Name of the Book: Why Bad Things Can’t Happen to Good People!:
Because APPLES Can’t Grow on MANGO Trees
Author: Atman in Ravi (AiR)
Published by: AiR Institute of Realization, Bangalore (air.ind.in)
Year: 2019
Pages: 122
Price: Rs. 125 (paperback)/ Rs. 175 (hardcover)
Almost every human being seeks happiness and, conversely, tries to avoid pain. Yet, why is it that all of us experience painful situations every now and then? Why is there so much suffering in the world, including in our own life? Most of us must have reflected on this question at least some time or the other.
Another, related, issue is the question of what many of us might regard as unwarranted pain in the world. Why is it, we may ask ourselves, that people who we think are very good and kind sometimes face excruciatingly
painful situations in life? Surely, we may tell ourselves, they didn’t deserve it. We might be able to accept something ‘bad’ happening to someone who has done a grievous wrong to somebody else as a just punishment for his action, but we might find it impossible to understand why a person we think is noble might sometimes face the same sort of predicament. On a larger scale, the enormous amount of pain that millions of people are
subjected to in large parts of the world as a result of war, poverty, displacement in the name of ‘development’ and so on may make us lose hope in the possibility of goodness and justice in this world. We may be led to complete despair.
For some people who believe in God, the Creator and Controller of the universe, this what some may regard as unwarranted suffering may pose major theological questions concerning the power, goodness and justice of God. If God is, as many religions say, All- Powerful, All-Just and All-Good, why does God allow what we might think is undeserved suffering and pain in this world, and on such a massive scale? If God is as believers say God is, why doesn’t God put an immediate end to all misery in the world? Atheists often raise these sorts of questions in their critique of the concept of God.
This book by Bangalore-based author AiR seeks to provide an explanation of human suffering even why ‘bad’ things happen even to supposedly ‘good’ people from a theistic perspective that is based principally on two tenets: firstly, the Law of Action and Reaction, and, secondly, belief in rebirth. Even though some may have different opinions on some of the issues raised in the book, the book offers some interesting and useful insights.
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