Monday,
01 April 2019
Directing
destiny
The
Speaking Tree | Lifestyle | ET
By
Chaitanya Charan Das
Is our
life predestined? Or is it in our hands? Vedic texts explain that karmavada
(endeavour alone determines success) and daivavada (destiny alone determines
success) are the two extremes of human imagination.
In
reality, success requires both endeavour and destiny. When people are
uninformed about the role of destiny in determining results, failures make them
feel hopeless. Consequently, today, many needlessly suffer from inferiority
complex, low selfesteem, depression and self-pity.
Krishna
says in the Gita that though we don’t determine the result, we do play a
significant role. The farmer must plough the field for favourable rainfall to
produce crops. Similarly, we must endeavour for destiny to produce results.
Hence, the Gita urges us to perform our duty without attachment.
We need
detachment because our material happiness and distress are predestined by our
own karma from past lives. We cannot change them no matter how hard we work.
But by doing our present duties industriously and honestly, we can get our
destined happiness.
Moreover,
destiny limits only our material happiness, not our spiritual happiness. Even a
little spiritual dynamism brings enormous returns. And as we are intrinsically
spiritual beings and as our lasting satisfaction comes from spiritual devotion,
we can rejoice in knowing that our real happiness is not destined, but is in
our own hands. Hence the need for caution to not let too much endeavour for
material aggrandisement deprive us of the time and energy to strive for lasting
spiritual enlightenment.
DISCLAIMER
: Views expressed above are the author's own.
Quote from
the True Charm and Power of Vedanta
Just as
rivers, as they flow, merge in the ocean giving up their (separate) names and
forms, so the knowing one, freed from (separateness arising from) name and
from, attains the luminous supreme Self, which is beyond (even) the (other)
supreme (namely , nature in its undifferentiated state)
The Upanishads
reveal an age characterised by a remarkable ferment, intellectual and spiritual.
It is one of those rare ages in human history which have registered distinct break-through
in man’s quest for truth and meaning and which have held far reaching
consequences for all subsequent ages. The mental climate of the Upanishads is
saturated with a passion for truth and a similar passion for human happiness
and welfare. Their thinkers wee undisturbed by the thought of there being a
public to please or critics to appease as Mx Millar puts it (Three Lectures on Vedanta’s
philosophy) They considered no sacrifice too heavy in their quest for truth
including not only earthly pleasure and heavenly delights, but also what is
most difficult to achieve and what every truth –seeker is called upon to achieve
namely, the sacrificing of pet opinion and pleasing prejudices. Referring to
this characteristic of the Upanishads in his book . Sis Systems of Indian
Philosophy Max Muller says
But, if
He exists?
I
drive joy There was a doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and
evening for mediation on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed
at him. One day they argued that he was wasting ten precious minutes on
something, which he had been misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well,
if God does not exist, I agree that I am wasting ten minutes a day. But, if He
exists? I am afraid you are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste ten
minutes rather than a lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 10 minutes joy
that I derive 4m.
ILLUSTRATED
REVIEW : 7th
Heaven moment of the week in Ipl super kings cap Dhoni 7 got man of the
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