Did Jesus mean that His followers would get persecuted?

[Shri Anil asked: A Father in a church was unable to explain and correlate the word ‘persecutions’ in Mark 10:28-30 as given below. Could You kindly explain it clearly?

28. Peter began to say to Jesus “Look, we have left everything and followed You.” 29. “Truly I tell you,” said Jesus, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for My sake and for the gospel, 30. will fail to receive a hundredfold in the present age—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields, along with persecutions—and to receive eternal life in the age to come.”]

Swami replied: Persecution is the ill-treatment of a person by the people with whom the person has worldly bonds. This happens when that person is of no use to those people. The love in any worldly bond is only based on selfishness, as said in the Veda (Ātmanaḥ kāmāya…). The love of God is free of any selfishness because God does not need anything from any soul. The persecution of a person in any worldly bond is natural because the love of human beings is always based on selfishness. The love of any soul for any another soul is always unreal because it is purely based on selfishness. In fact, the whole story of love in the world is just souls cheating each other. Each one only loves oneself internally and yet externally expresses love that appears to be selfless. It is only an illusion of selfless love!

The biggest tragedy is that the soul’s love for God is also based on selfishness alone, even though the soul thoroughly knows that God is not selfish at all, due to His omnipotence. God is always a reflection of the soul in His behavior (Pratirūpo babhūva—Veda). Let us say that a person spends his wealth for the sake of God. But he does so with an aspiration for some fruit in return. God gives back that wealth to the person, multiplying it many fold. So, God fulfils the person’s aspiration, as long as it is justified. But God will never give Himself to such a devotee since the love of the devotee was not selfless. If the devotee had sacrificed the same wealth to God without any aspiration, God would have given Himself to the devotee. Such a devotee will also become a Human Incarnation of God in some time.

Keywords:

| Shri Dattaswami | Aatmanah kaamaaya Pratiruupo babhuuva