Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
(The following is a
reproduction of a lecture given by Premananda
dasa, ISKCON BOSTON, who was to
speak on this topic to conclude the temple's recent two-day
Spiritual Formation Seminar.)
One of the reasons I like
this topic is that I don’t like the question.
Well, let me clarify
that. When this question is asked about
difficulties or tragedies in
the lives of others, it can bring out the
best in us. Especially if it’s coupled with the question,
“How can I
help? How can I console their suffering?”
When we ask this question
when trouble comes into our own lives, I worry
that we may be unwilling to
accept what has happened, or stuck in a long
history in which we have come
to see ourselves as victims of fate.
As much as we are inclined
to seek and demand instant gratification, we
must understand that we live
in a world of opposites. We want
happiness,
so we must also experience
misery. The temporary happiness that we
may
derive from worldly things
pales in comparison to the soul’s need – our
need – for eternal joy experienced through divine
love. Because nothing
else can measure up to this,
we are constantly disappointed.
Hence, Lord Krishna explains
in the that the soul
is more likely to suffer
than find happiness here. “From the
highest
planet in the material world
down to the lowest, all are places of misery
wherein repeated birth and
death take place.”
To put it simply, bad things
happen to good people. Bad things happen
to
bad people. Bad things happen to everybody. Trauma and loss in the
forms of disease, aging and
death come to visit and take us all.
Suffering is a fact; it is
simply a matter of degree. However, for
individuals and society as a
whole, these degrees of difference are
relevant and much can be
learned and gained in the effort to understand
those forms of suffering
that are avoidable.
In discussing sensitive
matters such as these, I try to find underlying
spiritual themes that are
vital to all of us. I believe that our
inability to answer or
recast this question – why do bad things happen to
good people – is rooted in a
crisis of wisdom and strength (or power).
I
would like to address each
of these in turn.
A Crisis of Wisdom
There’s something about this
question – why do bad things happen to good
people – that begs for
meaning, but it always seems to elude us.
We
become perplexed. The conclusion that the world is cruel and
chaotic
offends our sense of order
and justice.
Perhaps the problem lies in
the assumptions we’ve built into the
question. What is a bad thing? Who is a good person, and what makes her
good? What assumptions do we bring to the
definitions of what is fair,
good and bad? With clearer, thoughtful definitions perhaps
we will learn
to see method where
otherwise we would believe there is only madness.
Usually implicit in the
question – why do bad things happen to good
people – is the feeling that
some injustice has been perpetrated or
allowed to take place. Based upon what we know about someone or
their
circumstances, we make a
value judgment. We assume good things
will or
should happen to people we
like, and bad things will or should happen to
those whose behavior we
don’t like.
If something good happens to
someone we like, that makes us happy. If
something bad happens to
them, we are saddened. When bad things
happen
to someone we don’t like, we
feel that justice has been served – they got
what was coming to
them. When something good happens to
someone we don’t
like, we may feel that life
is unfair.
But what is happening
here? When things go as we expect them
to, does
that mean that justice is
really being served, or are we using a certain
idea of justice to reinforce
our sense of someone else’s worth?
Our human sense of justice
is – in the scale of things – relatively
short-term. The secular view of justice implies that we
should be
quickly rewarded or punished
for our deeds. These according to the
Bhagavad-Gita,
however, there are larger forces of universal fairness at
play. The universal standards do not exactly mimic
human justice because
these systems operate at
different levels and aim at achieving differing
goals. While the human justice system governs our
adherence to socially
accepted ethical standards,
the laws of karma govern the soul’s
adherence
to the principles of divine
love.
According to the laws of karma, our current human life is the
result of
the soul’s long journey
through many bodies. The body we now
possess is
the result of past-life
desires and actions that have transgressed and
promoted the spiritual laws
of love.
From this point of view,
none of us is all good or entirely evil.
Each
of us is a mixed bag. We have our strengths and weaknesses. We have
knowledge and blind
spots. There are ways that we need to
improve – to
become stronger and
wiser. The laws of universal justice,
therefore, see
us less as good people or
bad people, but as souls meant to evolve to
higher levels of eternal
love and compassion.
When we view the question –
why do bad things happen to good people –
from a strictly human point
of view, we speak about judgment, reward and
punishment, or
condemnation. This has an air of
rigidity and finality to
it. However, when we see the world from a
spiritual perspective, we
see the laws of karma in
terms of evolution (not judgment), encouragement
(not reward) and
discouragement (rather than condemnation).
This
evolutionary view implies a
man- or woman-in-the-making whose free will
is valued and respected.
We are students throughout
our lives. There are lessons we need to
learn. Some of those are do-this lessons; some are
do-not lessons. Life
is not just about being an
ethical person. Life is about learning
well
the things we need to love Krishna ,
His creation, and our brother and
sister souls in all species.
The laws of karma are designed to assist each
individual in this
evolutionary journey.
According to the Gita, there
are natural forces governing ignorance and
knowledge, weakness and
strength. They are called the gunas, or modes of
nature: goodness, passion and ignorance.
Through distress, the modes
discourage us from transgressing the laws of
love. Through positive experiences, we are
encouraged to embrace the
principles of
responsibility, service, sacrifice, charity, and
self-control that lead to a
fuller expression and experience of the love
of God inherent within us.
While all three modes are
simultaneously present (Bg 14.10), in the
modern age of Kali, the Vedas explain that the mode of
ignorance forms
the backdrop of
society. This can be seen in our
obsession with securing
and refining the means of
survival (food, rest, sexuality and defense) at
the expense of our spiritual
development. Srila Prabhupada explains
(Bg
18.22 purport), “The
‘knowledge’ of the common man is always in the mode
of darkness or ignorance
because every living entity in conditional life
is born into the mode of
ignorance. One who does not develop knowledge
through the authorities or
scriptural injunctions has knowledge that is
limited to the body.”
Let’s take a look at each of
the modes and how they shape our experience.
The mode of ignorance is
characterized by disrespect for the well-being
of ourselves and
others. Symptoms include violence,
laziness and
irresponsibility,
procrastination, moroseness, mental illness,
intoxication, meat eating,
and destructive habits. Such actions
themselves arise from
unhappiness and cause only misery.
Unpleasantness
visits more regularly and
more painfully those whose lives are so
disempowered they can’t
control themselves. She who harms
herself or
others blatantly
transgresses the universal principles of love to which a
human being should aspire.
Those whose lives are more
influenced by the mode of passion are
ambitious and
self-serving. They are overwhelmed by
desires for profit,
prestige and adoration. They are judgmental and competitive. They will
sacrifice for a tangible
goal, but if they do not attain it quickly,
they’ll move rapidly to the
next thing. They are religious, but they
are
focused on the tangible
goods of virtue. In the mode of
passion, we
exhibit some degree of
responsibility and self-control, which certainly
helps alleviate some of the
misery of the mode of ignorance.
But unpleasantness still
comes to those whose self-control is
self-serving because they
are motivated by lust rather than love.
At
first, it appears as though
they achieve the objects of happiness, but
the mode of passion is a
double-edged sword. Due to a lack of
self-control, we discover
that the same object that brought us happiness
sooner or later gives us
trouble (Bg 18.38): “That happiness
which is
derived from contact of the
senses with their objects and which appears
like nectar at first but
poison at the end is said to be of the nature of
passion.”
The mode of goodness is
found in the cultivation of knowledge,
non-attachment to the
results of action, dedication to duty,
spirituality, and
self-control. Srila Prabhupada explains
(Bg 14.6
purport) that the mode of
goodness shields one from many forms of
suffering, “The effect of
developing the mode of goodness in the material
world is that one becomes
wiser than those otherwise conditioned. A man
in the mode of goodness is
not so much affected by material miseries, and
he has a sense of
advancement in material knowledge.” As a
result of
this knowledge, the person
in the mode of goodness has an additional gift
– the strength and wisdom to
take unavoidable trouble in stride.
So bad things will happen to
each of us to the degree that we do not live
by principles of divine love
that uplift human conscience. Indeed,
the
first steps on this path are
knowledge and renunciation of the fruits of
our actions (Bg 12.12). The path of the spirit and freedom from
suffering is based on wisdom
and power (whether you call it discipline,
self-control or
willpower).
It’s not difficult to see
how a person in the mode of goodness is less
inclined to suffer. There are three sources of suffering:
· adhidaivika-klesa
– difficulties wrought by natural disasters
· adhibhautika-klesa
– suffering caused by other beings
· adhyatmika-klesa
– troubles arising from our own mental and physical
infirmities
People in the mode of
ignorance cause much of their own suffering because
they do not take care of
themselves. They are often
undereducated, so
they are more inclined to live
on the economic and geographic fringes of
society where they are more
vulnerable to a variety of threats. They
are
envious and violent, so they
often come into conflict with others.
They
are susceptible to all three
forms of suffering.
Driven by lust, people in
the mode of passion experience a variety of
problems of their own
creation – heartburn, stress and related medical
disorders of a Type A
personality – and face stiff competition from
others. However, they do not suffer as much as those
in the mode of
ignorance because they have
more self-respect. They take better care
of
themselves (e.g. they are
vegetarian) and because they possess some
degree of self-restraint,
they are less likely to harm themselves through
addictive or unhealthy
habits. They are attentive to their
social
responsibilities, so they
are better respected in society and typically
earn enough to live in
relative safety from the elements.
A person in the mode of
goodness will suffer the vagaries of age and
death like everyone else,
but because they lead very healthy lives, they
are less likely to contract
diseases that result from unhealthy
lifestyles. By their sober and detached nature, they do
not seek any
more than their basic
needs. Hence they do pursue conflict or
competition.
The person in the mode of
ignorance suffers most from trouble of her own
making. In the mode of passion, there is a heightened
state of
competitive conflict with
others. In the mode of goodness,
suffering of
one’s own making or caused
by others is minimized. And because
natural
disasters are rare, one in
the mode of goodness leads a relatively simple
and happy life.
The Crisis of Strength
Even people who lead lives
in the mode of goodness will see some bad
times. In seeking meaning in difficulty, we should
go beyond the idea of
reward and punishment
implicit in human justice, and think of ourselves
and others as evolving
beings, as students in the school of divine love
that is called life. Difficult times offer us the opportunity to
grow
wiser and forge a stronger
relationship with Krishna . In spiritual
wisdom and empowerment, we
find the means to understand what forms of
suffering we can avoid and
alleviate. They can also give us the
grace,
the strength, to accept
those miseries that are inevitable.
“Bad things” would include
traumas or losses related to divorce or
infidelity, death of a loved
one, loss of work, disease or disability, a
dramatic reversal of income,
a natural disaster, or violent crime. At
the very least, they can
affect our daily lives in fundamental ways.
One
or more of these can set off
an identity crisis and affect our
self-esteem.
To search for meaning or wisdom
is to search for strength, to seek
empowerment. When dark clouds hang on the horizon of our
lives, we can
either run for cover, or
face the storm. The English Poet John
Milton is
credited with coining the
phrase ‘every dark could has a silver lining’.
This means that good things
can emerge from difficulty. I am
reminded of
one of my favorite verses
from the Srimad Bhagavatam (10.14.8):
"My dear Lord, one who
earnestly waits for You to bestow Your causeless
mercy upon him, all the
while patiently suffering the reactions of his
past misdeeds and offering
You respectful obeisance with his heart, words
and body, is surely eligible
for liberation, for it has become his
rightful claim."
We can derive meaning and
strength from on high in difficult times.
But
we will not find meaning or
empowerment by hiding in the cellar, huddled
against the earth with our
eyes shut tight. Denial is the inability
to
face reality. Empowerment comes from facing reality with
one eye looking
toward God seeking
guidance.
When we introduce Krishna
into the picture, our place in the scheme of
things becomes much
clearer. Jivera ‘svarupa’ haya krsnera ‘nitya-dasa’
[Cc. Madhya 20.108],
we are His eternal servants. Krishna’s
role in the
Bhagavad-Gita
is that of the Supreme Power and the Supreme Teacher. He
displays His divinity and
speaks His instructions for our benefit,
because, you see, we often
forget that we are His dependents, His
students.
Krishna declares His
divinity to show us that we are not alone in our
struggles. He assures us that His compassion and power
are available to
us for the asking. A teacher has the responsibility to test and
tutor
her students. A good student likes feedback from the
teacher, invites
and acknowledges positive
criticism and requests assistance. The
greatest teaching and
learning are done precisely when the student is
unable to apply the
appropriate tools to solve a problem.
This is why
there is more honor in
receiving an award for “Most Improved Student”
than there is in being the
valedictorian for whom everything comes
easily.
Every single one of us –
whether we acknowledge it or not – is being
tested. Do we accept and promote the principles of
divine love? We are
given the Lord’s teachings
and we are given tests to demonstrate how well
we have internalized
them. Bad things are tests – by which we
show the
Lord and others the depth of
our morality, the depth of our faith, and,
most importantly, the depth
of our need for Krishna ’s mercy and company.
These things are not tested
when times are good. Adversity breeds
and
reveals greatness.
A Good Person Makes Good Come of Bad Things
We live in a turbulent
world. The seed of bad lay in good; and
the seed
of good lay in bad. Let me give you an example. I have good news and
bad news. I’ll start with the good news:
· Good things happen to good
people: A 24 year old woman, Suzie Pell,
gets an internship at a
prestigious insurance company in its fine art
division. After getting all dressed up to look nice on
her first day,
she borrows her mother’s pashmina scarf. Filled with nervous excitement
at the prospects of her
first job after college, she hugs her mom and
says, “Let’s hope it’s a
good day.”
· Now the bad news: It is July 7, 2005. The underground train Suzie is
taking to her internship at
Lloyd’s is bombed as it pulls out of Edgware
station in central London
car. She cannot see or breathe. As the smoke clears someone hands her a
handkerchief. She wipes blood from her face.
But let us not forget that
good lay in the seed of bad. The
explosion
came from the car behind
hers. Despite her injury, fear and
confusion,
she immediately goes to the
aid of passengers in that car. Here’s
how
she describes the scene to a
reporter from MSNBC:
"People were crying out
for medics, and for people who knew first aid,
and doctors. I just felt so
helpless. I was hearing people cry out. I
thought there must be
something I can do. So I got past obstacles and got
just into that other
carriage… I saw dead bodies, people who’d had their
clothes blown off them,
mangled metal and bodies. I couldn’t see halfway
down the carriage. I just
heard people crying out.
"I helped the people I
could directly access — one person had a broken
leg, and he was screaming
out for help, that’s the person I’d heard. You
could see lots of
lacerations in his leg, huge gaps in the skin, but I’m
not a doctor so I presumed
it’s badly damaged.
"He was saying 'What do
I do?' He was really panicky really terrified. He
said 'I’m bleeding I’m
bleeding, got to stop the bleeding what should I
do, anyone know, anyone can
help?'"
Suzie removes the mangled
metal from his leg and elevates it. She
makes
a tourniquet out of her
mother’s scarf to reduce the bleeding.
She
tries to console the
panicked man, assuring him – despite her own
uncertainty – he’s going to
be okay.
She leads two shocked
passengers out of the car, and onto the tracks,
where the survivors wait for
perhaps half an hour in the dark, airless
tunnel. When authorities arrive to guide everyone
out, Suzie helps one
man make the harrowing
200-yard trek along the electrified tracks.
When Suzie Pell was asked
how she remained so calm, she replied, “I’m
surprised at myself. You
really don’t know how you’ll respond in these
situations until you’re
tested.”
This horrible trauma brought
out the best in her. No matter how
wounded
she may feel now or later
about this tragedy, she can console herself
that she did the best thing
she could under the circumstances. That
empowered act of
selflessness and compassion will help her recover from
the fear the explosion
caused. In light of Suzie Pell’s story,
I’ve
learned to redefine what I
think a good person is. A good person
makes
good things come of bad by
how she responds to them. Adversity
makes a
good person even
better.
Conclusion
In this essay, we’ve taken a
broader look at the question – why do bad
things happen to good
people? We’ve redefined the terms
justice, good
and bad in light of the
teachings of Bhagavad-Gita. We’ve
also learned
that the Gita offers us
tangible consolation in the face of hard times –
a pathway to wisdom and
empowerment.
The world in which we live
is the Lord’s creation. God comes from
the
German word Gott, meaning
‘the good one’. God is all-good. So the
lessons He sends us are also
good, if we learn and choose to see them
that way. Krishna does not want us to suffer, but He
doesn’t force us to
not suffer, either. He respects our freewill.
We can reduce suffering by
thinking and acting in the mode of goodness.
Just as we value education
in society, nature rewards knowledge. So
the
mode of goodness begins by
learning about the difference between the self
and the body. The path of devotional service laid out in
the scriptures
and in the lineage of
saints, encourages us to imbibe qualities of
goodness. Lord Krishna explains (SB 11.13.6), “Until
one revives one’s
direct knowledge of the
spirit soul and drives away the illusory
identification with the
material body and mind caused by the three modes
of nature, one must
cultivate those things in the mode of goodness. By
increasing the mode of
goodness, one automatically can understand and
practice religious
principles, and by such practice transcendental
knowledge is awakened.”
Voluntary adoption of
lifestyle regulations such as avoidance of meat
eating, intoxication,
gambling and illicit sex are meant to help us avoid
some of the most dangerous
activities in the modes of ignorance and
passion. Continued practice of devotional service
should further elevate
our conscience, helping us
internalize compassion, discipline, truth,
cleanliness of thought and
transparency of deed. As we lose our
infatuation with the allure
of material happiness, the barking dogs of
misery hound us less.
When necessary lessons
present themselves as troubles, we should seek the
seeds of wisdom and
empowerment that lay within them.
Empowerment begins
with responsibility. When bad times come, we should ask ourselves
what
we need to learn.
Sometimes people use the
laws of karma to condemn themselves.
“This bad
thing has happened to
me. I must have been a horrible person
in my past
life. I really did something bad to deserve
this. I’m a bad person.”
Confession and regret can be
purposeful steps toward empowerment, but the
old blame-and-shame game is
a one-way ticket to powerlessness. Remember,
Krishna is not interested in
punishing us. His primary goal is
healing
us, delivering us from the
cycle of birth and death. This means
that
Krishna does not condemn us;
He loves us – no matter what we’ve done.
So it is far better for us
to pray, “Whatever I may have done in the past
to bring this obstacle in my
path, I take responsibility for my actions
now. My Lord, I wish to understand what I need to
learn at this stage in
my development so that I can
serve You better. Please give me insight
into the obstacles in my
heart that prevent me from living more fully in
Your love and presence.”
Most of us have a pretty
good idea of what our shortcomings are.
We know
what’s packed in our
“baggage”, though we are often unaware of how deeply
we have allowed our losses
to define us. We are not aware how we
reinforce our weaknesses by
investing our strength in them. We have
allowed loss to shrink our
self-esteem, to co-opt and weaken our power.
I have found that the
greatest means to enlightenment and empowerment has
been open-hearted, prayerful introspection on my
own and in the company
of a trusted counselor. I ask the Supersoul for guidance as I delve
into
my heart, to hold my hand as
I observe the negativity there. Are
those
emotions rooted in
powerlessness, helplessness or the fear of being
unlovable or
unacceptable? What is the cause of these
feelings?
Taking responsibility means
fearlessly searching for whatever pain in the
heart that needs healing,
having faith that the Lord wants it done and
therefore that it can and
must be done. Healing begins by giving
voice
to our broken heartedness
and not giving in to fear (mode of ignorance)
or judgment and shame (mode
of passion).
Healing is a process of
integration in which we learn to honor our loss,
honor who we were when the
loss took place, and honor who we are now in
light of the servant of God
whom we wish to consciously become. By
connecting the traumas of
our lives to the person they made us, and the
person we seek to be, we
make our lives whole.
This approach allows us to
let go of the negativity (the modes of
ignorance and passion) that
have blinded us and splintered our lives.
This letting go is the act
of forgiveness, the giving forth of our pain
and the redirection of our
strength and energy into productive and
desirable endeavors.
Healing work is challenging
– it takes courage and tolerance to observe
the pains that harbor in our
hearts, but the process of healing is filled
with rewards. Something wonderful and palpable happens when
we forgive.
The clouds of fear and
condemnation part. Rays of enlightenment
stream
into our conscience, and joy
like a rainbow arcs gracefully through the
heart. According to the Bible, the rainbow is a sign
from God. It means
that we have successfully
met the challenge of tragedy, that we have
passed an important test and
that we have come to a more vivid place in
our relationship with
Him.
Good times or bad,
everything in our lives can be used as a vehicle to
realize our spiritual
nature, and reawaken the love for Krishna that
alone can satisfy our innate
need to give and receive unconditional love.
That love is so strong, so selfless, that it
overflows to encompass
everything that belongs to Krishna ,
including this world and all living
beings (SB 2.9.36): “A person who is searching after the Supreme
Absolute Truth, the
Personality of Godhead, must certainly search for it
up to this, in all
circumstances, both directly and indirectly, and in
all space and time.”
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