00:00Why do innocent people suffer?
00:02Questioner certainly has an image of innocent people in mind.
00:06What's that image?
00:07But the fellow didn't do any wrong.
00:09He has been following all the customs and all the rules.
00:13He's never even killed a fly.
00:15When he wants to abuse you, he says, hey, good day.
00:18So he's innocent, right?
00:20In theology, this is called the problem of suffering.
00:23If God is beneficent and benevolent,
00:27then why is there suffering in the world?
00:29And especially why do good people suffer?
00:32And behind that grand problem, which people are unable to solve,
00:36and all the priests and popes are breaking their head at it,
00:38lies this basic and dirty assumption that there is something called an innocent person.
00:45To be innocent is to be free of all blemishes, bondages.
00:50To be innocent is to be perfect.
00:53There's nothing called an innocent person.
00:54And that's why we all have to suffer and we will suffer.
00:59So don't ask, why do I suffer?
01:01Ask, what am I to do with my suffering?
01:04Do I beat my chest over it?
01:06Do I cry and complain over it?
01:08That's one way.
01:08Or do I face it, talk to it, embrace it, and transcend it?
01:14That's the right way.
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