IS IT GOD OR IS IT NATURE THAT PUNISHES YOU?

Instead of looking at things as good and bad we may need to look at the good in the bad and the bad that may come with what we thought was going to be good. That is the law of karma. What happens to us is our own doing. We determine our fate. We are the heirs of our own actions, said Buddha. There is always an equal and opposite reaction for each of our actions. So be very careful how you act because good news and bad news come together.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Newton’s First Law states that an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force: objects will remain in their state of motion unless a force acts to change the motion.

Newton’s Third Law states that when one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.

Yin and Yang are the two forces in the universe. Yin is the passive, negative force, and Yang the active, positive force.

We are the heirs of our own actions: Buddha

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Science, philosophy, theology, and whatnot, all probably share something in common. And that is for everything that you disturb you can expect some sort of repercussion.

If you build your home in the lowlands or in flood-prone areas, like they do in some parts of the East Coast, you can expect one day to get flooded out.

If you cut down all the trees to profit from the timber, and hence reduce the water retention that the forests offer, you can expect the rain to wash down the hill and bury your homes in silt and water.

If you take up arms and start killing people (say like Boko Haram, IS, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, etc.), you can expect people to start killing you back.

If you provoke, mock, humiliate, and goad extremists and ultras who have been brainwashed by a certain doctrine, and dare them to do their worst, you can expect some mad people to go around bombing and shooting.

If you invade other people’s countries and start arresting or killing those you consider your enemies, you can expect the people to rise up and fight back.

If you oppress your own people and make them miserable, you can expect them to one day get angry and throw you out or even assassinate you.

If you teach your people to be extreme, intolerant, violent and militant, you can expect one day they will go on a rampage and run amok.

If you teach your pet tiger cub to eat raw and bloody meat, you can expect one day it will eat you.

If you make a living capturing wild crocodiles for its leather, you can expect one day to be crocodile lunch.

This list can go on and on for many pages. Suffice that I stop here, as I am sure I have made my point. And the point is: most times, if not every time, what happens to you is the result of your own actions.

Did God make you sick or is it because of your diet and lifestyle you got sick? Did God kill those Malaysians during the 2004 Tsunami that hit Penang and Kedah or was it because they cut all the mangrove trees along the coast (for profit) that would have been the buffer against the high waves?

Almost every catastrophe can be traced to some action of humankind.

Malaysians are always unhappy and grumbling. There are so many issues that we are not happy about. And we always look for someone or something to blame for this. It is never our fault. It is always the fault of others.

My Tok Guru, Abdul Rahman Petani, who I spent many years as his student, taught me many things. And probably one of the most valuable lessons he taught me is that there is no absolute good or absolute bad. There is only good within bad and bad within good.

Hence good and bad come together as a package. Whenever something good happens you can be sure that something bad will follow and when something bad happens you can also be sure that something good will follow.

This is probably a doctrine that some may find difficult to understand but makes complete sense.

People who are rich and enjoy good food every day and have a relaxed (meaning sedentary) life end up not being very healthy by the time they are 50 or 60. So for the good that they enjoy they suffer bad in the end.

Farmers who work hard every day in the padi field and can just afford the basics in life and eat fish and greens, and ‘kampung’ chicken only once or twice a month, can walk five miles to town right up to age 70 as if they were still just 40. So the poor life that fate gave them was something good after all. Hence it is not so bad after all.

Sabahans and Sarawakians are not happy. They feel they are being given a raw deal and lost out a lot by joining Malaysia, or rather by teaming up with Malaya to form Malaysia. Some even want Sabah and Sarawak to secede from Malaysia and become independent, just like what Singapore did.

It may have been a bad move for Sabah and Sarawak to join Malaysia. But what if Sabah and Sarawak had not joined Malaysia? Would Sabah and Sarawak be better, today, as provinces of Indonesia or the Philippines (which was what would have happened had they not joined Malaysia)?

Malays are lamenting the ‘mistake’ the Merdeka leaders made in giving citizenship to the Chinese and Indians and thus diluting the Malay population from 90% or so down to just 50%. Would Malaysia be a better country (prosperous and developed) if the Chinese and Indians had been sent back to China and India and if Malaysia, today, was 90% or more Malay?

Malays in Malaysia are divided between the Islamists, Nationalists and Liberalists and are quarrelling every day about this, that and the other. Is it better that the Malays are all united and then they start looking for other people to quarrel with such as the Chinese and Indians (because invariably the Malays will need to quarrel with someone)?

The non-Malays feel that Article 153 of the Constitution, the special privileges of the Malays, the New Economic Policy, and whatnot, should all be abolished and that Malaysia should practice meritocracy where the best man wins and it is survival of the fittest.

If that is done and the Malays are left behind, like they are now, would they channel their anger regarding their predicament to the other races instead of to their own Malay leaders who they feel have failed them, and would this unite the Malays against a common ‘enemy’, the non-Malays?

Again, I can go on and on and the list can run into many pages. The long and the short of it all, though, is that do not look at things in absolutes. Yes, there is some bad, but there is also some good, just like in good there is also bad. Also look at the downside. The grass may look greener on the other side but that may not necessarily be so once you get there.

Malaysians could not wait for Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to get kicked out. And when he left office in 2003 Malaysians gave Barisan Nasional a resounding victory in the 2004 general election, the best performance ever in Malaysia’s history.

Then many began to wonder whether Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is god-sent after all and they wanted him out as well. In the next general election in 2008, Malaysians demonstrated their displeasure and Pak Lah was forced to leave office and Najib Tun Razak took over.

Now Malaysians are so unhappy with Najib and want him out, too. Okay, let us say that happens. Let us say Najib leaves office. Who are going to take over as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister? And are you so sure that Malaysia would be better off with this new Prime Minister and new Deputy Prime Minister, just like you thought so back in 2003 and 2009 when Malaysia saw a change of leadership?

Instead of looking at things as good and bad we may need to look at the good in the bad and the bad that may come with what we thought was going to be good. That is the law of karma. What happens to us is our own doing. We determine our fate. We are the heirs of our own actions, said Buddha. There is always an equal and opposite reaction for each of our actions. So be very careful how you act because good news and bad news come together.