Question: I read in Srimad Bhagavatam that happiness comes automatically without endeavor the same way as distress comes in our life. How can we apply this statement in our life? Is it that even sitting idle and not working will provide me sustenance and happiness that is destined or we should work according to our duty?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
The Srimad Bhagavatam is teaching us a principle that this material world is a place of duality, wherein a conditioned soul experiences polar opposites – heat and cold, honor and dishonor, success and failure, pleasure and pain – and similarly, happiness and distress. Those in material consciousness, ignorant of the laws of karma which award reactions for our past actions, work very hard to maximize happiness and minimize distress
A transcendentalist, on the other hand, applies themself to attain that which is eternal, unchanging, not ephemeral.
The highest stage of this is striving to restore our forgotten but eternal relationship with Krishna!
So — yes, perform your duties – in full Krishna consciousness.
While we cannot change the happiness or distress which is due to us already, arising from our past activities — ie. we have limited control to influence the form in which happiness and distress-inducing situations come — we *can* reach that realm beyond duality, on the strength of devotional service to Krishna.
That is a worthy goal!
