Why does God simply keep quiet?

jayasala42 · Nov 16, 2014

Very often when people are in crisis, they go to temple and blame God for remaining quiet and being a silent witness to the atrocities committed to them by others.Silence continues.
I have heard the following story from my father in 1950, still green in my mind.

Once there was a sweeper in a famous temple.Every day, thousands of devotees thronged the temple and God was standing still.
He innocently prayed" O Lord, you are standing days together for long hours.Your legs would be paining.Why don't you take rest for a day ? I shall stand in your place."

God Immediately said "yes".
" I will transform you like myself.But you must just stand and smile at everyone and should never open your mouth.Do not interfere whatever happens'
The sweeper agreed. Next day the sweeper stood as God.

A rich man came ,prayed, gave lot of money as donation. While leaving he inadvertently left his fat purse right there and left.The sweeper God kept quiet.

Next came a poor man. He placed a single coin, which was all he had, in the Hundi and prayed that he should be blessed with a mind to do good service to humanity.However he too had some personal needs and it was left to the God to fulfill his needs or not.

When he opened his eyes he saw the fat purse left by the rich man.He thanked the Lord for fulfilling his prayer and left with the purse.
The sweeper God smiled and kept quiet.

Just then a sailor came and prayed God to protect him during the long journey he was to begin on that day.As he was praying . the rich man came with the police and requested the police to arrest the sailor under suspicion.
The sweeper God became frustrated.The rich man is thanking Him for finding the thief and the sailor prays why the innocent should be punished.
The sweeper deity could not control and opened his mouth and said what had happened. The sailor profusely thanked him and the rich man also felt that the money had gone to a poor soul.

It was night. The real Lord came back to relieve the sweeper.
The sweeper explained the entire episode expecting great tributes from the Lord.But God became very much upset and said" why did you not stick to your promise? Why did you open your mouth?"

He continued" The donation given by the rich man was not his. It is the stolen money. His fat purse contained a small fraction of what he stole."

"The poor man had only a single coin and parted with it in the faith that he would , by God's grace get more money to serve the society. That is why he was allowed to escape with the purse."

"The sailor didn't do anything wrong.But he was to die in precarious weather conditions that day and had he been arrested he would spend a day in jail and avoid his death.
By keeping quiet,the rich man's karma effect would be reduced and sailor would be saved from calamity.But you changed all my plans"
Next day newspapers carried a big head line of the sailor's death.The sweeper felt very bad and repented over his impatience.

Now after 60 long years the story is still reverberating in my mind.So many atrocities and sexual assaults are committed against women and girl kids. Notwithstanding the prevailing laws, the Government and the police are very insensitive to the issue and remain silent as God inside the temple? Do they subscribe to the view that God dwells in everybody?
The criminal thinks he is God and what he does is correct.
The policeman thinks he is God and feels that he should remain quiet.
The Govt believes too much in patriarchy as a fine aspect of God's own creation
and women are to be treated like this as per God's theory.
Women have no other way but to think that it is out of their own Karma, they are suffering.
Now it is no longer a simple story. It reveals to me so many untold , inexplicable sentiments prevailing in this society.
An element of divinity that prevails over all human beings, good and evil, has to be considered as contributory factor for all the crimes in the society.Is it the underlined unstated fact?

What for does 'FREE WILL " exist then ?Is it also God's will that human beings should never utilise 'FREE WILL;?

Jayasala 42

iamsrihere · Nov 16, 2014

There really is no explanation to some issues that innocent people face. The only reason is people say Karma,the effects of the sins that we must have performed in the previous births. I remember a phrase,

"When God says yes to your prayers, he fulfills your wish,
When God says Wait, he says the Best is yet to come,
When God says No, he has better plans for you"

The best would be to surrender to God and wait with faith..

jasmine25 · Nov 16, 2014

Dear Jaya mam,
Wonderful post.. Enjoyed reading the story played by God.. There is a definite reason that god keeps quiet amidst of all calamities a person undergo..how true?? this story proves it..
And regarding the innocent people facing tragedies, we really cannot guess or explain the reason behind it..Though Sad to think about these atrocities, all we can do is keeping them in our prayers and helping them to come out strong!

hrastro · Nov 16, 2014

Hi Jayasala!!! I always enjoy your posts silently, but today I'm speaking up!

I loved the story - but why is God keeping quiet now? Assaults happening to babies, toddlers and school kids?? What horrors have they done in their previous lives if that is their karma coming back!!

And I remembered my Bhagavatam class aunty tell me a story - we read Bhagavatam together and we'll also discuss from her readings and her experiences!!

One lady (foreigner) used to sit near Sathya sai baba every day and cry about her children's blindness - her twin children were blind - one little boy and one little girl.

Once someone asked Him in an interview or something to help the poor lady but his response was - she's suffering because in one of her previous births she had blinded her step-children!

And when someone asked further - but what about the kids' sufferings, Swami!
And He said - They're with me, they will be fine, but the mother suffers due to her karma!

Then he was asked - But you can reduce her karma? Swami said - Yes, I can! But it is her bank balance - if I credit it now, I have to debit it back sometime soon in some other birth, right now her heart is full of me, so she has the strength to face the karma and finish it off, in a later birth, she may not get that opportunity!!

For me, this worked as a perspective from God's point of view !!! Face difficulties with courage and acceptance and do your best to decrease karmas!

Viswamitra · Nov 16, 2014

Dear Mrs. Jayasala:

Our human mind always has the potential to look at everything that happens in the world as seen by our naked eyes. Our view is restricted to our analytical mind that is built from our birth until we go to the grave. We don't know what happened prior to that life nor we know what is in store in our future births.

I visualize that every opportunity to be born involuntarily again is the grace of the Lord to fix something we didn't do it right unless it is a voluntary birth to serve the Lord after we have realized our consciousness. He gives us a clean portrait asking us to commence painting. That is our free will to paint a beautiful life serving the fellow-beings and become the Lord's favorite child or commit sins and prepare ourselves for a painful future life.

Had I known my past, perhaps, I won't even attempt salvation knowing the daunting task ahead of me or get complacent of all my punya in the past and start committing sins. That is why the Lord has gifted the forgetfulness as a tool for us to reach the real consciousness.

Let us lead a principled life to help fellow beings and when we see harm done to the fellow beings, let us vociferously raise objections and do everything to help them out. We will never get an answer for "Why is it happening?" but we might find solutions if we put in our effort to prevent sufferings of the fellow beings.

Viswa

jayasala42 · Nov 16, 2014

Very well said, Shri.
Jayasala 42

jayasala42 · Nov 16, 2014

Thank you Jasmine,You are right. When we are able neither to adduce reasons nor help reducing their sufferings, we can pray for them at least.
Anyhow we feel sad when the innocent suffers, notwithstanding karma theory operating.

Jayasala 42

jayasala42 · Nov 16, 2014

Dear hrastro,
Thank you for your analytical reply. I too have read about Shri Satya Sai Baba's preachings on the subject.It is a great solace that Baba gives that he would take care of the visually handicapped kid.
When a child is born mentally handicapped in a family, the entire family suffers. The sibling does not get the care she deserves. Parents' full attention is on the suffering baby and inspite of sincere efforts by parents and doctors, not much improvement is seen.Parents start worrying about the future of the child after their demise.
Having personally experienced such a plight in close family quarters I am able to visualise how depressed the parents would be, how the education of the healthy sibling gets spoilt.Any amount of prayers, slokas and poojas are unable to give them everlasting relief. The strength of mind, the upnyasa , and Gita gives, will vanish in no time on seeing the suffering child.
We can do nothing more but to accept the reality and get convinced of Karma Theory.

Jayasala 42

jayasala42 · Nov 16, 2014

Dear viswa,
I agree 100% with you.We can understand things from what we see from our naked eyes and we have no capacity to peep beyond.But we can't set aside the worldly reality as delusion or Maya . We have to wade through waters, suffer the gale and wind.

We can talk about principles, love, sacrifice etc when we have limited problems. When something goes beyond, we have too many problems to handle and we don't have even time to think about Karma, philosophy, vedanta etc etc.
it is very often said that only attachment brings in sufferings.Can we get detached to our own kith and kin and be free saying that it is all karma palam?whatever happens, let it happen.
That is why perhaps Karmayoga is considered better than Gnana margam and bhakthi margam, as it is somewhat easier to indulge in karma margam.

Having faced various problems at different points of time,I feel that on many occasions
we are unable to exercise our Free Will. and subject ourselves to Destiny . Of course
reconciling oneself for acceptance also may be taken as a function of 'Free Will' though it happens automatically without any effort on our part.
Your response made me think a lot;yet unable to come to decisive conclusions.Thank you viswa for your wonderful feedback.

Jayasala 42

Brevity · Nov 17, 2014

No greater retribution

Great post! I have wondered the same many times. For now, I have come to the conclusion that there is no greater retribution. No such person as God is taking account of all that we do to punish us or to reward us. So what is there from keeping us do bad things?

1. Good Conscience. Only people with good conscience can stop from doing wrong things and try to do the right - right and wrong are highly subjective terms. People with good conscience are troubled when they go against it. People with a misplaced sense of conscience sleep peacefully at nights in spite of their wrong doings. They are able to justify their actions and that brings peace to them.

2. Karma - Though I do not believe in direct Karma effect other than for bringing us happiness, there is a chain of good deeds which may or may not come back to you or your loved ones eventually. But good Karma always makes the world a better place.

3. Fear of getting caught by legal system.

I believe that when I was younger, the fear of greater punishment instilled in me a sense of conscience. But now I am not able to do the same for my elder daughter (probably because I have little conviction when I say those things or because I myself have contradicted it many times saying God resides in our minds). She was born with a very logical mind. It is hard to reason with her the existence of God, though she believes in tooth fairy (That is one small tooth with wings who keeps presents under pillows in exchange for a tooth). She has a strong sense of right, wrong and fairness built in to her. So I have hope...