Is God Fair?
The path of shreya, the path of good, is a steep path; it is a rough and a rugged path; it is a stony and thorny path. In contrast, the path of preya is smooth and slippery, you can glide on the path without any resistance — but you slide to your doom!
Life gives us many compensations and rewards — many more compensations and rewards than punishments and defeats.
-DADA J.P. VASWANI
When we make the choice between good and evil, right and wrong, we determine the consequences of our own action. If we choose right, we attain happiness; if we choose wrong, we have to confront distress and misery.
Amidst joy and pleasure and success, we invariably forget God; but the moment sorrow strikes, we rush to God with prayers and entreaties. We complain, “What have You done? Why is this happening to me?” The Upanishads too, speak to us of the choice that we have before us. Here, it is referred to as shreya and preya. Shreya is the good; preya is the pleasant. It is the pleasant that attracts us; we are seekers of pleasure; we run after pleasure – and finally, we are so caught up in pleasure, that we are entrapped. But it is the choice we have made!
The path of shreya, the path of good, is a steep path; it is a rough and a rugged path; it is a stony and thorny path. In contrast, the path of preya is smooth and slippery, you can glide on the path without any resistance — but you slide to your doom! When you move on the path of shreya, you struggle, you suffer, but you are moving towards your higher destiny.
The choice is yours. Whatever the path you choose, you exercise your choice. Now, if I have chosen the path, and I have encountered a bitter experience which I cannot swallow, how can I question God’s justice? Is it fair on my part to ask, “Is God fair?” Is it fair to blame God for the choices that I have made?
Life gives us many compensations and rewards — many more compensations and rewards than punishments and defeats. As I said earlier, life is a series of experiences. When we are passing through a difficult period, when we are confronted by experiences of misery and misfortune, adversity, illness, death, defeat and depression, we lament, we complain of God’s injustice, we begin to ask, “Why is this happening to me?”
But on the other hand, when we are passing through a happy phase, when we are blessed with special favours from God, it does not occur to any of us to tell God, “Why have you given me such happiness? I don’t deserve it!”
There are numerous occasions in life when people get things that they never expected, or things that they have longed for all their life. After a long and frustrating wait, childless couples are blessed with offspring. Someone in dire need of money hits a jackpot. Another gets a long awaited promotion. None of them ever think of telling God,
“Why have you done this to me?” They simply assume that they have every right to the happiness that has come their way; they take it all for granted.
God’s tender mercy to us is boundless — if only we took the trouble to realise the extent of His kindness. To people who come to me with bitter complaints against life, I pass on two sheets of paper. On one sheet I ask them to write all the cruel, the unfair, the unjust, the tyrannical, the dishonest and crooked things that they have done. On the other one, I ask them to write down all the good, the noble, the unselfish deeds that they have done in their lifetime. This is an exercise I recommend to you also, for it can be a real eye-opener for you.
When you have prepared these two lists, you will find that one list is much longer than the other. They do not balance each other. When you go through the lists, you will surely fold your hands in prayer before God and tell Him, “God, be merciful to me, please forgive me, for all the wrong deeds I have done!”
This is the case with most people – that their bad actions will by far outweigh the few good deeds they may have done. With such certain knowledge of our own balancesheet of right and wrong, how can anyone of us claim that God has been unfair, unjust to us?
The last and the most important thing we must note is that whenever suffering comes to us, God always gives us the strength and wisdom to bear the suffering. For these are just two sides of the same coin — sorrow and wisdom; suffering and endurance. Look at the coin — on one side is suffering; on the other side is the wisdom and the strength to bear that suffering.
Never, ever does God send suffering to us, unaccompanied by the strength and wisdom to cope with it. That is why we continue to live, that is how mankind has survived personal and public calamities, and still continues to survive and flourish. The very fact that we are all alive and breathing, is a testimony to this great truth — that we invariably conquer suffering with God-given strength and wisdom.