Be Fair to God

Smart Plus - Rakesh Mittal IAS

Almost every one of us questions the fairness of God at one time or the other in life. So when an advertisement appeared in the newspaper about a talk on the subject ‘Is God Fair’ by Dada J.P. Vaswani, it drew my attention too. It was on 16 March, 1993 at the All India Institute of Medical Science Auditorium at New Delhi. Though I reached there in time, the auditorium was full to its capacity and I had to take a seat in the balcony which too became full after sometime. Why I am mentioning this is to indicate that most of us question the fairness of God and want to confirm our views. The talk was inaugurated by Shri L.K. Advani, who spoke very well and raised some very interesting points. He said we should expect fairness from God only when we are fair to Him.  Expecting fairness in return for our unfairness will be to demand injustice from the Supreme Power.  And therefore the question to ask should be whether we are fair. This appealed to me very much and I thought of summing up the talk of Dadaji under the title ‘Be Fair to God’.

In the life of everyone good as well as bad things come. We happily accept the good things and never question whether we deserve them or not. However, it is not the case with bad things. We do not accept them and even question the fairness of God. As a matter of fact, if we make a list of good things in life as well as of the bad things, in most cases the former will exceed the latter. By and large, life gives us more compensation and rewards than losses and punishments. If this is the case then it is not fair on our part to doubt the fairness of God.

In order to discuss the subject further, it is necessary to understand the concept of God.  We all believe in one or the other form of God whatever we may call Him. After all there is a Supreme Power which is behind all creation and laws of the universe. Movement of terrestrial bodies, creation of day and night, law of gravitation, the changing of weather, falling of rains and scores of such things are all governed by fixed universal laws. Will not there be turmoil and havoc, if there is even slight deviation from these laws? Even if we do not believe in God in the orthodox sense, we have to believe in the universal laws of nature. For example, if an object is dropped from a height, it has to fall down and it would be foolish to expect it to go up. Even if for argument’s sake, it does so, the universe will become so topsy-turvy that living will become impossible. Therefore, let us interpret God as a Power who governs the laws of the universe which keep things going.

Once we accept this definition of God, we must also accept that there must be certain fixed laws behind good events as well as bad events of life. If we do so, the question of fairness of God, when bad things happen, will not arise. In fact, it would be unfair on our part to expect good things to happen when the laws of nature demand otherwise. Perhaps expecting that would be more disastrous than the consequences of the so-called bad things or seemingly cruel events.

This takes us to the ’Law of Karma’. ‘As we sow, so shall we reap” is an old saying. This is nothing but the ‘Law of Karma’. Nature expects us to follow certain laws in order to live a healthy, peaceful and harmonious life. How often do we break these laws? The contention is to establish that if we break the laws of nature, why should we not face the consequences? Not only this, nature is quite merciful in the sense that it gives us enough flexibility to break its laws and does not punish, if the laws are broken occasionally. Only when the laws are broken consistently we are punished. If we expect that it should not happen, the laws of nature will lose their meaning. For example, if someone smokes occasionally, he remains almost unaffected by its adverse effects but a chain smoker is bound to suffer whether we wish it or not. In fact, it would be against the law of nature to expect a chain smoker to remain healthy all through his life.

To read more articles from Smart Plus: visit Indian Thoughts