WHY DO GOOD PEOPLE SUFFER? - 3
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.
Question: What is the concrete proof for this?
Answer: You will get concrete proof when you practice silence and enter the depths within you. The meaning of the mystery of the endless adventure of existence is there within you. As you enter into the depths within, the mystery is unravelled.
Question: Can you give us some concrete example?
Answer: An example has been given in the Mahabharata. It concerns the blind King Dhritarashtra. After the Mahabharata war was over, Sri Krishna said to Pandavas and Kauravas and all others: “It is time for me to return to Dwaraka. But before I leave, tell me if there is anything I can do for you?” The blind King Dhritarashtra said to him: “I have bee good to everyone: I have not been cruel or unjust to anyone. Why is it that I am blind and have lost all my hundred children?” And Sri Krishna said to him: “I would wish you to get the answer for yourself. Meditate, go deep within yourself until you touch the astral self, and you will know!”
Dhritarashtra entered into deep meditation and contacted his astral self. The astral self keeps a record of our earlier incarnations. Dhritarashtra discovered that in an earlier incarnation, he had been a tyrant king. One day as he walked by a lake side, he saw a swan-bird surrounded by a hundred signets. He asked his people to remove the eyes of the swan-bird and kill all the hundred signets just to please his passing fancy! He then understood why he was blind and had to suffer the loss of his hundred sons.
Question: But isn’t that a very lengthy process of getting to know?
Answer: It is well worth it. You do not acquire a post graduate degree overnight. You have to put in years of study. Just as there is the science of nature, so also there is the science of the spirit.
The rishis of ancient India called it Atmavidya. Vidya means science. As natural sciences have their laws, so does Atmavidya, - the science of the spirit, - have its laws. One of those laws is the law of karma; another is the law of re-incarnation.
-to be continued.
