Destiny or coincidence: The constant conundrum

The present is in our full control and we ought to perform good karmas in sync with the principles of dharma to reap good rewards in the future
Destiny or coincidence: The constant conundrum

Human life is an interesting saga of events—favourable or unfavourable, pleasurable or painful, expected or fortuitous. We make short-term and long-term plans and work in accordance with those plans. But, more often than not, many of these plans go awry. We frequently fail miserably to achieve our charted objectives.

We also look back trying to figure out where and why we went wrong. In many cases, we are able to arrive at rational explanations for the outcomes in terms of our failings or gaps in efforts. But in many other cases, we are at a total loss to explain the adverse events that occur in our lives. This happens when we in retrospect feel that adversity befell us despite our exercising care and caution, that we met failure in spite of hard work and well-directed efforts.

In the above cases, we tend to ascribe our failure or other adversity to some external factors beyond our control. Some of us are quick to call it a slice of ill luck or misfortune. Others use a different term like karma or destiny. But there are some among us who attribute the adverse turnout of events to chance happenings or mere coincidences. They, professedly, disbelieve in anything called luck or destiny or karma.

The above observation definitely throws up the need to take a rational, objective and scientific look at the so-called phenomenon of karma or destiny operating in our lives. Let us first understand the logically borne-out eternal truth that there are three timeless entities in the universe—the one divine creator, its material creation or the visible nature and the countless living souls existing as sentient beings. The creator regulates and operates the universe.

What is this regulation or operation all about? The supreme omniscient and omnipotent creator administers in a real-time mode his law of karmic retribution. Sentient beings get the fruits of their karmas quantitatively and qualitatively in the process of their refinement. Every qualitative karma or action by a person is a seed that grows and fructifies in a specific time frame. This fruit is the event witnessed in human lives. The event will be favourable or adverse according to the qualitative nature of its karmic seed. If the karma was righteous or dharmic that promotes the welfare of all, it will bear the fruits of reward and if it was unrighteous, it would bear the fruits of punishment manifesting as an adverse event.

The karmic results of our past actions are beyond our control and constitute our destiny. The present is in our full control and we ought to perform good karmas in the present in sync with the divine principles of dharma to reap good rewards in the future. The future is unknown and indeterminate and how we live in the present actually determines and shapes our future events of life and the life hereinafter.

What we have done by way of qualitative karmas in the past goes beyond our control in as far as its results are concerned because it has been pushed into the realm of the almighty. But the future can, indeed, be shaped or moulded as per our present qualitative karmas. That is why man remains the arbiter of his own life and the architect of his own destiny.

As mentioned above, the all-powerful creator controls and regulates this mundane world and does perfect justice to our good or bad karmas. It follows quite logically from the above statements that nothing happens in this vast universe by chance. This is so because the omnipotent and all-knowing creator is operating it every moment.

Every action has an equal but opposite reaction. Mundane phenomena in nature are all cause-and-effect phenomena. In the world of sentient human beings, the law of karmic retribution operates seamlessly with perfect precision to provide due and deserved fruits to humans for their karmas to facilitate their spiritual development along the time continuum.

Let us not be in confusion or illusion about what we face in our lives. We get what we deserve. As we sow, so shall we reap. And the process of fruition of our karmic seeds will take its own time and follow its own plan and procedure in the realm of Mother Nature, with the divine powers of the creator God seamlessly regulating this fruition. Let us have noble and righteous intentions and perform good karmas in line with dharma. The rest will take care of itself.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com