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| Ramakrishna Paramhansa who died of cancer; Swami Vivekananda who was afflicted with poverty | |
I am a good person but bad things always happen to me,” is a line perhaps everyone has said to himself at some time. So when the Salt Lake chapter of the IIT Kharagpur Alumni Association held a discourse on the topic “Why bad things happen to good people” the venue was almost housefull.
The talk took place at the MBA auditorium at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and was conducted by Swami Vedatitananda, better known as Ravi Maharaj of Ramakrishna Mission Belur Math.
The good people
Ravi Maharaj began by asking who in the audience felt he was a bad person and no hand went up. “Most of us assume that we are good people, while we can name numerous others who are crooked,” said Maharaj as the audience broke into embarrassed smiles.
Maharaj then narrated the story of a gardener who loved his plants dearly but when he saw a cow eating its leaves he killed it. “When Karma, personified, came to punish the gardener for killing the cow, he said it was god who made him kill it and that Karma should punish god instead. Confused, Karma went to god with his problem. God then disguised himself as an old man and walked into the gardener’s plot,” he explained.
When the old man began praising the flowers, the gardener ran up to him and said he was the man behind the beauty. “Who has grown such lovely roses?” asked the old man. “I have. I’ve done everything in this garden,” beamed the gardener. “Who has grown these handsome mango trees?” “I have,” said the gardener, his chest swelling with pride. “And who has killed this poor cow?” “I have,” blurted the gardener, falling into his own trap.
Through this fable, Maharaj pointed out that people make excuses for their shortcomings while gloating in their achievements. “Author George Bernard Shaw had said that we are good advocates of our own drawbacks and bad judges of other’s mistakes,” said Maharaj.
The bad things
The monk narrated another anecdote about a Russian man who would say: “Whatever happens, happens for the best,” at every stage of life. In fact, he said it even when his son broke his leg, much to the chagrin of his friends. A few weeks later Russia entered a war and all the young men were commissioned to join the army, except his son who was declared unfit.
He then cited Swami Vivekananda, who was born into an affluent family but after losing his father at the age of 21, his family was forced into poverty. “At this point, Swamiji’s mother asked him why bad things happen to good people and Swamiji had no answer,” said Maharaj.
Seventeen years later, Swamiji wrote in a letter that he was willing to live through a thousand hells if he could uplift even one person. “This is completely contradictory to today’s topic whereby a good person is asking for bad things to happen to him. So what happened to Swamiji in between his mother’s question and his asking for sufferings in that letter?” asked Maharaj, before answering it himself: “Vedanta happened to him.”
Vedanta, or the knowledge of the scriptures, he said may not give a direct answer to the reason behind one’s troubles but would help one realise that a situation isn’t necessarily bad either. “It just is. What appears bad today may appear good in the big picture. Accept it, have faith in god’s plan and move on,” he said calmly.
Question of answers
The audience listened attentively at the explanation and broke into a myriad questions at the end. “You have explained why bad things happen to good people but please tell me why good things happen to bad people,” asked a man, citing dishonest people who are successful.
Maharaj said that even if a man is dishonest to the world he may be a loving father to his children. “His children will never say that their father is a dishonest man. So how can he be labelled an overall bad man,” smiled the Maharaj. “It’s a universal feeling that ‘I have been fair to the world but the world has not been fair to me’. But others could have a diametrically opposite belief about us and vice versa.”
The audience also sought an explanation as to why Ramakrishna Paramhansa, universally regarded as a good person, died a painful death. “Yes, Ramakrishna died of cancer but how do you know he found it painful? He continued to preach to his disciples till his last days,” shot back the monk and the audience went back with some food for thought.
In your experience, have bad things happened to good people and vice versa?
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