A question I've been asked more frequently than any other is, "Why do bad things happen
to good people, people who are kind, responsible, virtuous, and even saintly?"
Such people can be stricken by cancer or lose their investments in the stock market.
They can be cheated by scam artists or mugged by dangerous drug addicts.
And, not only do bad things happen to good people, but also, good things happen to bad
people.
Dishonest business owners earn enormous profits by fleecing others.
Powerful drug lords with huge cartels in Mexico and Columbia enjoy spectacular houses, private
jets, and costly jewelry - all without fear of ever being arrested.
Why does God allow all this?
Such questions are challenging for religious and spiritual teachers who sometimes struggle
for answers.
Some of the explanations they offer don't seem particularly helpful.
I learned this long ago when I was invited to participate in a panel discussion conducted
by Cancer Care, which is an organization that provides counseling services to cancer patients
and their families.
The panel included a Christian minister, a Roman Catholic nun, a rabbi, and a Hindu monk,
me.
Our audience consisted of cancer patients and their families, all of whom found themselves
confronting a life-threatening illness.
Each panelist was asked to give a 10 minute opening statement.
The minister said, we are all sinful by nature, no matter how pious we might be, and therefore,
we're all subject to being punished for our sins.
The rabbi said, God introduces trials and tribulations into our lives to test our faith
and strengthen our devotion.
The nun said, the suffering God gives us is a mystery that we can never fully understand.
After all, who can comprehend the mind of God?
As I listened to them, each of their explanations seemed to have serious shortcomings.
For example, if God is punishing us for our sins, then what sin was committed by a five
year old child that deserves to be punished with a malignant brain tumor?
Further, saying that God is testing our faith to strengthen our devotion unfortunately makes
God sound like a jealous lover using emotional manipulation to increase our love for Him.
And to suggest that suffering from cancer is an incomprehensible mystery simply avoids
answering the question altogether.
When it was my turn to speak, I faced a dilemma.
The explanations offered by the other panelists were all based on the Bible and were therefore
familiar to the attendees who were mostly of Christian and Jewish backgrounds.
But the only explanation I could offer was based on the doctrine of karma, a Hindu teaching
that would most likely be foreign to most of the audience.
With this in mind, I tried to explain the doctrine of karma as simply and clearly as
I could.
I said, Hindus believe that the universe is cyclic; it has undergone countless cycles
of creation and destruction prior to the birth of our current universe.
And, in each cycle of creation, we've all been born again and again.
In those prior lives, we've all committed many good deeds and many deeds that were harmful
or morally wrong in one way or another.
According to the doctrine of karma, we receive the fruits or results of deeds we committed
- not only in this life, but in our past lives as well.
We receive desirable results for our good deeds, and undesirable results for our wrong
deeds.
Most of those results take place soon after each deed is committed, but some results might
not have arisen before we die.
In that case, those so-called unfructified results are carried over into our next life.
And that's what's known as karma.
So, all of us are born with both good and bad karmas from our prior lives.
The good karmas we're born with guarantee that we'll enjoy wonderful things in this
life, things that we don't deserve based on our deeds in this lifetime.
It's certainly true that we've all been blessed with many wonderful experiences that we haven't
worked for and don't really deserve.
Those are the result of good karma.
On the other hand, the bad karmas we're born with guarantee that we'll undergo suffering
in this life, suffering that we really don't deserve based on our deeds in this lifetime.
And HERE is the answer we're looking for.
Every good person was born with some bad karma, and that bad karma results in undeserved suffering.
Similarly, every bad person was born with some good karma, and that good karma results
in good things they don't deserve.
When the attendees were invited to ask questions, a woman, wearing a scarf over her hairless
head, said that it didn't seem fair to be punished in this life for wrong deeds we committed
in past lives, deeds that we don't even remember.
I agreed that it would indeed be unfair if she alone was punished for wrong deeds committed
in past lives.
But, karma affects us all.
Consider this.
Being legally required to pay income tax each year would be unfair if you alone were taxed.
But we're all subject to taxation, and that universality makes taxes fair.
In the same way, we are ALL subject to suffering the consequences of wrong deeds committed
in prior lives, even if we don't remember them, and that universality makes karma fair.
Her question led to another discussion - about being punished by God.
Many say that God judges our behavior and then rewards us for our good deeds and punishes
us for our wrong deeds.
But, this is a distinctly Biblical perspective.
From the Hindu point of view, God doesn't judge our behavior.
Instead, God simply gives us the results of our deeds, results that we ourselves have
earned.
For instance, the paycheck you receive after working each week isn't a reward; you earned
it.
And, while shopping in a store, if you accidently break some merchandise, having to pay for
it isn't a punishment; you're responsible for its cost.
In the same way, God gives us desirable results we ourselves have earned by our good deeds,
and God gives us undesirable results we ourselves have earned by our wrong deeds.
So, according to the doctrine of karma, God doesn't reward us or punish us.
Based on this, cancer can NOT be considered a form of punishment.
Instead, it's usually the tragic consequence of wrong deeds we committed in prior lives,
except when smoking cigarettes or other unhealthy behaviors caused the cancer.
I concluded by saying, each and every one of us was born with at least some bad karma
from our past lives, and as a result, each and every one of us is subject to suffering
that we really don't deserve based on our deeds in the present life.
This principle applies to us all, even the most saintly among us.
And if this principle is fully understood, then instead of asking, "Why me?
Why was I diagnosed with cancer?" we could say instead, "Why not me?
Am I so special that I should somehow be excluded from undeserved suffering, even though everyone
else is subject to it?"
After the panel discussion concluded, several attendees thanked me for my comments.
But those comments might not have been too helpful for many in the audience.
Why not?
Each of us understands the world according to our own individual beliefs.
Some believe that God punishes us for our sins.
Others believe that we reap the consequences of deeds we committed in past lives.
Most of us acquired our individual beliefs as children.
We learned or assimilated them from our parents, teachers, and other authority figures.
In this way, Biblical beliefs have been deeply rooted in the minds of most Americans.
And as a result, they're likely to reject other beliefs, like the doctrine of karma,
even if those beliefs seem helpful.
Strictly speaking, we can never say that one belief is true, and others are false.
By definition, beliefs pertain only to matters that can't be conclusively proved or disproved,
matters that can't be established as being true or false.
If something can be proven to be true, then it's not a belief; it's knowledge, like 2
plus 2 equals 4.
Properly understood, beliefs lie outside the scope of knowledge.
Philosophers say, beliefs are non-verifiable.
But, even though we can't appraise the truth or falsity of a particular belief, we can
say that some beliefs are more helpful than others.
The belief that cancer is God's way of punishing us for our sins is not helpful at all.
In fact, this belief can inflict guilt and shame on someone who's already struggling
to cope with a life-threatening illness.
This belief can also make people angry at God and even lead them to lose their faith
entirely.
On the other hand, it seems much more beneficial to believe that cancer is a tragic consequence
of being born with bad karma.
This belief can help people accept their diagnosis more gracefully, and respond to their illness
with a much healthier attitude, as I have witnessed in the lives of many.
This is the first of a series of videos in which I'd like to answer any questions YOU
might have.
Please email your questions to me at this address, and be sure to put "video question"
as the subject of the email.
I'll try to address your questions in a future video.