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WHY DO GOOD PEOPLE SUFFER? – Part 2
A learned Rabbi has written a book titled, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. In this book the Rabbi narrates how his three year old son was afflicted with an incurable disease called Progeria. The effect of this disease, he was told, would be that the boy would not grow taller than three feet, would remain bald, and would age rapidly. Even as a child, he would have the appearance of an old man! Naturally, the father was grief-stricken. “Why has God permitted an innocent child to become the victim of such a disease? He asked. “He has hurt or harmed no one. Why has he been exposed to physical and psychological torture?” The author considers several similar cases and concludes that God is not omnipotent, as we believe Him to be. God has limited power. Within those limitations God can exercise His discretion. But there are forces over which He has no control. If those forces operate, God has no way of helping you out.
Dr. Anne Besant, the founder of the Theosophical Society gave birth to a child who, during his infancy, suffered from convulsions. Suddenly, the fever would shoot up and the infant would have a series of fits. The suffering of the infant was more than the mother could bear. She was at a total loss to understand how the All-Loving, All-Merciful, All-Compassionate God had inflicted so much suffering on a harmless, guileless and perfectly innocent baby. She turned an agnostic and said that she was not sure if there was a God.
She worked on the staff of “The New Review”. One day, she was asked to review ‘The Secret Doctrine’ by Madame H.B. Blavatsky. As she went through this book, she came upon a chapter on Karma and Reincarnation. She read line after line of this chapter with deepening interest and a new awakening dawned on her. She began to understand that the present was not the only life that she or her child had lived; it was but one of the innumerable lives they had lived so far. The present life was but a fragment in the continuity of existence and, therefore what an individual suffered today could be the product of what he (or she) had done in an earlier incarnation. The mystery was unravelled. Her entire attitude towards life changed.
The answer to the opt-repeated question, “Why do good people suffer?” becomes clear when we understand the operation of the law of karma and re-incarnation. The law of karma is the law of cause and effect. Every effect must have a cause. The effect we see now must have a cause, recent or remote. Whatever happens to me today has a cause behind it.
A learned Rabbi has written a book titled, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. In this book the Rabbi narrates how his three year old son was afflicted with an incurable disease called Progeria. The effect of this disease, he was told, would be that the boy would not grow taller than three feet, would remain bald, and would age rapidly. Even as a child, he would have the appearance of an old man! Naturally, the father was grief-stricken. “Why has God permitted an innocent child to become the victim of such a disease? He asked. “He has hurt or harmed no one. Why has he been exposed to physical and psychological torture?” The author considers several similar cases and concludes that God is not omnipotent, as we believe Him to be. God has limited power. Within those limitations God can exercise His discretion. But there are forces over which He has no control. If those forces operate, God has no way of helping you out.
Dr. Anne Besant, the founder of the Theosophical Society gave birth to a child who, during his infancy, suffered from convulsions. Suddenly, the fever would shoot up and the infant would have a series of fits. The suffering of the infant was more than the mother could bear. She was at a total loss to understand how the All-Loving, All-Merciful, All-Compassionate God had inflicted so much suffering on a harmless, guileless and perfectly innocent baby. She turned an agnostic and said that she was not sure if there was a God.
She worked on the staff of “The New Review”. One day, she was asked to review ‘The Secret Doctrine’ by Madame H.B. Blavatsky. As she went through this book, she came upon a chapter on Karma and Reincarnation. She read line after line of this chapter with deepening interest and a new awakening dawned on her. She began to understand that the present was not the only life that she or her child had lived; it was but one of the innumerable lives they had lived so far. The present life was but a fragment in the continuity of existence and, therefore what an individual suffered today could be the product of what he (or she) had done in an earlier incarnation. The mystery was unravelled. Her entire attitude towards life changed.
The answer to the opt-repeated question, “Why do good people suffer?” becomes clear when we understand the operation of the law of karma and re-incarnation. The law of karma is the law of cause and effect. Every effect must have a cause. The effect we see now must have a cause, recent or remote. Whatever happens to me today has a cause behind it.
(Author: Sri J. P. Vaswani)
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