Why Is There Pain

There are many questions the answers to which we don’t know. Why did God create us and why is there pain? We have to go for an interview with God to find out the answer. Why did he not leave us in the spirit instead of making us a physical being?

Why did he not make man a good person, something like an automaton or why did he not make man a docile, gentle and affectionate being by instinct instead of this ferocious and treacherous being? Then we come to question, why did he create suffering.

Is it out of love? If so, we have to investigate what suffering is. St. Thomas Aquinas says that the purpose of suffering is so that we can appreciate goodness and happiness. He says that if life were eternal bliss, it would be a monotony and drudgery and may become an unbearable burden.

I disagree for in that case, when we reach heaven, where it is going to be eternal bliss, will it be unbearable boredom?

Pain is there to teach us to appreciate pleasure. If this is true, then the most excruciating pain which is the death pain, has to be followed by pleasure. As far as we know, there is no such thing because at death, we separate from the body and become a spiritual being and a spiritual being has neither pleasure nor pain.

Then what is the purpose of pain and why does God allow man to suffer? It must be on the same principle that we allow our infants to crawl, toddle, fall, walk, and run while we could have carried them around all the time. Then why? Because we want our children to grow up to adulthood and during this process he suffers. Similarly, God wants men to grow up to god hood and to reach godhood, man has to go through the suffering.

Pain is only subjective. We may think that others are suffering. A Canadian friend visited India. When I asked him what in India impressed him most, he said he saw two children in the street in Bombay. They were limbless stumps. They were on planks on wheels. He pitied them instantly. ‘Within a few moments he saw them rolling their carts down the road and up the road, They were laughing and working so hard. They looked as if they were enjoying the whole universe. Then he realized that his idea that they were suffering was false. Only the subject of suffering can say whether he is suffering or not.

Yet we can see others suffering, i.e. suffering can be observed objectively and experienced by empathy. But there is nothing called objective experience. There is only subjective experience. Observed suffering is relative.

Nizam of Hyderabad with 12 Rolls Royce in his garage pitied the man with one Cadillac and the story goes that the latter pitied the Volkswagon owner who pitied the bicycle rider who pitied the pedestrian who sympathized with the man with crutches and so on.

Everything that exists has a pattern and the pattern is the same in everything. A tree blooms, bears fruits, and dies. Some live for many years and some for a season but they all go through the same process. So does man. He is born, grows, bears children, and dies. Then what about the suffering of man. Does the tree suffer too? Perhaps yes. During autumn the leaves fall and there is no growth. No food comes in and it could be a period of suffering. Why should the tree suffer? It has nothing to achieve like man reaching for godhood. Since suffering is perceivable only as a subject, we will not know whether the tree is suffering or not.

What happens after death? Jesus said “Where your treasure is, there your spirit will be.” That means when we die, the spirit having been released from its fetters (the body) searches high and low and then comes back to where the body is. It is like a nestling learning to fly in the neighbourhood of the nest. It does not fly too far and it comes back frequently to the nest. The interval of return to the nest becomes progressively greater and finally it never comes back. Similarly the spirit enters the realm of spirits but returns to the place where the body is. Finding that it is unable to communicate with the people in the place, it recedes to the ethereal realm. By the will power of the individual and therefore of the spirit, it is able to bring about certain influences such as we hear in ghost stories of a man who wanted to win the lottery helping his son to win the lottery soon after his death. My friend Michael Fruth’s mother’s death coincided with his final operation on March 1, 1976, from which he had a surprising and unexpected recovery within three or four days when he was expected to not revive from the operation.

Intercession. If I need a dollar and I go to ask someone, my request is almost like begging but if I were asking for someone else who I am convinced is in dire need, the force of my request is likely to be much greater than when I ask for myself. One of my daughters used to write and ask for financial assistance and I used to comply very hesitatingly, almost unwillingly. But whenever she asked me to help someone else without any personal gain for herself, I readily complied for I knew it was a need and I had to fill it. So also when we pray for ourselves, we are not sure whether the object of prayer is a necessity. The reason for that ailment which is unknown or if it is not a necessity and can be removed.

When he was in agony about his final days, Jesus said, “Remove this cup if possible.” It could not be removed because the purpose of his birth would be defeated but he could go to the tomb of Lazarus and say “Come out.” and he could say to the palsied man “Take up thy bed and walk.” But when it came upon himself, he was not sure whether that cup could be removed..

Therefore, when we pray for healing for ourselves, we have to examine the cause of the ailment and God’s plan. Still we can say, “remove this cup if possible.”

We can also command the ailment to leave our body and it will move out. However, it depends upon our faith. As a matter of fact, everything depends upon our faith.