I was asked this week whether God is sleeping. Presumably, this query arose because of the terrible tragedies occurring in the Middle East and elsewhere. My response is – why ask the Creator (called God) to intervene in human affairs, particularly in disasters initiated by evil people. Evil arises, and exists, only in the minds of humans.
Where the souls within humans who commit evil actions are not mature enough to recognise that fellow-humans are co-created by God, and that we all thereby bonded to one another, should God be required to intervene in every (significant) evil action?
Or, should Cosmic Justice apply only in the next Earthly life of the perpetrators of evil? Would that not be a more effective lesson by being registered and recorded in the reincarnated soul? Perhaps those who have suffered grievously in their current Earthly life could be asked if they have now become adequately aware of the Law of Cause and Effect (also knowable as Cosmic Justice)?
This is to ask whether any major tragedy or significant suffering may represent a balanced set of cosmic lessons, imparted over a period of time. My experience in this life, together with some faint intimations in my psyche about my immediate past life, and a vision of me in that past life which appeared in the mind of a clairvoyant recently, support such a view.
In my book ‘The Dance of Destiny,’ my turbulent (and often painful) life is described in Part 1 as ‘The wheels fell off’; and in Part 2 as ‘Falling into holes which were not there.’ Despite being a regular temple-goer, and offering prayers each evening before dinner – until I left home – God did not intervene in my disasters. I became clever at climbing out of those holes, and also at working my way (without complaint) up and out of that deep dungeon into which I had been cast.
One needs to accept unavoidable experiences implicit in one’s passage on one’s personal river of destiny. Such acceptance would be facilitated by realising that, consistent with the Law of Cause and Effect, one’s destiny was shaped to a considerable extent by one’s own actions in preceding Earthly lives.
God may, of course, intervene in human affairs here and there. Realistically, as demonstrated by billions of us over time, we do need to cope with life’s travails with equanimity, while believing that Earthly life offers opportunities to reach out to our Creator.
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 