Miscellaneous - Religion   

Cause for suffering

CHENNAI: We often wonder why people suffer in life. We also wonder why God should not grant all our requests.

The reason is that we are often not reasonable in our requests. Nor is there any limit to what we will ask of God.

Once He begins granting every wish of ours, we will start petitioning Him for everything, including our petty desires. Even a prayer for a bus to turn up on time, or for us to get home before it rains, will be sent up to Him.

And if He keeps granting every one of these requests of ours, we will fall in love with life so much that we will never want to leave this world. We will become so attached to worldly life that we will never seek salvation, explained Valayapet Ramachariar.

When we are happy, we do not think of God. We seek Him only when we are in trouble or in sorrow. So God gives us problems in life in order to make us think of Him.

Imagine a man who enters a room, not knowing that there is a venomous snake in it. The room is dark, and just when he discovers the presence of the snake, he also realises that there is no way out.

He is locked in, and he has to spend the night in the company of the snake. If there had been no snake in the room, he would never have been afraid to be in the room. But now he doesn't know whether the snake will bite him.

When the door is opened the next day, the man will be so relieved that he will never go anywhere near the room again. He would have had enough in that one night.

Similarly, if in life, we have to face problems that seem to have no solution, we will seek a way out of this life, and when we realise that surrender at Lord Narayana's feet will save us once and for all from such travails, we will resort to surrender enthusiastically.

And once we surrender, we will attain moksha, and be rid of all suffering.

Thus it is to make us realise that moksha is desirable and surrender is the only way out that God makes us suffer in this world.

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