Is God cruel?
Sacinandana Swami: Recently I received a letter in which someone wrote: “I am struggling with the concept that Krishna fully loves the living entities. When I look at the way He deals with someone who does not surrender to His desires, it seems He is quite annoyed and punishes him with heavy circumstances like war, rape, death, doubts about the purpose of his life and many other sufferings. Is someone who creates cruel circumstances for all those who don’t do His will really full of unconditional love? Imagine someone who torments a friend severely, just because he decided to go separately on a holiday trip.”
I thought about this question deeply, and then answered, “This question was precisely my first and most urgent question to my own spiritual master. I asked him, “Why has God, whom you praise so much, created such a cruel world?’”
I received the answer: “Krishna has not created this world, you have.” This was so piercing that I almost felt a finger pointing at me with the accompanying words: “You, and nobody else, are responsible.”
After thinking about my guru’s answer for almost fifty years now, this is how I understand what he said: I must accept responsibility for creating this world – my own small world, and the world which surrounds me. Once I take responsibility and do not look for anyone else to do so, everything can turn around and be set right.