let me share another story with you one boy going to school in the morning
and has garden he discovered a cocoon now the boy was thrilled because he had studied
in his biology class that the caterpillar weaves a cocoon and it
stays there for a few weeks then it emerges as a beautiful colorful
butterfly he thought I will see this transformation of nature before my eyes
every day while going to school and while returning he will check his own
personal cocoon which was housing the future butterfly and one day sure enough
a little tear had appeared it was a Saturday he was further thrilled every
two hours he would come to check is the butterfly emerging and by mid-afternoon
the butterfly had started poking its head out now with transfixed gaze he was
watching this miracle of nature taking place the butterfly was slowly emerging
into the wonderful world where it would fly with mirth and frolic but halfway through it
seemed to get stuck it was jammed the tear was not big enough it was trying to
extricate itself but unsuccessfully and the cocoon was bobbing up and down he
saw that the stomach is too big and it is jammed he said let me do my good deed
for the day he went and got a pair of scissors
from his house and he snapped the cocoon
he allowed the butterfly to drop to the ground now he found the butterfly is
squirming on the floor rather than soaring in the air and he saw that its
stomach was big the wings were shriveled up the boy thought this will slowly
correct itself the wings will fill up and the stomach will get contracted but
what he did not realize was that now this would never be the struggle was
necessary for the butterfly to reach its glory by pulling itself out of that tear
the fluid of the stomach would have been squeezed and it would have filled the
wings without that struggle the butterfly would ever remain crippled in
the same way God brings challenges and difficulties in our life to fill our
wings to help us grow in our wisdom in our inner strength so that we may be
prepared for the flight ahead to the supreme destination which requires
full wings not crippled wings those difficulties and challenges are placed
there for a purpose growth means to grow above them not to avoid them but in our
incomplete paradigm in our incomplete understanding we look for somebody who
will come with the scissors and cut our cocoon freeing us from all difficulties
little do you realize those difficulties are blessings Swami Vivekanand said life
is the continuous unfoldment of a being under circumstances tending to press it
downward God has created this life with challenges and difficulties reason being
when we face those challenges we grow mentally intellectually physically in
our wisdom and that is how the soul evolves on this journey as somebody said
I pray to God to give me wisdom he gave me problems to solve so that I may
become wise I prayed to him to give me tolerance
he gave me irritable people to deal with so I may learn tolerance I prayed to him
for courage he gave me dangers to surmount and become courageous I prayed
to him for strength he gave me difficulties to overcome and
become strong I prayed to God to give me love and a compassionate heart he gave
me the poor and needy to serve and become loving and compassionate my
prayers were answered
so what we are thinking as a bad thing happening to us is turning out to be a
blessing in disguise in terms of the good it is doing to our
soul
the problem with Kushner was that he was considering
a perspective of one lifetime now one lifetime is a very short
perspective what God is interested in is the evolution of your soul over a
continuum of lifetimes that is why the Chandogya upanishad says why does
God permit hurricanes cyclones and tsunamis from taking place
is there a Fault in his design you know like me human beings when you suffer
from indigestion then from time to time this flatulence you leave out gas so is
there a Fault in God's design sometimes hurricane cyclone tsunami
of course not God's glory is infinite he has created you know cows that are
eating from the ground they don't suffer from indigestion
he has just changed their digestive system a little bit and we human beings
are always complaining so it is within his capacity to change the design if he
wanted he could have created an earth free from earthquakes etc but he made it a
part of the mix the difficulties and hardships chandogya upanishad
attempts to solve this question why did God allow it it says he doesn't allow us
to become complacent in our situation
moment everything is going well he creates a challenge so we are forced to
exert ourselves and in that exertion we rise to constantly rise to constantly
grow towards that supreme that is ultimately the purpose of life so when
we are saying why are bad things happening to good people
we need to make a correction why are good things happening to good people
why are difficulties coming our way to make us better people that is why the
saints they go to the extent they say they pray to God give me hardship that
was the prayer of Kunti "quotes from Shrimad-Bhagwatm" oh my lord
give me the difficulties and hardships that make me realize the world is not my
goal you are my goal even the Bible says God sometimes gives us miseries in life
to turn us away from sin and seek eternal life it is like a child playing
with a toy when the mother finds the child too attached and engrossed in the
toy to the extent that the child has forgotten the mother the mother wishes
to feed the child but the child is not interested so what does the mother do
rather than fighting with the child she arranges for the toy to be snatched away
and when the toy is gone the child remembers I am hungry I need my mummy
the mother comes and feeds the child similarly we are engrossed in the five
types of toys things to touch things to smell things to hear things to see
things to taste there you give your child also five kinds of toys right and
India you give them chatuu - ghunguna etc so we are all so engrossed in
these toys and we have forgotten our eternal mother so sometimes, sometimes
not always he knows which medicine works best he
snatches away the toy we complain but God says it's not a bad thing have faith
trust me this is also a good thing you are saying
why are bad things happening to good people
I am telling you why are good things happening to good people
to make them even better and if you change your definition of good and bad
you say that you know being happy is good and being sad is bad so I have good
people not happy the fact is this world
nobody is truly happy.