From one point of view, life is about dealing with one problem after another. In the Vedic text Srimad Bhagavatam, Prahalada Maharaja boldly says that the material solutions to problems often create worse problems than the original problem we tried to solve. Historically, this is a profound truth with quadrillions of examples, but I will give a few.
The Bubonic Plague, also known as the black plague that hit Europe in the middle ages, was wiping out practically half the population in some countries. In England, some researchers found the cause and its solution. The problem was that certain kind of flee was carrying the disease and biting humans, and those flees, they thought, were specially breeding in cats. So the solution was to kill all the cats. Through a major campaign, cats were slaughtered. But surprisingly, the disease multiplied. More people than ever started to die. Soon they realized why: those flees were breeding, not in the cats, but in the rats. Since the only way to control the rat population was through the cats, and because they had killed the cats, the rat population exploded. Thus the solution to the problem became a bigger problem than the original one.
We can look around to see more examples. We do not like the heat. So we invented Air Conditioners. It keeps us cool, but then it releases elements that create holes in the ozone. Yes, we solved a problem, but created a monstrous problem in its place.
We neither like to walk, nor do we like to ride horses. So we created automobiles that solve the problem of convenient transportation. But that solution has caused more problems: massive accidents on the roads and so much of pollution. Just breathing in Mumbai, I have been told, is like smoking several packs of cigarettes. All kinds of horrible life-threatening diseases are created by pollution.
Industries are also solving some problems for us, but if they are careless, they create problems that practically threaten the survival of human race: they pollute the atmosphere, pollute the water, and pollute the earth.
The whole atomic research was meant to solve problems. But in the process we created atomic weapons and nuclear bombs. And now, so many countries have them. If any country uses one, it could create a chain reaction that will destroy the world.
So, practically all the problems we have in the world today are reactions to our attempts to solve previous problems. Prahalada Maharaja has said that if we do not understand the real problem of life, all of our attempts to solve the superficial problems will only complicate our lives more and more. We will be taken farther and farther from the real solutions. The real problem of life, he says, is the repetition of birth and death. If we try to understand that we are spirit souls, that we are in this material world which is a foreign place, and try to find a way out of the cycle of birth and death that we are caught in, the superficial problems automatically get solved. How? That is the mystery that surrounds spirituality!
