Is Destiny fixed or flexible ?-it is an attitude

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HARI AUM

 

'DESTINY' is nothing but life going somewhere or

nowhere and is nothing but an 'attitude'. All that

happened, happening, will be happening, will not be

happening all contribute to the making of the

'attitude'. You want it 'fixed' it is so, want it

'flexible', it is also so. Want it 'mixed', it is

still so. The 'question' is not how destiny is, but

what is one's attitude towards it. Bhagavan's 'GITA'

solely addressed to this factor-change the 'attitude',

you bet 'he'changed it; of Arjuna a trembling, scared,

frightened, hopeless, shamefully mumbling hollow words

of wisdom to the ULTIMATE HERO of all times and went

on to win the fratricidal war and help 'him'

reestablish the process of 'dharma'.

 

Listen to 'his' 'song' and get the right 'attitude'-

the best thing one can do to oneself.

 

Regards

 

Balagopal

 

NARAYANA NARAYANA NARAYANA

 

 

--- Savitri Puram <savitriopuram wrote:

 

> Dear Murali Krishnaji.

>

> I do not know whether I can explain this

> satisfactorily. But anyway I will

> try to share what I read in Vedaantha Vijnaanam by

> Jnanaananda Saraswathi.

> It is in Malayalam and I am trying to briefly

> explain his explanation of

> destiny, free will and prayers.

>

> In the whole creation, only human beings have the

> opportunity to practice

> dharma and work for liberation. We have the vishesha

> budhi or 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 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 karmaas we are destined to suffer or

> enjoy. Other two karmaas,

> Aagama karmaas and Sanchitha karmaas -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, 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 we

> did ( like our saying " vettu thallakkiththarum. " ).

>

> 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 Him

> completely. Easwaran is beyond the Prabdha karmaas

> and kaala or time and His

> blessings can change anything.

>

> *As you pointed out, 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

> God's favor because with prayers our free will and

> God' 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 God'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 God'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.

>

> My explanation of such a deep subject is definitely

> inadequate and clouded.

> I was recently reading a lot about this subject by

> different authors and I

> shared my understanding with you. Please forgive for

> any mistakes or unclear

> statements. This is just an attempt to share what I

> read about this. Please

> feel free to disagree or correct any mistakes you

> see.

>

> If you can read Malaylaalam, Jnaananada Sarswathi's

> Vedantha Vijnjaanam is

> an excellent book written in simple Mlayaalam, It

> explains about many deep

> and abstract subjects in a very nice way for people

> like us.

>

> Regards and prayers

>

> Savitri

>

>

>

>

> With my limited knowledge and experience I do not

> know whether I

> answered your question.

> I would really recommend reading a book by

> Jnaanananda Saraswathi

> called Vedantha Vijnaanam. I thouroughly enjoyed the

> book and he has

> explained a lot of our questions about " pitrukkal "

> and so many other

> subjects in simple language and great style.

>

> On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 5:02 AM, Murali Krishna

> <emanimurali

> wrote:

>

=== message truncated ===

 

 

 

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