Bhagavn Sree Krishna , Improves His Bhaktha's Fate !!!!

[Guest guest]

Question :

We usually hear people saying that once a person is born, everything is decided by the Lord which is called Destiny . Does this include each and every possible action that we all do in our day-to-day life ??If Destiny is determined already, how does praying God affect it ie ., does this change the destiny from bad to good ? As far as practically speaking, destiny once determined should be fixed .But taking example from Bhakta Markandeya, his destiny was determined that he should be dead in a very young age, but his faith in Lord Shiva changed that .Can someone explain me this in brief please ?Answer

In the book, "Vedaantha Vijnaanam" Jnanaananda Saraswathi , destiny, free will and prayers are explained .

In the whole creation, only human beings have the opportunity to practice "Dharma" ( righteousness) and "Karma"(work) for liberation . We have the "Vishesha budhi" ( sense of discrimination) to achieve salvation or indulge in irresponsible actions and regress into animal existence again . Human life is precious because it comes after many lives of existence in the lower life forms .

Animals live by instinct and they do not know how to think against their instincts . So a Mosquito cannot change it's desire to drink blood into a desire to drink milk. They can only go through their life in a certain path or it is their fate to live like that in that particular life . They do not have the free will to change anything .After so many lives (decided by our past Karmaas) ruled by fate with out free will, we exhaust our "Paapam"(Sins) enough to be born as a human . As human beings, we are ruled by fate and free will .

Jnaanaananda Saraswathi explains three types of "Karmaas". Only the results of "Praarabdha karmas" ( ill-effects of past Karma) we are destined to suffer or enjoy . Other two "Karmaas", "Aagama Karmaas" and "Sanchitha karmas" -their results can be changed by using our free will and discrimination . "Aagama Karmaas" are the "Karmaas" that we do now and will do in future years and we will have to deal with the results in future( in this life and next life or lives to come). By doing only good and "dharmic" actions ( according to the injunctions of Vedic scriptures) , we can try to make all the "Aagama Karmaas" positive so that the results also will be only good . Now, "Sanchita Karma" is the Karma that was done in the past, but we have not yet started experiencing the results( they are there, but not ripe enough to experience like the Praabdha karmaas). The results of this "Sanchita Karmaas" can also be changed to some extent, by doing prayers , satsang and helping people with out expecting anything in return . This will at least lessen the results of the "Paapam" ( Sins) we did .

But the first one, "Praabdha Karmaas" are the ripe "Karmaas" we have to suffer and very seldom people are able to lessen the effect . Only the fruits of the "Praabdha Karma" is termed as "fate" because it is already ripe to be experienced and too late to reverse and change the direction. . But Jnaanaananda Saraswathi says that even bringing a change to this so called "destined fate" is possible if we pray sincerely and surrender to Bhagavan Sri Krishna completely. Krishna is beyond the "Prabdha Karmaas" and "kaala" or (time) and His blessings can change anything .

For example, Markandeya could change the fruit of his "Praarabdha Karma" or fate.

There is a very nice explanation using a nail telling us why sometimes our prayers seemingly do not bring the change we want or do not solve the problem.

"The length of a nail embedded in a varnished pillar and the composition of the wood are unseen, or adrishta, so far as you are concerned. The number and intensity of the pulls needed to take out the nail depend upon the number and intensity of the strokes which drove it in . Do we stop from pulling out the nail simply because we are ignorant of its length or of the number and intensity of the strokes which drove it in ? Or, do we persist in pulling it out by increasing our effort ?".

Also another example can be our loan to the bank . Suppose we have a loan of 2000 RS to the bank . If we make Rs 5000, after paying back the loan, we have Rs3000 left with us. What if we have a loan of Rs10000? Then after paying the loan we still owe another $5000 . So we have to make that much more to pay off the loan and another Rs3000 to reach the previous financial state. It depends on your "Aagama" and "Sanchitha" loans.

If we do not succeed at the very first attempt in changing the fruits of our "Karmaas", we can conclude that in the past we have used our Free-will just in the opposite direction, and that negative effect has to be nullified before we start seeing the positive effects of our prayers and good actions. If we do not succeed, we have to keep telling that there has been in the past a negative influence brought on by ourselves by exercising our Free-will in the opposite direction and, therefore, we must do extra prayers and good actions to nullify and change the fruits into our favor ( actually Bhagavan's favor because with prayers our free will and Bhagavan's ' will become one) . Tell ourselves that, it is possible o to overcome the fruits of the past "Karmaas" . If we do not succeed even after continued effort , we should not be disappointed because once we surrender our free will to Bhagavan's will, it eventually will become strong enough to overcome the fate. Our failure only means that our present exercise of free-will is not sufficient to counteract the result of the past exercise of it. This way of looking at fate gives us inspiration to do more and more good actions and more and more prayers. There is no room for despair.

Once our Free will is surrendered to the all powerful Bhagavan Krishna's will , how can we not succeed in facing things? We may not be able to change if the exercise of our Free will is not enough to counteract the past exercises, but definitely we will be able to handle it with strength and optimism and change our "Aagamam Karmaas" in to good actions, so that at least in future, we will have to only experience the fruits of good actions.

Om Namo Narayanaya !!!

Savitri Antharjanam