Thank you for being such great readers and commenters of Karma Blog. Starting from today we have our first guest post by Anita Dagar (dagaranita@gmail.com). If you would like to write a guest post for Karma Blog, please email at info@karmaroutes.com. Om.
To be or not to be…. is an eternal dilemma of human existence. Every life has strokes of those aching ifs and buts which could change course of life drastically! Perplexed at almost every step of life wherever we have to make a choice/decision. Should I do this or that? Will this be a right decision? Scared of pain of failure and misery I find myself asking is there a perfect way of taking decisions? Where all happiness and no pain is guaranteed! May be yes and may be no! Depends how we understand life or rather I would say how we choose to understand life, at least that is what philosophers seem to say!
Jean Paul Sartre, a French philosopher had something very relevant to say for a situation like this. Life always offers more than one possibilities in every situation. It is up to us to make a choice. And whatever we may choose at some point we are bound to regret why I did not choose the other! This regret is inevitable element of human existence. Simply because human life is not a ready-made package, its like a shop of spare parts . You can assemble these parts in unlimited combinations. The possibilities are infinite but the fact that humans have a time limit for their stay on earth, makes it impossible for them to live all possibilities. You can live only a few. Which ones you live is of course your choice! (remember even when we say I was helpless it is actually that I chose to be helpless instead of say…not taking up the job and letting my parents suffer or getting married to a rich girl instead of the girl I loved because I did not want to hurt my parents. The fact is that you chose to give priority to something over the other and that is a choice!) Not making a choice is also making a choice!
Whether these choices were right or wrong is something you can leave on time to tell. You may take into account today all the right factors but whatever happens in future is not in your individual control. When you make a choice today; lets say you decide to marry your daughter to a well off Army officer, it might be that he leaves his job after six months or he is court marshaled or that particular battalion is dismissed for certain reasons and your son in law as a result is unemployed and your daughter is suffering because of that. Now the point is no one can know what future holds and hence what seems right today may appear wrong tomorrow.
Therefore, the points to drive home are:-
* I am a limited finite being, I can be at one place in one moment and after a certain time my stay on earth expires.
* Future holds endless possibilities and I can live only a few of them.
* What I live, I choose it to quite a large extent, knowingly or unknowingly.
* Whatever I may choose , its rightness cannot be guaranteed .
So what is in my hands is understand and accept the above and enjoy to the last bit the choices I make.
Would like to look at it from Indian perspective!
Compared to Jean Paul Sartre’s view Indian perspective is spiritual and mystic to quite some extent. It is more experiential and cyclic. In fact Hindu scriptures put it quite accurately how one should live and what is worth pursuing and what is not so significant in life. The ultimate end to be pursued is knowing oneself. That is knowing the true nature of self and liberating oneself from the cycle of birth and death. And there are three ways as described in Gita to know your true self and attain nirvana viz. Bhakti, Karma and Gyana. Depending upon one’s inclination one can choose anyone path (if one may say so!).
Speaking broadly human life is one of the endless possibilities that a soul goes through. Your life on earth is predestined (by your earlier karmic actions, desires) to quite a large extent but your actions/efforts or to put it accurately “Karma” can change the destiny as they say. So what is in human control is only do your karma and leave the rest to Him. Yes it is certainly easier said than done! One needs to practice it every moment to be able to reach that stage. Remember believing in the law of Karma is not being fatalist. In fact, it requires a deep understanding of your duties and courage and activeness to perform them. So you need to decide now how you would like to review your life. Though eventually it will come to some common similar issues, which can be summed up as following.
Life is a big leela /play created by God and though he has predestined major routes in your life but your actions can always change this route. (remember Savitri’s dialogue with lord Yama and bringing back her husband Satyavan back to life).
Your individual life is not existing in isolation so whatever actions you take are taken in a socio-political and economic structure and they will have reactions beyond your individual sphere of control. .
Only thing in human hands is doing one’s action/karma/duties.
And having realized this you can move on to two conclusions:-
First, whatever happened, you had no control over it, it had to happen and the same shall be the path for future. So let yourself float on the waves of life; Do not hang on to the rocks.
Secondly, if you would like to take responsibility for your existence, go and do your Karma and leave the rest to ‘him’. He will take care.
Bon Voyage!
