Very often we ask why, if there is a God and if God is love and is kind and merciful, there should be so much suffering as if people were being punished. But that is our small way of looking at it. In reality if our eyes were open and we could see deeper into life, we would realize that there is no such thing as punishment. In all things there is the mercy of God, but we only call that God's mercy which We can perceive and understand; that which we cannot see and understand we think of as a punishment from God. Whether the parents scold the child or whether they caress it, in both there is their love and nothing else. As Tagore says, 'When Thou tunest me to a higher pitch, then I feel pain. But I know, Lord, that pain is to attune me to the right pitch.'