Why honest people suffer?
Question:
Why do we see so many honest people suffer, and so many corrupt people passing their life in merry? Has God made no arrangement for justice in this world? It shakes my faith when I see such examples. How do I retain my faith under such circumstances? I am a Hindu, so I am expecting you to help me understand in the light of Vedic scriptures like Bhagavad Gita.
Reply:
I hope you won’t object to the fact that many people do infact get punished for their crimes, here and now. And possibly you won’t object even to the other side of the coin, i.e many virtuous are rewarded, here and now. May be we all accept the above as justified, and so we neither complain about it nor discuss much about it. However, it is a common observation that sometimes the cruel, the dishonest, and the selfish seems to get rewarded, and the honest get oppressed. That seems like injustice.
So why do the good have to suffer? No, no one is good at all times. There are times when we did mistakes, and we didn’t get punished. So, is it injustice to get punished for that sometime later? Maybe whom we see as a pious man now, has done something wrong in the past. And similarly the one whom we think as a bad person has done something good in the past.
This past, according to the Vedic philosophy, can extend not only to the past of this life, but also to our previous lifes. So, extending the argument forward, justice is a must. If we do good now, the outcomes are going to be good sometime or the other in the future. The good returns may come to us either in this life, or in the next. As Jesus said, “The wheels of justice may grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine”.
Thats the philosophical part. The above logic may explains why common people like you and I suffer. But we observe that the life of great personalities is filled with sufferings. The Pandavas were sent to the forest. Jesus was crucified. And if we analyze their life carefully, we can see that they had to suffer not because of their sins, but because of their virtues. So here is the answer that applies to the them:
Why does God allow the virtuous to suffer?
Ask them. Those sufferings make them stronger. It teaches them higher values of life. It brings them closer to God. So the sufferings in the life of virtuous doesn’t go useless. These sufferings will ultimately lead the virtuous to put an end to the suffering of repeated birth, old age, disease, and death. But can the temporary happiness of the corrupt help them put an end to the sufferings?
Why does God allow the corrupt men to be successful?
It appears that the corrupts are successful, but only when our definition of success is corrupted too. Money isn’t success. Fame isn’t success. Ultimately we all look for happiness, and we falsely tend to believe that some material things can make us happy. That isn’t true. A person with clear conscience can be far more happier in a hut, than a person with a guilty conscience even though living in a mansion. The virtuous are happier, and that is the think that motivates them to stay virtuous.
How to maintain our faith in God in the face of such apparent injustice?
I read this inspiring poem somewhere. It may help:
I asked God for strength, and He gave me difficult situations to face.
I asked God for brain, and he gave me the life’s puzzles to solve.
I asked God for happiness, and He showed me some unhappy people to serve.
I asked God for wealth, and he gave me the opportunities to work hard.
I asked God for Peace, and He showed me people in distress.
God gave me nothing that I wanted. He always gave me all that I needed.
Besides that, if we have material motivations for being a devotee, we are bound to face duality and doubts. As the above poem says, God may not provide what we want, but he provides us what we need. Wants are purposeless. Needs are purposeful. If the purpose of everything we do in our life is self reformation and reviving our love for God, then its His duty to take care of our needs. Infact, Sri Krishna confirms that in Bhagavad Gita:
BG 9.22: But those who always worship Me with exclusive devotion, meditating on My transcendental form — to them I carry what they lack, and I preserve what they have.
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Glorious thoughts Sam.
True. What you are now is based on what you did in the past. What you will be in the future will be determined by what you do now. So lets make the best use of NOW.
And the best way to do anything is to do it as a service to HIM.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare.
Courtesy: Savitriji
In the whole creation, only human beings have the opportunity to practice dharma and work for liberation. We have the vishesha budhi or sense of discrimination to achieve salvation or indulge in irresponsible actions and regress into animal existence again. Human life is precious because it comes after many lives of existence in the lower life forms. Animals live by instinct and they do not know how to think against their instincts. So a mosquito cannot change it’s desire to drink blood into a desire to drink milk. They can only go through their life in a certain path or it is their fate to live like that in that particular life. They do not have the free will to change anything.
After so many lives (decided by our past karmaas) ruled by fate with out free will, we exhaust our paapam enough to be born as a human. As human beings, we are ruled by fate and free will.
Jnaanaananda Saraswathi explains three types of Karmaas. Only the results of Praarabdha karmaas we are destined to suffer or enjoy. Other two karmaas, Aagama karmaas and Sanchitha karmaas -their results can be changed by using our free will and discrimination. Aagama karmaas are the karmaas that we do now and will do in future years and we will have to deal with the results in future( in this life and next life or lives to come). By doing only good and dharmic actions, we can try to make all the Aagama karmaas positive so that the results also will be only good. Now, Sanchita karma is the karma that was done in the past, but we have not yet started experiencing the results( they are there, but not ripe enough to experience like the Praabdha karmaas). The results of this Sanchita karmaas can also be changed to some extent, by doing prayers, satsang and helping people with out expecting anything in return. This will at least lessen the results of the paapam we did.
But the first one, Praabdha karmaas are the ripe karmaas we have to suffer and very seldom people are able to lessen the effect. Only the fruits of the Praabdha karma is termed as “fate” because it is already ripe to be experienced and too late to reverse and change the direction. . But Jnaanaananda Saraswathi says that
even bringing a change to this so called “destined fate” is possible if we pray sincerely and surrender to Him completely. Easwaran is beyond the Prabdha karmaas and kaala or time and His blessings can change anything.