Suffering is useful and necessary because it allows us to gain a clear understanding of the pain felt by the person we harmed in our previous life, being indifferent to their cries. It also allows us to know that “what we have done will be done to us,” and thus to modify our behavior by living according to the teachings of Krishna, God, the Supreme Personality.

Suffering is useful and necessary because it allows us to become aware of our evil deeds, to do penance, to repent, to ask for forgiveness, to turn to God, to respect and definitively apply divine precepts, laws, and commandments, and to resolve never to do it again.

We must also understand that we are constantly suffering the consequences of our sinful acts committed in our previous life. Karma, in this case, acts as an infallible form of justice. It is through karma, or the law of action and reaction, the law of cause and effect, that we can correct our behavior and improve ourselves.

The Supreme Personality of Godhead tells us the ideal attitude we should adopt: Ephemeral joys and sorrows, like summers and winters, come and go. They are due solely to the encounter of the senses with matter, and we must learn to tolerate them without being affected by them.

We cannot escape the sufferings of this world; the only remedy is to tolerate them, accept them, and endure them. He who not only manages to tolerate the miseries of this world, but also remains calm and serene in the face of its joys and sorrows, is worthy of liberation.

The Supreme Eternal says: He who is unaffected by joy and sorrow, who remains serene and resolute in all circumstances, is worthy of liberation (salvation).

He who, firmly determined to realize his spiritual self, is able to tolerate the onslaughts of both unhappiness and happiness, is ready to attain liberation. No obstacle can stop someone who truly desires to make their life perfect.

We can make our lives perfect by learning to tolerate the difficulties of this life and, in the next, by returning to a world where suffering does not exist—I call it the spiritual world.

God had said: Whether you wash with nitre or use a lot of potash, your iniquity will remain marked before Me.

He who commits evil, whatever its form, suffers the perverse effects of his own sinful acts, which he keeps inscribed in his spiritual essence, like a stain, the resulting trace of his wickedness.

It is not by listing one's sins to the priests, by immersing oneself in so-called “sacred” water, by making libations, or by going to a holy place of pilgrimage without seeking to meet the wise men there, that our faults or sins will be erased.