Fated

"The eternal play between destiny and choice through myth, mind, and awakening"

Let’s begin with Dhanishtha Nakshatra’s mythological story which goes into 3 parts.

Mythological Story –

1st Part – There were 8 brothers, known as 8 Vasus in Heavenly World. They were pranksters and as such always planning for a new prank on others. Eldest among them once thought to steal the Divine Cow of Sage Vashishtha. Other 7 Vasus were also included in prank and they stole the Divine Cow. Although they stole it but Sage Vashishtha became aware of the same through his Divine Vision. As such, Sage Vashishtha cursed them to be exiled from Heavens and live a human life. Then only they will find their way back to heavens.

When 8 Vasus came to know about this curse, they apologized to Sage Vashishtha and sought forgiveness as it was just a prank and they didn’t mean to harm the Cow or insult the Sage. Sage Vashishtha modified the curse by saying that 7 of you will get rid of curse as soon as you take birth but the eldest one who initially thought about the stealing and convinced others will have to live the whole curse.

2nd Part – In Heavenly World; during a celebration at Indra’s Court, one of the courtiers of Indra looked at Ganga (in her heavenly incarnation) in a very indecent way. Also, Ganga was aware of this but still allowed him to look at her the same way.

This enraged Indra and Indra cursed both of them to suffer a human life as they have destroyed the decorum of Indra’s Court.

Here, Ganga promises 8 Vasus to help them in getting rid of curse by giving them birth in human form.

3rd part – Now, Courtier takes birth as King Shantanu and Ganga takes a human incarnation. They happen to meet and Shantanu got smitten by the beauty of Ganga. He expresses his desire to get married to her. Ganga agrees but asks for two promises in return; i.e. Shantanu will never ask any question to her and Shantanu will never stop her from doing anything. Also, if he breaks these promises then he would lose Ganga forever.

Though these promises were self-defeating in nature but Shantanu was so smitten by the beauty of Ganga that he gave the word.

Then Shantanu and Ganga got married and after some time, they had their 1st child. Ganga took the child in her arms and flown him away in river. Shantanu was watching all this but as per promise given, he was not supposed to stop Ganga from doing anything or ask her any question about any of her actions. This pattern continued for next 6 just born children.

So, Ganga had flown away 7 of her children in the river and killed them. Remember the Sage Vashishtha’s Curse; “Seven of you will get rid of curse as soon as you take birth”.

Now, when the turn of 8th Son came, who was supposed to live the curse, Shantanu could not stop himself. He broke the promise, stopped Ganga and asked the reason behind all her actions. Ganga then narrated stories from heavenly world. As 8th Vasu was supposed to live the curse, Shantanu was supposed to stop him.

This story reflects humanity’s oldest inner debate — the play between Fate and Free Will.

As Sage Vashishtha had given the curse and then modified it, everything was fated/destined from his perspective. He knew the result that will unfold; i.e. 7 children will be killed and 8th one will be saved.

But from King Shantanu’s point of view, he was taking actions as per his free will. Firstly in an inactive way by not saving 7 children and then in an active way by saving the 8th one. As he was unaware of curse and the stories behind it, it was all free will from his perspective.

As Sage is aware of whole story, everything is fated for him.

As King Shantanu is unaware, everything is free will for him. He was thinking all the way that he was exercising free will but his free will was a part and parcel of fate only. His free will was utilized by existence to get the fate manifested.

This is what I have consistently maintained that from our perspective, it is all free will. But from Divine/Existence perspective, it is all fated.

We can know what is fated once we become the Divine. We cannot know it by staying a human. As long as we are humans, we cannot know what is fated. Or as I said before - https://www.astrosaxena.com/articles/Destiny  that everything is destined but we don’t know what is it that is destined. Destiny can only be known in hindsight. So, in the absence of the knowledge of fate/destiny, whatever actions we take from our side automatically become actions out of free will.

Let’s try to understand the same thing through the story of Gautama Buddha.

When Prince Siddhartha Gautama took birth, his Father King Shuddhodhan’s childhood friend Sage Aseeta came to see the new-born as Sage was aware that one evolved soul has taken birth. After seeing the child, he predicted that this child will become a Great Saint, much more powerful than any King as he will be like King of Kings. Sage Aseeta also said the day when he will have first encounter with pain & suffering of worldly life, that day only he will start his journey towards truth.

King Shuddhodhan was obviously not happy with this prediction as no Father would want his son to become a Saint, no matter how great he is going to be!! From that day onwards, he tried his best to ensure that Siddhartha doesn’t see any pain and suffering of the world. To ensure this, King created a New City, far away from Capital, where he shifted all the old and ill people of his Kingdom. He removed all the old people from Service. He instructed that not even name of Death or any Disease should come into Siddhartha’s knowledge. Siddhartha was made to live inside the Palace only, to the extent that he was unaware life and world exists beyond Palace. These measures gave the King an illusion of safety.

But one day, while playing with his friends and cousins, he heard the name of New City. He enquired more about that place and took his Charioteer Channa to go to New City. Now, someone, who never saw any suffering in his life so far, was greeted by immense pain, suffering, illness, old-age and dead dodies. The immediate impact of this experience was overwhelming on Siddhartha and he began his journey to know the reason of pain & suffering in Human Life.

So in my view, King Shuddhodhan was, all the way, facilitating the fate/destiny. He was thinking that he is successful in avoiding destiny told by Sage Aseeta but actually, he was just facilitating the same destiny to manifest by creating New City as where would have been any other place in whole Kingdom where Siddhartha could have seen so much Pain & Suffering at once. So, destiny prevailed and thank God it prevailed as we have a Buddha.

Again, we only facilitate fate through our so-called free will.

Now, if our so-called free will is also part of fate then what is left with us? Because then a mundane person will say that let me do whatever I want as it would be anyways facilitate fate.

So, what we are left with is most important thing is that whether we are exercising our free will consciously or unconsciously? Even Ted Bundy can say that he used his free will in killing 38 women but how helpful is his unconscious and destructive free will for humanity at large? Also, if someone explores his free will unconsciously in destructive matters and calling it as part of fate then he should be equally ready to suffer the repercussions of that unconscious destructive free will. Then Ted Bundy should not run away from Law and break jails twice as his capture by police and sentence by courts are also part of fate.

So, our main job is to utilize our free will consciously in constructive pursuits. That would be good for us and others too.

It is not that existence cannot utilize our destructive free will to facilitate what is fated but it is unnecessarily troublesome for us and others. We will be going against the existential flow of energy which is creative by nature. Hence, it will be better to explore free will consciously in creative pursuits. So, our only job is to move towards consciousness from unconsciousness.

Finally, I stick with my earlier opinion that everything is destined but we don’t know what is it that is destined. Destiny can only be known in hindsight. So, in the absence of the knowledge of fate/destiny, whatever actions we take from our side automatically become actions out of free will. That free will only facilitates the fate. Our job is only to move towards conscious free will rather than unconscious free will.

Our only task is to awaken — to move from unconscious choice to conscious free will. 

For in that awakening, fate reveals itself as our own creation.

When free will becomes conscious, fate becomes freedom.