Thread by @AhammBrahmaasmi

🧵Jagadguru #SriSri Abhinava Vidyatirtha Mahaswamiji on Fate & Free Will:

Neither destiny nor personal effort singly determines the course of human life; there is great interaction between the two. Destiny or actions of the past that have begun to fructify, human effort and 1/n

divine grace together govern what comes to pass. Manu has compared destiny and personal effort to the two wheels of a chariot; a chariot cannot move on a single wheel.

Two students wrote an examination.The boy who had studied better answered all except two questions well.The 2/n

other managed to answer just two questions correctly. The examiner was an impartial but a lazy man. He scrutinized two of the first boy’s
answers. They happened to be the incorrect ones. Assuming the other answers too to be incorrect, he awarded the boy low marks.
He then 3/n

took up the second boy’s answer book. The answers he selected for checking happened to be the correct ones.Taking it for granted that the remaining answers were also correct, he awarded the boy concerned high marks.On seeing the results, the boy who had studied better grieved,4/n

while the other rejoiced. Thus, hard work fetched a poor result and poor preparation yielded good marks. Here too, the hand of destiny is seen.

Mārkaṇdeya was fated to die at the age of 16 but lived on because of his devout worship of Lord Śiva. Śuka, the son of Vyāsa, was 5/n

such a great yogin that he attained disembodied liberation at the time of his choice. Numerous instances of the alteration of the course of fate by personal effort and by the grace of God can easily be cited.
The doer reaps the fruit of his deeds; happiness and unhappiness 6/n

result from good and bad deeds respectively. A deed done always has a consequence. If one’s action were to bear no fruit, then all actions would be puerile; relying on destiny alone, men would become idlers. Everything can be secured by effort but nothing can be got through 7/n

destiny alone by a man who remains idle. By well-directed human efforts,a person attains heaven, objects of enjoyment and the fulfilment of his wishes.The celestials attained their high status from that of a human being, through dint of effort.When oil is used up,a lamp gets 8/n

extinguished. Likewise, favourable destiny loses its influence in the absence of human perseverance. Favourable destiny cannot uplift a man who treads the path of evil; there is no inherent power in it.

One’s own self is one’s friend and one’s enemy. Virtue is the refuge of 9/10

the deva-s and by it, everything is attained. Destiny cannot thwart one who is established in virtue.

#SanatanaDharma #Shankaracharya #Sringeri #spirituality #Vedanta #Destiny #Philosophy