God is not responsible for the sorrow and the pain that one experiences. The sins one commits are the cause of the grief one suffers. Joy and sorrow are the consequences of the good and the evil that one perpetrates. God is merely a witness. He does not punish, nor does He create grief. The jivi (individual soul) is without a beginning, that is to say, it has no birth; but it involves itself in incessant activity and so it has to go through the inevitable consequences of that activity. This is the unbreakable law of the objective world. Grief or joy is the image of the activity one engages in; it is the resound, the reflection, and the reaction. One can be the witness without concerning oneself with the good and the bad of the activity. When involvement happens, good will have to be experienced when good is done, similarly evil will have to be undergone when evil is done.
- Sathya Sai Vahini, Chap 8, "Bondage".