Question: What is the source of envy which brought us to this material world in the first place? I asked this question at our Sunday program and the speaker told me that there is no answer to this question. This really surprised me because I was thinking that Krishna could still be the source of the envy but yet unaffected by it. Just like ‘maya’ for which although Krishna is the source He is not affected by it. Please clarify.
Answer by Romapada Swami: Anything in existence, indeed, has its source in Lord Krishna and yet it is not that He explicitly created such things as evil, misery or envy toward Himself. Srila Prabhupada explains this using the analogy of darkness and light – darkness is nothing but the absence of sunlight; there is no meaning to darkness independent of the existence of light, and yet the sun itself does not literally ‘create’ darkness.
Similarly by misuse of their tiny independence, the living entity can turn away from the all-pure Lord, and thereby experience envy and its corollaries. In the language of Bhagavad Gita, the experience of envy etc. is due to ‘desire’ and ‘hate’ – iccha dvesha samutthena. (Bhagavad Gita 7.27)
There is attraction and aversion without any tinge of inebriety or material duality in the spiritual world; even something that resembles worldly envy is seen when the gopas or gopis compete to satisfy the Lord ever-increasingly, but there is no malice therein, only the desire to see Krishna’s pleasure. When desire and hatred are misdirected, however, due to misuse of freewill, one becomes deluded to desire to be the lord himself and envies Krishna’s supreme, unique position as the master.
In one sense, the answer you were given is right, in that it is quite inexplicable that the living entity would exhibit envy towards his most well-wishing benefactor. There could be no sensible reason for his doing so and it can simply be understood as a foolish choice by the fallible living entity – in *this* sense we could say there is no answer as to how and why envy for the Lord came about. Misuse of free will, and in turn the entire material experience, arise without “a good reason”.
