Posted on: 25 Nov 2020
[Śrī Anil asked: Paul, who was earlier known as Saul, was a Jew who used to torture the followers of Jesus after Jesus’ death. One day the following incident happened. Paul (Saul) neared Damascus and on his journey, suddenly, a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” After this incident, Paul become a follower of Jesus and propagated the gospel. Paul was never associated with Jesus when Jesus was alive. Swāmi, generally God does not use His special powers to turn a person into a devotee. But in the case of Paul, why did Jesus do so?
Swāmi replied: When the Human Incarnation is alive, ego and jealousy continuously influence the mind of the devotee. When the Human Incarnation leaves the gross body, ego and jealousy subside to a large extent since the Human Incarnation is not alive before the devotee’s eyes. The Human Incarnation takes a lot of care to pacify the ego-based jealousy of the devotee, at every step. The Human Incarnation always tries to reduce His own greatness, as far as possible in several ways. He only cares about injecting true spiritual knowledge into the devotee. The Human Incarnation says that He is only the messenger of God. At the maximum, the Incarnation may say that He is the son of God, which means that God is in the Incarnation, even though God is not identical with the Incarnation. Even that causes tremendous repulsion towards the Incarnation in the consciousness of the devotee. Then what to speak of the Incarnation declaring to be God Himself!
God Kṛṣṇa said that He is God to Arjuna personally. Arjuna was His close associate, in several past births. Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna were closely associated sages called Nārāyaṇa and Nara in several previous births. In spite of so much background, Arjuna asked Kṛṣṇa how He could be God, when He was a recently born human being. This is the tremendous influence of human ego and jealousy on the soul! Regarding Paul, he was very emotional and sincere in his behaviour, but he was on the wrong path. His emotional nature resulted in torturing the devotees of Jesus. He was like a good runner running in the opposite direction. If such a devotee is re-directed to the right direction, towards the right goal, the same devotee will run fast in the right direction. He will also overtake the person who has been walking slowly in the right direction for a long time! Paul must have had a very good background of devotion in his past births, which is known to God alone. Hence God showed the miracle and turned him to the correct path.