One
of my friends recently posted a question on Facebook, “Have you ever
experienced the state of 'Whyness'? This question was quite intriguing. I am sure
all of us, at some point of time, would have experienced this feeling of “Whyness”.
Why is this happening to me? Why is God giving me so many problems? Why is it
that it is always me who has to go through this suffering, while all others
around
me
are living so happily? Many such questions tend to crop up in our mind. Most
often this question of 'Whyness' arises under 2 circumstances
1.
When bad things happen to good people
2.
When good things happen to bad people
But
we fail to ask the same question under the
following
two circumstances.
1.
When good things happen to good people
2.
When bad things happen to bad people
It
is because in this case we feel it is normal and fair. This is what we have
been taught and believed in. The whole theory of Karma revolves around this
concept,
that if you do good to others, good will happen to you and if you do bad to
others, bad will happen to you. To give it an extra allowance, it also
includes
a clause “sooner or later”.
On
the contradictory, in the first two circumstances, we feel that it is not fair.
How can someone who committed a mistake, escape from the punishment
of
God. If it is so, where is divine justice? Why is God
not
fair?
If
you closely observe our feeling or reaction, to these different situations we
may notice something similar to this: When good things happen to good people or
when bad thing happen to bad people, we feel it is normal and justified. We
feel the person deserves exactly what he has got. There is no debate on that.
However, when good things happen to bad people or when bad things happen to
good people,
our
instant reaction is anger, frustration and disappointment. Because what is
happening is not in alignment with the Karma theory, which we so strongly
believe in. It is something we cannot digest. We know he is a criminal, but
overnight he has become a socially recognized political figure. We know that he
is a thief, but all of a sudden he has attained the stature of a business
tycoon.
In
the first two circumstances, we feel that God is fair, but in the next two
circumstances God is unfair. And the irony is more often, we come across the
last two circumstances. It is not that such incidents happen more, but we
generally tend not to notice what is normal and fair. Just like, how. It is
always the black dot in the white board is visible to our eyes, similarly only
those circumstances that we feel unfair are visible to our eyes.
First
and foremost we need to accept that, Good things and Bad things happen to all
without the prejudice of seeing whether the person is good or bad. For example,
a road accident might happen where the person who got killed in the accident,
was
infact
driving on the right track with a sane mind, but the person who hit and ran,
was drunk and intoxicated. There are instances when people have lost their
life, in their struggle to save someone else. The victims of a natural disaster
such as a Tsunami or Earthquake, are mostly innocent people. The person who
gets killed in a communal clash, could perhaps been the person who was trying
to stop the fight. The captives of a flight hijack or a terrorist operation is often
the common man, who has no vested interest.
These
kinds of situations, undoubtedly lead us to doubt the divine existence. It is
then natural for us to ask questions like, “What for should I be good? In
what
way being good, has helped me or my family?. The only answer is, let us be good
for our own sake i.e to please our own conscientious. By you being a good
person
the world is left with one bad person less. The logic is as simple as that. It
may make sense to some, but not to many.
Whenever
you encounter this question of 'Whyness' just settle with this thought, “Life
unfolds itself in mysterious ways and it will always remain beyond
human
reasoning and comprehension”.
Happy Reading,
D. Senthil Kannan
Article Dated May 2013
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