Is God Being Unfair to You—or Are You Being Unfair to God?

After one of my talks at Southern Connecticut State University, a young man came up to speak with me. We were in a classroom, and I was sitting on a chair with a table in front of me. He was tall and muscular, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt that showed his biceps and the tattoos on both his arms. He had sharp, chiseled features, a prominent jawline, and thick black hair. “I am an atheist,” he told me. I asked him, “May I know why?” He said, “When I was five, I was traveling in a car with my parents. We had an accident. Both my parents died. They were religious Christians. They used to go to church regularly. I couldn’t understand why God would do something like this to them. Why would he do this to me? That’s when I stopped believing in God.” “I am really sorry to hear that,” I said. “But may I ask you something? How did you end up studying at a good university like this? Getting here is a significant achievement. It must have been quite a journey, especially after you were orphaned at five.” He said, “For several years, I lived with different foster families. Then one family adopted me. They weren’t particularly religious, but they were very good people. They made a commitment that they would educate me properly, and that’s how I eventually reached here.” “At what age were you adopted?” I asked. “Twelve.” “How common is it for a child to be adopted at that age?” “Extremely rare,” he replied. “Most parents want to adopt kids who are younger. In that sense, I was very lucky.” “Wait a minute,” I said. “From what you said earlier, it seemed that you felt God had been unfair to you. But could it be that you are being unfair to God?” Taken aback, he asked, “What do you mean?” “When something terrible happened to you at five, you attributed it to God. But when something remarkably good happened to you at twelve, you attributed it to luck. Why use two different standards? Either attribute both to God or attribute both to luck. Either bad luck took your parents away and good luck brought your adoptive parents into your life, or the God whom you held responsible for what went wrong might also have had something to do with what went right.” He became thoughtful. “I have never looked at things that way,” he said. “I’ll have to think about this.” When the Question Turned Back on Me When I journaled about the interaction, a part of me wanted to pat myself on the back for having rather smartly pointed out the inconsistency in his thinking. Resisting that tendency, I instead thanked Krishna for having given me the presence of mind to help this young man become more open to seeing the divine hand in his life. But on that same day, I had spoken at Yale Medical College, my first speaking engagement at an Ivy League institution. Walking past the historic stone arches and seeing the name Yale embossed on the halls—a place that, three decades ago, would have been the pinnacle of my academic dreams—I had arrived with keen anticipation, only to feel deflated by the rows of empty chairs. Unfortunately, the organizers had scheduled my program at the same time as a popular music festival on campus. The turnout for my program was disappointingly small, and I had felt irritated that such an obvious scheduling conflict had been missed. Yet the few people who came were seriously interested, and the discussion had been unusually deep. I had one of my best question-answer sessions, both during the program and afterward in one-to-one conversations. As my attention shifted from the disappointing quantity of the audience to the surprising quality of the interactions, an uncomfortable thought started coming into my mind: Was I being unfair to God in much the same way that I had thought this young man was? When something didn’t work out as I wanted, I immediately noticed what was wrong. But when something unexpectedly good emerged from the same situation, how readily did I recognize what was right? My thoughts went to Bhagavad Gita 4.11: ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham—Krishna reciprocates with us according to how we approach him. My approach to Krishna includes not just the particular rituals I perform, the petitions I place before him, or even the doctrinal conceptions of divinity I hold. It includes my cognitive dispositions—the habitual mental lens with which I approach reality, and ultimately the Lord who governs that reality. If I approach reality through the lens of grievance, reality reveals reasons for grievance to me. If I approach reality through the lens of gratitude, reality reveals reasons for gratitude to me. That thought became sobering when I considered my traveling life. For more than a decade, I have frequently been in a new city every third or fourth day for speaking engagements. That works out to roughly a hundred flights a year, which means I must have taken well over a thousand flights by now. Travel logistics have certainly gone wrong many times, and my mind readily notices those occasions. But across all those flights, I have thankfully never been involved in a serious aviation accident. How readily do I notice that? Perhaps the issue is not only what happens to me but also what I train myself to notice about what happens to me. Can a Theist Be a Psychological Atheist? This led me to think more deeply about atheism. As a devotee, I am unlikely to become a philosophical atheist. But could I sometimes become a psychological atheist? To be a theist is to be an optimist. That does not mean being naively positive, imagining that everything in the world is wonderful or will soon turn out wonderful. In this context, optimism means recognizing that despite the many things that seem to go wrong—and that do go wrong at our human level of perception—there is still a benevolent divine hand shaping our journey—a good God working toward a good purpose even through things that do not feel good. That recognition should affect not just what I believe intellectually, but also how I respond emotionally. This does not mean that it is anti-devotional for me to feel disappointed when things don’t work out as I hope, or to grieve when something terrible happens. But I shouldn’t let those difficult emotions define the totality of my experience and gradually shape my worldview. When my mind keeps fixating on what is wrong and what should have gone better, my mind is reacting as if there were no benevolent divine presence behind my life. Intellectually, I remain a strong theist, while emotionally my mind may behave like an atheist—and I may go along with its behavior. At that sobering realization, I prayed: My dear Lord, let me not think that the words of wisdom I speak are meant only for others to hear and improve. Let me not use wisdom merely as a mirror to show others the fallacies in their logic and living; let me look into that mirror myself. Help me be receptive enough to catch when the points I speak publicly point to something I need to seek personally. As I strive to help others see your presence and providence in their lives, may I strive to see that presence and providence in my own too. *** 04.11 As all surrender unto Me, I reward them accordingly. Everyone follows My path in all respects, O son of Pṛthā. The post Is God Being Unfair to You—or Are You Being Unfair to God? first appeared on Chaitanya Charan Das, Bhagavad Gita ISKCON .