teaching is not an ordinary sentimental religion; the Esoteric Teaching is the application of the Vedic science of consciousness to solve all the problems of life. Take these instructions seriously, experience it for yourself and see.