Why do Good People Suffer?
I remember as a child two books I enjoyed reading were Hitopdesha and Panchtantra, the Indian versions of Aesop’s Fables if you will, written some 2000 years ago. I’ve been trying to look for a particular story to share with you when I came across something similar in You Don’t Eat A Lion Doesn’t Mean The Lion Won’t Eat You by Udaylal Pai. I’ve paraphrased it a bit (umm…quite a lot, actually; almost entirely, in fact):
Once upon a time, in a certain village, a young boy was walking alone by the riverside when he heard desperate cries for help.
“Please help me, save me, someone please release me,” a crocodile was shouting. Flapping his tail, the animal was badly entangled in a net, like humans in desires.
The boy wanted to help the poor croc but was skeptical. “If I help you,” he said, “you’ll eat me the moment you are free.”
The crocodile shed tears and said, “How can I eat the person who saved my life? My kind doesn’t savor their savior. I promise that I won’t even touch you and will remain eternally indebted to you.”
The boy felt pity and began to cut the net. Barely was the crocodile’s head free from the net, when, as expected, it grabbed the boy’s leg in its jaws, and said: “I have been starving…
