Monday, January 2, 2017
Karma - Part 11
Destiny or Freewill - the third option by Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
A ruler of lines falls in line with the rules of the ruler.
Prof. Safaya himself narrated the powerful happenings of the morning. Swami had called him in for an interview. He entered the interview room and for the first few minutes, the interview went along the lines of the previous interviews. Swami asked him how things were going, how the students were and so on. Then, out of the blue, Swami told him,
"You seem to have great faith in the predictive sciences of your forefathers. That overpowers even your faith in God's strength! Do you believe that commensurate to your surrender, I will take care of everything for you?"
Swami continued to taunt,
"Professor, your sciences can only predict. Can they help you intervene if something is unfavourable?"
Swami now did something that he had never imagined. Calling him closer, He held both his hands. Slowly, Swami brushed His palms over the professor's upturned palms. Then He told him,
"Tell me, what does life hold for you?"
The professor looked down at his palms. Having seen them every day of his life, he actually had no need to do that. He knew the contours on his palm by heart. The lines were etched in his memory stronger than they were on his palm. It was only out of respect for Swami that he looked at his palms. He was in for a shock.
Amid tears, the professor told his philosophy class students,
"When I looked, I did not find a single line on my palms. They had been wiped clean - no trace of even the faintest etch!"
The power of surrender
As the class listened with bated breath, the professor continued his narrative. Swami stood smiling in front of him, apparently enjoying the professor's discomfiture and shock. Prof. Safaya just broke down and Swami lovingly patted him.
"Don't worry about anything. Once you surrender to me, I shall take care of everything."
The professor fell to his knees and touched Swami's feet. What he had thought as impossible had actually happened - his reverence for Swami had transformed into implicit faith in a moment!
"Yes Swami! Yes Swami! I believe that commensurate to our surrender, you take care. Complete surrender means a life completely taken care of!"
Swami smiled at him again and touched his palms again. The lines were all back again - to the last detail! The professor was overwhelmed at the presence of this Master who could wipe out and re-draw the lines on his palm at will.
"You have nothing to worry when I am shouldering your lives. Just surrender, that is enough."
Destiny or Freewill
"Dear students", he told them, "trust me, the science of astrology and palmistry are nothing compared to Swami's grace and power. I feel so redeemed today."
As I heard Sunam recounting the greatest philosophy lesson of the professor, I got my answer to the destiny and freewill debate. So, is it destiny of self-effort finally? My answer is - Who cares? I know for sure that Swami's grace is more powerful than my destiny, more effective than my efforts. And so, when presented with the choices, I go for the third option. As martial artist David Carradine says,
"There's always a third way, and it's not a combination of the other two ways. It's a different way."
“Some students today talk about Free Will. Only the Divine has free will. Man is endowed with a will but not a free will. When the Divine free will moves, the human will also operates. There are myriad leaves in a tree but not a leaf will move in the absence of wind. The leaves have no free will, but they have a will which can be swayed when a breeze blows. In the tree of life, human beings are like leaves. When the Divine Will blows, the human will begins to move. Thus, there is need for the coming together of Divine Will and the human will. Then, there will be a blossoming of human nature.
Dear Ones,
This declaration by Bhagawan has come in for a very strong criticism amongst the intellectual class of this modern world. It also appears to be contradictory to the essence of Karma theory which was learnt during the last several days and absolutely contrary to Swami Sivananda’s declaration that Man is the master of his own destiny.
But will the lord declare any thing which is not true???? Impossible. Is it not??
Let us try and link 2 declarations of Swami surfacing in this post, in 2 different paragraph
- “Some students today talk about Free Will. Only the Divine has free will. Man is endowed with a will but not a free will.
- "You have nothing to worry when I am shouldering your lives. Just surrender, that is enough."
Swami conveys the secret in our contemplation thus:
O Man, till the time you believe in yourself and till the time Samskaras of several past birth is carried by you, it is impossible for you to surrender totally to Lord. Hence, you have to understand the theory of karma, take up purushartha, exercise your freewill/limited freedom to choose the right path and then, as Sivananda said, “Instead of weeping over the failure of crops during last year, go on ploughing this year. You will get abundant rain this year and rich harvest. Do virtuous actions now. Think rightly. Act rightly. You will have a brilliant and a glorious future”.
The
sweetest of all is the state of absolute surrender. Where, you are
not there to exercise any free will with your own choice, your own intellect
but you allow yourself to be ruled by Lord’s instructions moment to moment and His
instructions, His prescriptions can never go wrong.
LOVE.
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