Is blaming past karma for bad things just a way to avoid blaming God?

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Transcript

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That when somethings go wrong in our life, we want someone to blame. And because we can’t blame God, we have some religious instincts, so we blame our own past karma. Yeah, it’s possibly, it could be like that.
At the same time, we have to look at it again in a broader picture. Yes, bad things happen to us, but if you’re honest, good things also happen to us. When we are successful, we did work hard for that success, but so many other things fall in place.
And it’s only because all those things also fall in place that we become successful. Success is not just because of our own efforts. There are other things beyond us which also contribute to success.
And what to speak of success, even our very existence is dependent on something beyond us for our existence. When we live, right now, we are breathing. We are not even conscious that we are breathing.
We don’t consciously breathe. And certainly we don’t produce the oxygen that we need to breathe. It is already provided.
When a child comes to the mother’s womb into the world, the mother does not do anything special to produce milk in her breasts. Milk comes over there. So we’ll see that there is much good that is also arranged which is essential for our existence.
And suppose after this program we’ll have prasad. No, suppose prasad will be there. So when we have food, now we eat the food, we digest the food and we enjoy the food.
We get some energy after that. But if you consider scientifically or medically speaking, digesting of food is a very complicated process. I was in MIT, America, Massachusetts.
So there, they took me to a lab over there. They were actually trying to develop an artificial digestive machine. It’s like we have pacemakers and we have other machines.
They found that it’s extremely complicated. You don’t need a machine, you need a factory. It’s such a complicated process.
So now, who is doing that? We just eat the food and we get energy after that. The only time we think of our digestion is when it doesn’t work. So the point here is that if we are to blame God, then if at all God is to blame for our bad things, then actually there are good things happening also in which we are not doing them.
So, if we are just alive, then there is more right with us than wrong. So many people die before they come to the age which we are living right now. So if we look, observe, if we observe carefully, there is some benevolent arrangement in the world which facilitates our existence.
So there is a foundation of benevolence in the world. There is a foundation of goodness and on that foundation of goodness, sometimes good, sometimes bad. If that foundation of benevolence and goodness would not be there, then even existence would be impossible.
So therefore, this foundation of benevolence that is there, this whole system of good and bad that is there, where does that system come from? Sometimes people say that, okay, so many bad things happen to good people, therefore there is no God. How can God exist if so many bad things are happening? Well, possible. That could be an argument.
But you could turn that argument around and say, okay, why should bad things not happen to good people? What do you mean? Bad things shouldn’t happen to good people. But why not? If there is no higher ordering principle in the world, then anything can happen to anyone. The very assumption that good actions should lead to good results and bad actions should lead to bad results, where is that assumption coming from? What is the basis for that assumption? It is because there is some ordering principle that whenever there is disorder, we ask, why is this disorder there? So, blaming God might seem simplistic.
So, blaming God could be one option, but there is a foundation of benevolence and goodness that enables our existence itself. And only with that foundation can everything else follow. So, we basically have three options.
When we look at the world around us, that everything happens by chance, there is no cause of a connection, anything happens to anyone. So, bad things happen because life is like a lottery. Some people win the lottery, some people lose the lottery.
It is a very helplessness inducing view and that is not the way we function on a daily basis. We do not raise our children telling actually your exam is a lottery, whether you study or not, it does not matter. Either you get marks or you do not get marks.
Nobody lives like that. So, one possibility is that everything happens by chance. The second possibility is that everything happens simply by God’s arbitrary will.
God decides that to get sent bad things by some people life, God decides to send good in somebody’s life. Now, why would God be arbitrary or partial like that? If that were the case, then why would there be a foundation of goodness as I said, which enables our existence upon top of which there is arbitrary good or arbitrary bad. The idea that God is to be blamed for our misdeeds, for our distresses, that just recoils against the whole concept that there is a foundational good in the world on which there is good and bad.
And anyway, if that is the case, again, it is a very helplessness inducing doctrine. If God is against me, what can I do? We have to see, ultimately we have to go on with our life and we have to look at the world view that is most practically beneficial for us, that is the most constructive for us. So, either it is everything happens by chance or everything happens by God’s arbitrary will.
And the third option could be something else. Say, suppose there is a cricket match going on and the cricket match starts and you see one team’s starting score is 0, the other team’s starting score is 200. Hey, what’s going on? This is not fair.
Now, you could have three explanations for this. Why is it like this? One is the scoreboard works by chance. It just automatically puts any numbers over there.
If this team was unlucky, this team was lucky. The second option is that the scorekeeper is biased. The scorekeeper put extra marks over there and put 0 over it.
The third explanation could be that it is a multiple innings match and this team is carrying over from the previous innings. So, this 200 is a lead from the previous innings. So, similarly, if there are differences in the way we get in life, the most reasonable explanation in a game, if everything were by chance, there is definitely an element of chance in a game, but not everything is by chance.
The score doesn’t come by chance over there. And if the scorekeeper is biased, then why would the scorekeeper even have a match over there? Without a match, when you decide this team is winning, that team is lost. So, the most reasonable explanation is that it is a multiple innings match.
And most reasonable, I say, in the sense that it is the most empowering. The other two explanations are most disempowering. If everything is by chance or everything is by God’s arbitrary will and there is nothing we can do about it.
But if you understand that it is by our own past deeds, then that creates a sense of purpose and power within us. If I do good deeds now, I can create a brighter future for myself. So, I have written a whole book on this topic called Demystifying Reincarnation, where this whole reasoning and logic I have explained systematically.
But this is the broad answer of it. We could blame God, but that but actually or rather, blaming our past karma is not a replacement for blaming God. Rather, it is the most reasonable and the most empowering explanation for what we experience in our day-to-day lives.
Any other questions?