free will vs destiny
Interesting dimension to free will vs destiny... this is what Thomas Friedman had to say...
"My friend Rob Watson, the head of EcoTech International, has a saying about Mother Nature that goes like this: “Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That’s all she is.” And because of that, says Rob, you cannot spin Mother Nature. You cannot bribe Mother Nature. You cannot sweet talk her, and you cannot ignore her. She’s going to do with the climate whatever chemistry, biology and physics dictate. And Mother Nature always bats last, and she always bats a thousand" and in a way, since human beings are also part of nature which we generally forget, nature includes Human. However human being have some elements of free will and the tremendous variation in nature response makes consequence a lot unpredictable. Now let me take this with my favourite example of travelling in mumbai city... When someone who comes late is asked why he/she came late the answer invariably is that the train was late or that there was traffic jam - here we humans convenienty blame "destiny" implying that extranesous factors viz. traffic jam delayed their arrival; now the human could have left about 10 minutes early and would have reached well in time; that is the limited free will humans have and the destiny or unpredictable factor include a myriad of events such as driver waking up late, an accident on the road, more people wanting to travel by road, children waking up late, traffic policemen not turning up, signals playing truant, aeroplane arriving late and a host of other unknown process such global warming which increased heat in the world leading to reduction in crops which in turn led to more imports ,, i can go on and on about these factors.. now you can see why the answer to free will vs destiny is so simple and complex; each factor is important. And these two factors together generate result!
Now just to make this even more complex or is it simple (?), human itself is conditioned by genes, parents, teachers, environment and talents (collectively called world) and can we actually identify and say; this part of the thinking is original and other part was based on the world? How much is really our individual thinking?
And to top it all, as all realised gurus throughout the world history have been saying and actually the most ironic and interesting part in this whole thing is that there is no such thing as an independent person called human who can deciden, exist or do anything. Everything happens by itself; now before you jump and interrupt, tell me truly... who does breathing, taking the blood from veins to heart and back to veins, generate chemicals, send supplies to brain, think; imagine, if we had to do all these and billions of other activities that happens within us, dont you think you will get overwhelmed and probably just stop and die? We cannot hold more than one thought at a time; we cant even control our thoughts..
to conclude is everything destiny? well as a good practise, what we can "do" is really act as Sri Krishna in Bhagwat Gita says -- Do our best, push for generating results, work really hard and really wait for result like..
would we like a movie where we know what is going to happen? dont we like surprises? so sometimes result is the way we would prefer and sometimes results are something that we didnt think of...the fun is in acting and doing our best and enjoying the activity.. and then wait for result and enjoy the surprise...
"My friend Rob Watson, the head of EcoTech International, has a saying about Mother Nature that goes like this: “Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That’s all she is.” And because of that, says Rob, you cannot spin Mother Nature. You cannot bribe Mother Nature. You cannot sweet talk her, and you cannot ignore her. She’s going to do with the climate whatever chemistry, biology and physics dictate. And Mother Nature always bats last, and she always bats a thousand" and in a way, since human beings are also part of nature which we generally forget, nature includes Human. However human being have some elements of free will and the tremendous variation in nature response makes consequence a lot unpredictable. Now let me take this with my favourite example of travelling in mumbai city... When someone who comes late is asked why he/she came late the answer invariably is that the train was late or that there was traffic jam - here we humans convenienty blame "destiny" implying that extranesous factors viz. traffic jam delayed their arrival; now the human could have left about 10 minutes early and would have reached well in time; that is the limited free will humans have and the destiny or unpredictable factor include a myriad of events such as driver waking up late, an accident on the road, more people wanting to travel by road, children waking up late, traffic policemen not turning up, signals playing truant, aeroplane arriving late and a host of other unknown process such global warming which increased heat in the world leading to reduction in crops which in turn led to more imports ,, i can go on and on about these factors.. now you can see why the answer to free will vs destiny is so simple and complex; each factor is important. And these two factors together generate result!
Now just to make this even more complex or is it simple (?), human itself is conditioned by genes, parents, teachers, environment and talents (collectively called world) and can we actually identify and say; this part of the thinking is original and other part was based on the world? How much is really our individual thinking?
And to top it all, as all realised gurus throughout the world history have been saying and actually the most ironic and interesting part in this whole thing is that there is no such thing as an independent person called human who can deciden, exist or do anything. Everything happens by itself; now before you jump and interrupt, tell me truly... who does breathing, taking the blood from veins to heart and back to veins, generate chemicals, send supplies to brain, think; imagine, if we had to do all these and billions of other activities that happens within us, dont you think you will get overwhelmed and probably just stop and die? We cannot hold more than one thought at a time; we cant even control our thoughts..
to conclude is everything destiny? well as a good practise, what we can "do" is really act as Sri Krishna in Bhagwat Gita says -- Do our best, push for generating results, work really hard and really wait for result like..
would we like a movie where we know what is going to happen? dont we like surprises? so sometimes result is the way we would prefer and sometimes results are something that we didnt think of...the fun is in acting and doing our best and enjoying the activity.. and then wait for result and enjoy the surprise...
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