Does He Know A Mother's Heart

Arun Shourie

'Arun's brilliance and insight come to the fore when he takes his specific personal situation and turns it into a discussion on the larger questions that humankind has been grappling with over the ages' – N.R. Narayana Murthy 'It is for this book that Arun will be remembered the most. It moved me to tears …' -Dr R.A. Mashelkar A child is in agony. Is it because God does not have the power to prevent suffering? Or, though He has the power, He does not know? Or that He knows and has the power but doesn't care? Why is the child suffering? 'It must be because of the child's karma,' we are told. But how do we know he did some wrong? 'Because he is suffering,' we are told as if that is anything except a mere circularity. 'No one is suffering,' say the mystics, 'Everything is maya.' Yet they eat, they teach, they pen books. If the world is all maya, why do they do all this? Or do they mean something else when they say, 'The world is unreal'? We cannot escape suffering. How may we put it to work? A profound examination of these and other questions, questions that each of us has to face in life. ©HarperCollins India 2018