Why is Krishna not descending now when there is so much adharma?

By Chaitanya Charan - 20.1 2022

Question: Why is Krishna not coming as an Avatar now when things are so chaotic in the world?

Answer: Things are always wrong in the material world; because here we all have to grow old, get diseased, and die; even if there were no terrorist even if there were no scandals still the material world would be miserable place. So that is why it is said Janma-mrtyu-jara-vyadhiduhkha-dosanudarsanam

It’s not that the evils in this world are just that some people die prematurely because of some unfortunate violent incidence; it’s that everybody dies and that itself is the evil.

To rectify the evil Krishna has given the system of dharma and that is knowledge, spiritual knowledge, which is revealed through different traditions through different people at different times in different degrees so that people can be elevated. Krsna has according to his own  time schedules, specific times when he comes as the yuga avatars, the lila avatars and there are various kinds of avatars. Certainly in Kali yuga the adharma is much more than earlier ages, but then at the same time this is not outside the purview of Krishna’s sanction; not only as Krishna sanctioned it but the scriptures also have predicted the characteristics of Kali yuga.

The souls have come to the material world to enjoy and those souls who want to hunt for wholesale material enjoyment without any kind of restriction from anyone for them Kali yuga is presented as an opportunity because that is what the souls think will make them happy and they need to be given that facility so that they can realize this is not going to make me happy; but to get that realization through their experience they need a facility. Kaliyuga is a facility in terms of the cosmic cycle and it’s a season for wholesale degradation and trying out the experiment to know whether such wholesale degradation can make one happy. Because it is a part of the season, it is a part of the characteristics of this particular season in the cosmic cycle so in that sense it is distressing no doubt but it is not unexpected. Because Krishna has given this as a facility for those souls, that’s why we cannot demand that Krishna appears to stop those souls. In fact when we talk about those souls we should not think those are some demoniac souls somewhere out there in the world with machine guns to shoot the innocent people. It’s quite likely that we also belong to that category who wanted whole sale enjoyment that is why actually we have taken birth in Kali yuga. Those souls who could not pass through the filters of mercy and time in the previous ages, those who stayed stuck in the material world, they are reborn in this particular age of Kali and we are unfortunately among those souls.

Still Krishna doesn’t reject us. Krishna gives us an opportunity to make spiritual advancement through his Avatar as the holy name. He has come 500 years ago as Shri Caitanya Mahaprabhu as the yuga avatar and has given us the holy name. That is why Caitanya Caritamrta says Kali kale naam rupe Krishna avatar. In Kaliyuga Krishna had reincarnated as the holy name because Kaliyuga is a time when overall disorder and degradation is allowed within the cosmic time scale so Krishna doesn’t establish dharma externally directly.

There is still definitely some level of dharma but for those souls who wants to live according to dharma Krishna doesn’t reject them or abandon them. For them Krishna gives them a facility by which they can live according to dharma so that they can minimize the effects of adharma around them. So that protection comes in the form of holy name. Just like when there are rains we cannot stop the rains but if a friend is there that friend may offer us an umbrella by which we can protect ourselves from the rains; like that the incarnation of Krishna as the holy name gives us an opportunity to protect ourselves from the effects of Kaliyuga.

This is an expandable umbrella. It’s not that if somebody gives us an umbrella that person losses the umbrella; no, that person has his or her own umbrella and we also get an umbrella and the more we take that umbrella the more we feel inspired to share that umbrella and when we hand over the umbrella to others we don’t lose our umbrella; in fact we get greater realization of how shelter giving the umbrella is, and we then take greater shelter of the umbrella.

So what we can do in Kaliyuga is we can protect ourselves by taking shelter of the holy name and live according to dharma and inspire others also to do the same similarly. So in this way Krishna has made his mercy available in this age in the form of his holy name which is the Avatar for the Kaliyuga. So Krishna is indeed descending as the holy name in Kaliyuga to give facility for dharma for those who want to be dharmic in an age which allows us to be adharmic for the sake of the souls who want to live adharmically.

Thank You