When things go wrong and disrupt our lives, a doubt may trouble us: is Krishna really my well-wisher?

While dealing with such doubts, we need to carefully grasp the difference between the pleasant, that which feels good, and the benevolent, that which yields good. A surgery, even when necessary and even when done by a competent doctor, doesn’t feel good. Yet it definitely yields good. Similarly, Krishna being the supreme surgeon may act in ways that are not always pleasant, but are always benevolent. He does surgeries only when they are absolutely essential, and he is the most competent of all surgeons, so we can be assured that we are in the safest hands.

To maintain this faith in Krishna when we are being surgically operated through worldly upheavals, we need to use our precious assets of intelligence and patience.

Intelligence: It helps us remember that, as we are not our bodies but are souls, what seems unpleasant at the bodily level may actually be beneficial at the spiritual level. This opens our mind to the possibility that what may be unpalatable today may well be necessary for a palatable tomorrow. After all, we don’t know our various attachments, leave alone how to free ourselves from them. So it is only common sense to leave to Krishna matters that he knows far better than us.

Patience: It inspires us to tolerate the unpleasant phase of the surgery and anticipate the benevolent phase, thereby nourishing our devotional optimism. Patience enables us to wait till the benevolence of all that happened eventually becomes manifest, thereby vindicating and strengthening our faith.

When we thus meditate on Krishna as our greatest well-wisher, then, as the Bhagavad-gita (05.29) indicates, no worldly disturbance will be able to steal away our peace.