Am I Free to Act?
Hari Aum!
Prostrations at the Holy Altar of Sree Guru Parampara,
Humble prostrations at the Holy Feet of Maa ji.
Destiny and Freewill – Two words often misunderstood and misused!
Destiny - Whenever anything good or bad happens to us, we often tend to associate such events to our Bhagya i.e., Destiny.
Free Will - anything we do as per our wish without any restriction and with full freedom.
But both these words have a deeper meaning and significance than it seems to a common man.
We need to understand it from the viewpoint of our scriptures. Following is my understanding of the words to wisdom imparted to us by Maa ji; grateful to Her.
Destiny or praarabdh is the fructification of our past deeds, that may be even several past births. We cannot change our praarabdh. We must face it anyways; we cannot do anything about it because we cannot change the past, but we have control over our future because our future destiny would be the result of our present and future deeds. So, we can improve our future by acting wisely in present which would form the basis of our future by putting our effort in the right direction.
Whenever we pray or worship, there is generally a selfish motive behind it. We generally pray to Lord to bless us with the fulfillment of our desires. And this is the biggest mistake we make in our sadhana. We want the Lord to endorse our own desire! Since the blessings here are fueled by desire, we may be under the impression that our prayers have been answered by Lord, but in fact, we are pushed into a greater abyss. It is this ego which drives us towards unrighteousness and wrong way of life and thereby pushes us into such praarabdh.
It is inevitable to face our praarabdh. So, we should face it in such a way that it mitigates our suffering and there is no better way to face it, other than by fixing our mind on the Divine, thinking, and contemplating on the Absolute Self which is taintless and pure.
In the above context, it is important for us to know the meaning of ‘Sanchit Karma’ and ‘Agami Karma’.
Sanchit karma is our past deeds lying in the dormant state, yet to be fructified in some future point of time, while agami karma is the deed which we will be performing now, and which will form the basis of our future praarabdh. Again, there is no point in brooding over our sanchit karma… but agami karma - we should perform with complete control over our Mind-Intellect equipment, refraining completely from any kind of indulgences and unaffected by doer-ship.
Purushaarth or Free Will is the Will of the Divine and not mine, because my will has no standing! It is a wish, because I have desires and from desires spring forth several wishes to be fulfilled. We know, that we cannot avoid our destiny, but while exhausting our praarabdh karma, we inevitably create new karmas by the way we react to those praarabdh karmas. In these situations, Free Will can supersede, only if we undertake all actions in the present, directed towards the Divine alone. In doing so our focus should be on the Self and when we experience this Self-Realization, our karma will cease to exist because there would be no sense of ego and doer-ship.
Thus, we must strive towards ending our praarabdham with patience & indifference to the world of objects, by focusing the Mind - Intellect on the Supreme Reality.
Hari Aum!
Mitesh Dani
Dubai (U.A.E)
Hari Aum!
The topic ‘Destiny and Free Will’ triggered past thoughts when Maa ji conducted the session under that title. One thing immediately came to mind - the intriguing topic would be given yet another angle for participants like me to learn, imbibe and implement!
Maa ji, with the legendary katha of ‘Bhasmasura’ explained to us the intricate play of destiny and one’s will. It was indeed thought provoking - how Bhasmasura was burnt down to ashes by Lord Shiva’s boon that he had undergone penance for, for years together; to become most powerful and invincible!
Guiding us further, like taking a child beyond baby steps, Maa ji made us understand that ‘consequences of past actions’ cannot be undone – that is what we call Destiny, i.e. ‘praarabdh’! We need to accept it as a blessing, deal with complete patience, and act wisely, i.e. ‘purushaarth’. When we can overcome our desires, then only can we listen to the Free Will, the Divine Will. Thus, the present actions progress correctly only through Divine Will, in-turn carving our future for the better.
By way of clarifying a doubt asked by one of the participants, Maa ji brought home the final understanding, that though Bhasmasura’s body had to meet the consequences due to destiny created by himself, it was actually a blessing to be emancipated by the Lord Himself, as part of His leela. All His actions lead to blessings for his bhakths.
Humble prostrations at the Lotus Feet of Maa ji.
I felt blessed, with lots to think about once again!
Hari Aum!
P. Balasubramanian
Chennai