I told you yesterday that I have daily been to the hospital in Agra for the past week to visit my friend Govind who has had an accident on last Tuesday. I am of course not the only visitor there and this is how I became witness of a conversation that I had to interrupt – as it was about one of my favourite topics: religious superstition!
The talk started when one of Govind’s visitors asked him when exactly the accident had happened. It had happened on Tuesday evening and Govind added ‘Even though Tuesday is such an auspicious day!’ Maybe you have never heard of this superstition – many Hindus believe that Tuesday is a holy day, a day of God and they say a special prayer on Tuesdays, too. It is normally a day on which they believe good things are meant to happen.
The big question was thus: how come this accident has happened on a Tuesday? I was looking forward to the answer that they would find – as religious people always find an explanation that suits their superstition – and I was not disappointed. Due to God’s grace, which is obviously especially generous on Tuesdays, nothing worse happened than only a broken leg! The accident happened but had it not been Tuesday, he would probably have been much more injured!
At that point I couldn’t hold myself back any longer and interrupted ‘But why did God put him into that situation at all?’
The response was that God always does only good and whatever bad happens, happens due to our own Karma. Ah, how I love this flexibility of religious belief! You can say any nonsense you like and you will definitely find religious arguments for it, proving your point. In my eyes, Karma and God cannot work together! If you give God the responsibility for good things, how can you blame Karma for the bad ones? Would God not be responsible for good and bad as well as for all your Karma? I have often heard this strange argument of Karma when I ask why children die of hunger on this world. It is their Karma, they say, he should not save them, they have to go through it. Why is God such a partial person that he saves some people from their Karma and not others?
You believe you have done a sin and that is why you have bad Karma. Due to your bad Karma, you have an accident but God saved you. Well, he saved your life but you do have a broken leg. If this guy could keep your head from hitting the ground, if he could manage to make you fall out of the Tempo at a place where there was no glass or other dangerous material on the ground, if he could keep other cars from rolling over you, then why could he not save your bones from being crushed? Why did he let that big car hit your tempo at all? Why did he let you fall out?
Was he too busy and only noticed when you had already broken your leg? Did he think it would look unrealistic that you fall out and don’t even break something? Or did he really think ‘Man, Govind, you got some bad Karma over there! Not bad enough for a concussion but at least a bone fracture!’
Well, needless to say that they could not convince me and neither did I try to convince them. They want to believe he was saved, fine. Today they will be praying to God to save him again during his surgery – which is thankfully on a Tuesday – but I will just be there in the hospital, wish for the doctors to have a calm hand and be there for him when the operation is over. Because it does not matter whether you believe in God or not, the love and support of a friend can help you overcome the worst of times.
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