Free will or destiny ?

Free will or destiny ?

January 2014

Recently, I had diligently filled out the form to attend the Life Positive Expo in Mumbai, and especially the workshop by Nilima and Vijay Bhat. However, circumstances dictated that I accompany my husband to a seminar by some foreign delegates on the day of the workshop.

Having attended and enjoyed Mrs. Jaya Row’s inaugural address on Inspired Living on Saturday, I felt even more dejected at not being able to attend the remaining workshops because of the seminar.

However, on reaching home from the Expo, much to my delight, my husband called me from work to tell me that the seminar had been cancelled, and that I could attend the workshop instead. On the face of it, it seemed that my husband was giving me permission to attend the workshop, or that the foreign delegates had done me a favour by cancelling their presentation. However, the deeper truth was that if something was destined to happen, it would happen, no matter what we did or did not do. But that does not mean we should sit down and do nothing. This takes us to the Bhagavad Gita where Sri Krishna tells Arjuna, “Yours is to work, do your karma, leave the results to Me.”

So the simplicity of all this is to know that it is God’s will and not ours that prevails. Sri Ramana Maharshi said, “The burden of the earth is borne by God; the ego that pretends to bear it too is like the figure sculpted on the tower that seems to bear the weight.”

-Maneck Thakkar, Mumbai