Tradition is very powerful. Traditional beliefs that have no truth in them are still more powerful. We appreciate goodness; we frown upon bad people. Therefore, the creative MIND assumes not out of its own experience, but out of its own expectations that good people should prosper and bad people should suffer. Sometimes we see events in our lives that become a punishment and we understand that it is due to a recent wrong we have committed. The sense of mental justice is satisfied. At other times, a sudden punishment descends on us. We are baffled. Then we exclaim, "What wrong have I done? Whom did I hurt? Then why this catastrophe in my life?" This has nothing to do with the life realities.
Out of negligence, you get an electric shock. It is not a punishment God gives you for your sins. It is simply ignorance. You give a big sum to a pleasant cheat and lose the money. Again you are ignorant. You earn far more than your relatives and foolishly disclose all your assets, thinking you are being honest. Your relatives join together and compel you to part with the best part of your cash assets. Suddenly they turn around and declare that none of them is going to return it. Also, they humiliate you saying what a simpleton you are. He who earns money must also have the capacity to protect it. Otherwise, he becomes weak. The strength of a weak man attracts unusual suffering from other strong people is a simple truth of life.
Life punishes ignorance and incapacity. That is how life educates. You learn that way. He who cannot swim enters the water and is drowned. The water does not warn you. It is dumb. If one man dies, the other men learn. For life, all men are one. We certainly do not commit such simple follies. But life is in layers of increasing strength. For anyone there is the next higher level. There he is bound to err, or suffer serious consequences. One who starts invoking the Spirit, however low or high he is, will find the Spirit acts through life and prevents such losses. He is guided to a good lawyer, capable doctor; he is given an excellent wife, endearing children. They are the ways of Grace. The action of the Spirit is Grace. It is for us to keep the contact constant.