The physical consciousness or the body consciousness is limited. When we live in the body, it is fate. The soul is ever free. When we live in the soul, it is all free will. It is up to us whether we live in the body consciousness or in the soul consciousness.
When the soul enters into the body and we see the light of day, at that moment ignorance tries to envelop us and fate starts its play. But light is not bound by fate. Light is the embodiment of free will. For our deplorable fate, we curse our forefathers, our friends, our neighbours, ourselves and finally God. But by cursing others, by cursing ourselves, we cannot solve our problems. We can solve our problems only if we know how to live the life of aspiration.
We are given ample opportunity to use our free will. It is we who have to utilise the opportunity in order to be fully, totally, unreservedly free. Most of you have read the Mahabharata, India’s greatest epic. It tells of a great hero named Karna. His mother was Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. Before she got married she brought this child into the world; and out of shame and embarrassment, she placed the child in a basket on the river. Finally somebody came to his rescue and he was saved. This child became a matchless hero. He said, “I am not responsible for my birth, but I am responsible for my life, for my life’s activities.” Each aspirant can also say this. Very often seekers tell me, “Oh, I have a very unsatisfactory background.” I tell them, “Why do you care for the past? The past is dust. But if you aspire, nobody can steal away your present; nobody can steal away your future. Your future can easily be golden.”
There are three kinds of karma: sanchita karma, prarabdha karma and agami karma. Sanchita karma is the accumulation of acts from a past life and this life whose results have not yet borne fruit. In prarabdha karma, the fruit of some of the accumulated karma we are starting to reap. If it is bad karma, then we suffer. If it is good karma, then we enjoy it. Finally comes agami karma. When one is totally free from all ignorance, suffering and imperfection, when one has realised God and is living only for the sake of God, at that time one is enjoying the Free Will of the Supreme. This is agami karma.
Most of us face sanchita karma, accumulated karma which starts functioning as prarabdha karma. There is no freedom, no free will, but only fate all around us. It is like a devouring lion, striking from the past. But when we have agami karma, this devouring lion becomes a roaring lion, roaring for the divine Victory, the divine fulfilment here on earth.
Fate can and must be changed. For that, what is required is God’s Grace plus personal effort, self-effort. There are some seekers who feel, “If I care for God’s Grace, what necessity is there to make personal effort?” But they are mistaken. Personal effort will never stand in the way of God’s descending Grace. Personal effort expedites the descent of God’s Grace. God’s Grace does not negate personal effort. True, God can give us all that He wants without even an iota of personal effort on our part. But God says, “It is for your pride that I ask you to make this little personal effort.”
If somebody asks us, “What have you done for God?” what will our answer be? We can be filled with pride when we say, “God has done this for me, God has done that for me, God has done everything for me.” We can be spontaneously proud that God has accepted us as His very own. But if somebody asks us, “What have you done for God?” what will be our answer? Silence! So the little personal effort that we make is for our own good. When we make this personal effort, our whole life is surcharged with a divine pride. It is not our ego, but our conscious oneness with God that prompts us to do something for our Dearest. If we sincerely make personal effort, God is bound to be thrilled with us. Why? Because He can tell the world, “My child, My chosen instrument, has done this for Me and that for Me.” Through personal effort we can make our existence on earth worthy and, at the same time, we can make God proud of us.
Ultimately, personal effort has to grow into a dynamic self-surrender. When we do something, we offer at the Feet of God the result of our action along with the aspiration that we have used to do that particular thing. When the results and the aspiration, the inner urge, we can offer to God, this is called true surrender. But just to lie at God’s Feet like a corpse and let God work in us, through us and for us is wrong. God does not want to work in and through a dead body. He wants someone who is aspiring, someone who wants to be energised and who wants to do something for Him. He wants someone who is active and dynamic and who wants to manifest all the divine qualities here on earth.
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At last I know my name.My name is God’s eternal Game.
At last I know my name.At last I know my age.
My age is Infinity’s page.At last I know my age.
At last I know my home.
My home is where my flame-worlds roam.At last I know my home.
```When the play of fate is over, the play of free will begins. Right now we do not know our true name, we do not know our true age, we do not know our true home. But when we go beyond the play of fate, we come to realise that we are God’s eternal Game and that we belong to Infinity. We come to realise that our home is where our flame-worlds roam. “Flame-worlds” means the world of aspiration, the world of our mounting inner cry where salvation, illumination and realisation grow.
Our free will is a child of God’s infinite Will and at the same time it is part and parcel of God’s infinite Will. This free will can let us know our true name, our true age, our true home. Free will is knocking at our heart’s door. We have only to allow it to break through the wall of ignorance and make us one with the Cosmic Will. Fate is the gate which leads us to the failure of the past. Free will is our acceptance of the future that wants to transform us, mould us, guide us and liberate us from fear, doubt, ignorance and death.From:Sri Chinmoy,Sri Chinmoy speaks, part 9, Agni Press, 1976
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/scs_9