Our thoughts decide our destiny - Ramana Maharshi
QUESTION:
1)
To what extent do we decide our lives? If everything is predetermined where
does good action and bad action fit into this and on what basis is our future
life (next life) decided?
2) Is free will, grace of God, and Karma a myth,
a mere theory and a hypothesis?
ANSWER:
Our
free will is like the very limited freedom of a dog on a leash [fapW].
By our own action, sooner or later we loose our free will and become a puppet
of our own Karma and everything becomes predetermined!! We are trapped and suffer!!
Our
future is decided by us in the final analysis, but prayer and grace also helps.
Because we do what we think, and we become what we
do. Thus our thoughts decide our destiny. Here
is what Gita says:
Whatever object one remembers as one leaves
the body at the end of life, one attains that object. Thought of whatever
object prevails during one's lifetime, one remembers only that object at the
end of life and achieves it.
Therefore, always remember Me and do your
duty. You shall certainly attain Me if your mind and intellect are ever focused
on Me.
"Neither is everything predestined, nor do we have free
will in everything,"
said
the Great Master, Ramana Maharshi. "There was a time when we had free
will. We could act as we pleased. We acted, and that act produced a
certain result. That "result" became our destiny. We could not escape
it. We acted again. This time our free will carried with it the experience of
our first act and was qualified and limited to that extent. This act again produced
results, and these results again curtailed our original freedom. Now that we
have been acting and producing results for millions of ages, these actions and
their reactions act upon us as our unavoidable fate called Praarabdh. Our body, mind, intellect, and reasoning are fashioned
by these and make us choose a certain course. Our previous acts determine our
present life, and our present acts go to make our future. We reap now what we
have sown in our previous births, and we shall reap in the future what we are sowing
now.”
What can we do to reach
God? Are we helpless?
And
the cycle goes on and on till we break this cycle by accumulating no more Karma
--- good or bad --- and exhausting all our past Karma by reaping its fruit
and/or when the spark of Self-knowlegde burns all our accumulated Karma
(Samchit Karma). The fate or Praarabdh is a portion of accumulated Karma that
has to be exhausted in this life.
How
we can stop accumulating more karma while living in this world and doing
worldly actions, Lord said:
The forces of Nature do all work, but due to delusion of ignorance,
or ego, people assume themselves to be the doer and incur karmic bondage.
Actions produce karmic reactions or bondage
only if we do the act for ourselves.
Thus we should not think ourselves as the doer, but a mere divine instrument working for the
creator. With this attitude
we will incur no karmic bondage or sin, even if we kill all the entire
world. But remember not to misuse this
principle of instrumentality and start killing people for personal gain.
Compiled by T.S. Prem
Kumar, Madurai, India.
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