Why do bad things happen

The bluntest expression for karma is in the old testament of the Christian bible. “..an eye for an eye..a tooth for a tooth..” As cruel as it may seem, it is very accurate of the law of cause and effect or retribution.

Why do bad things happen? Nothing can happen to us unless its God’s will, which means whatever good or bad event that has occurred or is occurring, is because we had done something wrong at some stage in our evolution, and at some level in our consciousness in thought, speech or action.

Why do bad things happen? This question can only be explained using the concept of re-incarnation. How could we explain why an infant is killed at birth,  it has done nothing wrong in this life, how could God be so unjust?  According to the infant’s past-lives deeds (perhaps it aborted a child, or only had a mission to deliver pain to the parents for past-karma with them), this time it had to die early. Everything that happens to us is the same, just retribution of what we had done. We cannot know the exact reason, but it is 100 percent assured to be just; the reason is we are the ones that record what we do.

If we had caused anguish to another, then this time around we will suffer mentally. If we had an enemy or hurt another’s heart, this life we may be born in the same family or marry them, to endure the karma and erase the bad quality we had which caused the karma; that is to erase it using forced-love; forced because we are obliged to love our family members. Often mental torment is worse than physical. What we have caused others, we will also experience, and perhaps even amplified because karma can incur interest.

The root cause of all illness is karma, so the solution is to endure it since we have no choice and practice spiritually to reduce its impact. It cannot be stopped because the process started at birth. Only by the grace of a living-master can we erase it, this is the fundamental theme of religions like Buddhism (taking refuge at the feet of the Buddha).

There is no such thing as a victim, only karma.

Another common question, why does God do this? God does not. It’s our doing, our desire stemming from our own actions, implemented by the lord of karma who has a special boon from God, in order to keep the play of life going.  To keep the illusion of separation in motion (see the meaning of life).

Why do bad things happen, like disasters and wars that kill millions of people. How does an earthquake relate to our karma? Karma is not only personal, it is also collective.

Why do bad things like Earthquakes and other natural disasters happen

Recently humankind has been drilling deep into the Earth, deep-wells, coal-gas-seams, oil etc in search of water or Energy. Scientists have started to find a link between deep-wells and earthquakes nearby, in the next state or next country even. Some people have died with no direct link to the wells. How is this possible?

Imagine your body is Mother Earth, Each finger a nation, each hand a continent. Now what do you think will happen if you put a pin into your thumb? The other nations (fingers) will not feel it, but because the central nervous system feels it and sends the shock (and pain) everywhere in the body, all body parts are affected. So, when we damage our planet the Mother-Earth must repair itself, not necessarily where the damage occurred.

But the people who die during disaster are not without blame. Even though we say it’s an act of God, natural or whatever word you wish. God, or more correctly the lord of karma, made it happen to bring Mother-Earth back into balance. If humans continued to destroy the planet without her trying to recover,we would not have a planet for long. The people who are most effected by disaster had some karma to pay, it may not be related to how they died, but God does not make mistakes. The ones causing the environmental damage will pay at same stage. Everything we do is recorded, there is no running away.

Why do bad things like wars or genocide happen?

Imagine a company in the third-world making a product. 100 employees get paid $100/month. Now the United-Nations fair-trade program sends an investigator and starts talking to the workers, one-by-one, each is convinced they are underpaid and plan to mutiny. After the critical-mass is reached, say 75 employees, they approach management. By now the factory is filled with hostility, lots of negative talk about being taken advantage of, etc. Management decline, tempers flare and the factory is burnt down. This is known as collective karma, even though individually the 75 will occur personal karma, the other 25 must also suffer because of the connection.

In this example it was the employees negative-talking and negative-thoughts which built up like a pressure cooker. Each was emotional because each thought they had been cheated. When the pressure cooker could not handle it any-more; pop.

It is not just human-emotions causing negativity, when we kill 60 Billion animals/year for food and countless millions of tons of seafood. Where do you think all that killing-karma goes? The animals did not want to die, they suffered in life and in death. Collectively, we humans must also share the burden.

In cases of war, it is similar. Lets look at the middle-east. Hatred runs deep, each time something happens it enforces or reaffirms the hatred. The anger is inside peoples hearts, but from their it enters their minds and creates a sort of dark oppressive energy. Any spiritual person can feel it if not see it. This energy must be extinguished somehow, there are only two ways. Using love to erase anger (which for that region is near impossible), or the negative-energy must manifest as something horrible or someone horrible. That is how Hitler was born, that is why war continues in the middle-east. It is from humans negativity building up slowly until everyone must suffer. If the collective karma is too great, it can even affect the whole world.

That is why every past-master has said “make your enemies your friends, and make your friends your brothers”, “To err is human, to forgive is divine”. Even the great Mahatma Gandhi came to Earth to teach us non-violence. Love is the only way to defeat the negative power.

Want to do an experiment on yourself to find out why do bad things happen? Find someone who makes you angry (hopefully the same person will forgive you afterwards). Now argue with them and return their anger with more anger; you will feel your emotions boiling and both of you on fire. That is because negativity is like fire, both fuelling each other growing stronger and stronger. Now find another person (or could be the same) but you must control yourself. Try to make them angry, but you must stay calm, joking and forgiving. Even ignoring their anger. How do you feel now? Is the negative-heat the same? Of course not.

Wars happen only because of the human mind, it is negative. It is not real, it is scared of the host discovering it is not real, it can only survive by feeding off negativity especially the judgements and prejudices of the human mind. One country may say this or want that, the other country says no. Leaders use their minds unwilling to yield which causes the fire to inflame both, thus dragging the whole nation into it.

As humans, we have been told countless times. Do not pass judgement on others, unless we want it done on ourselves. All the bad thoughts we have will return, perhaps not today or in the same way. But according to the law of karma, they will return.  To end the cycle of violence, first we must learn to yield even though we may be disadvantaged. We must then surrender to Gods-will. How many leaders can do this?