Demons - an essential subject

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It is known that God is all-merciful, but Bhagavad-gītā states that God punishes the demoniac. The demoniac people, life after life, are put into the wombs of similar demons, and, not achieving the mercy of the Supreme Lord, they are degraded into the bodies of cats, dogs and hogs. The Vedas state that such demons have practically no chance of receiving the mercy of God at any stage of their lives.

It may be then argued in this connection that God should not be advertised as all-merciful if He is not merciful to the demons. In answer to this question, in the Vedānta-sūtra we find that the Supreme Lord has no hatred for anyone. The placing of the asuras, the demons, in the lowest status of life is simply another feature of His mercy. Sometimes the asuras are killed by the Supreme Lord, but this killing is also good for them, for in Vedic literature we find that anyone who is killed by the Supreme Lord becomes liberated.

Srila Prabhupada's books, lectures, conversations and letters offer a comprehensive presentation of this essential subject as seen in the Vaniquotes Demons category. An introduction from his books is given below in the following 8 quotes.

Quotes from Srila Prabhupada's books


vanipedia.org 		The Lord's activities of saving the devotees and annihilating the demons are transcendental. Anyone annihilated by the Supreme Personality of Godhead gets the same result as a devotee who is protected by the Lord; both of them are transcendentally promoted. The only difference is that a devotee goes directly to the spiritual planets and becomes an associate of the Supreme Lord, whereas demons are promoted to brahmaloka, the impersonal effulgence of the Lord. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 8.3.8-9)



vanipedia.org 		A godly person is full of knowledge, and a demoniac person is full of ignorance. Just as a child is attracted by a beautiful doll, similarly a demon, who is less intelligent and full of ignorance, is attracted by material beauty and an appetite for sex. The godly person knows that this nicely dressed and ornamented attraction of high breasts, high hips, beautiful nose and fair complexion is māyā. All the beauty a woman can display is only a combination of flesh and blood. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.20.31)



vanipedia.org 		As far as the atheistic are concerned, it is not necessary for the Supreme Lord to appear as He is to destroy them, as He did with the demons Rāvaṇa and Kaṁsa. The Lord has many agents who are quite competent to vanquish demons. But the Lord especially descends to appease His unalloyed devotees, who are always harassed by the demoniac. The demon harasses the devotee, even though the latter may happen to be his kin. (Bhagavad-gītā 4.8)



vanipedia.org 		It is said in other purāṇas that Narakāsura was the son of Dharitrī, the earth, by the Lord Himself. But he became a demon due to the bad association of Bāṇa, another demon. An atheist is called a demon, and it is a fact that even a person born of good parents can turn into a demon by bad association. Birth is not always the criterion of goodness; unless and until one is trained in the culture of good association, one cannot become good. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.3.6)



vanipedia.org 		Kṛṣṇa Himself, His incarnations and His plenary expansions are all supreme well-wishers of the conditioned souls, but Kṛṣṇa is the well-wisher even of the demons, for He gave salvation to all the demons who came to kill Him in Vṛndāvana; therefore Kṛṣṇa's welfare activities are absolute, for whether He annihilates a demon or gives protection to a devotee, the result of His activities is one and the same. (Kṛṣṇa Book, Chapter 87)



vanipedia.org 		The demons certainly cannot have any faith in the words of authorities. In fact, they are always disrespectful to authorities. They manufacture their own religious principles and disobey great personalities like Vyāsa, Nārada, and even the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa. As soon as one disobeys authority, he immediately becomes very sinful and loses his good fortune. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.14.29)



vanipedia.org 		The devotee of the Lord, because of manifesting godly qualities, is called a demigod, whereas the atheist is called a demon. The demon cannot stand the presence of Viṣṇu, the Personality of Godhead. The demons are always busy in trying to vanquish the Personality of Godhead, but factually as soon as the Personality of Godhead appears, by either His transcendental name, form, attributes, pastimes, paraphernalia or variegatedness, the demon is at once vanquished. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.19.34)



vanipedia.org 		The devotees do not want the fruitive results of their work, nor do they want any kind of salvation. They relish the glorious superhuman activities of the Lord, such as His lifting Govardhana Hill and His killing the demon Pūtanā in infancy. His activities are enacted to attract all kinds of men—karmīs, jñānīs and bhaktas. Because He is transcendental to all laws of karma, there is no possibility of His accepting a form of māyā as is forced on the ordinary living entities who are bound by the actions and reactions of their own deeds. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.1.44)


Demons - explore more within this category.

Vanipedia has now over 903 introductory articles compiled from Srila Prabhupada's books under the series titled Essential Subjects. All these articles can be seen in the Table of Content on the right side of this article and also here in this Umbrella Category. Browse through them to relish the breadth and depth of Srila Prabhupada's teachings - There is a subject for everyone.


   
 

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