"The very first step in understanding what this is all about is giving up the concept of an active, volitional 'I' as a separate entity and accepting the passive role of perceiving and functioning as a process." - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Destiny Affects Extroverted Mind

Sri Lakshmana Swamy

Q: Does the guru choose the disciple or does the disciple choose the guru?

LS: They both choose each other.

Q: Can a devotee choose any guru, or is it part of his destiny (prarabdha) that he will meet and become the disciple of a particular guru?

LS: It is part of his prarabdha that he will meet his guru.

Q: Will the disciple be able to recognize his guru when he meets him?

LS: A ripe devotee will be able to recognize his guru when he meets him They unripe one may not.

Q: You once told me that you knew that Sarada would become your devotee while you were still living near here in that hut. That was years before Sarada was even born. That is a good example of a devotee being destined for a particular guru.

LS: Yes, it is sometimes possible to see into the future. It is something like watching a cinema show of future events. I knew that she would come one day, but I didn't know exactly when. However, the future is not completely fixed. It can be changed by meditation and surrender.

When Narenda (Saradamma's brother) joined the military, I saw that he would end up in the middle of a great accident. Sarada also had some dreams in which she saw that his prarabdha was coming to an end. I advised him not to join the army but he wouldn't heed the advice. He was determined to go ahead with his new job.When I saw that he would not change his mind I told him to hold on to the name of God as that would lessen or cancel the great accident he was heading for. When he eventually joined the army he was stationed in Bhopal, only a few yards from the site of the Union Carbine factory. He must have listened to the advice I gave him because when the gas leaked from the factory and killed thousands of people, he was 20 kms out of town, upwind of the factory.

Q: Isn't everything predestined? Ramana Maharshi sometimes said that every act that one performs in life is determined at the moment of one's birth, and that the only freedom one has is to become aware that one is not the doer of the actions that the body is performing.

LS: This is only so if you always identify with the extroverted mind. Destiny affects only the extroverted mind. When you start to meditate and try to take the mind back to its source, you begin to transcend your prarabdha. The introverted mind is not governed by prarabdha. The more often you introvert your mind, the more you transcend your destiny.

No comments:

Post a Comment

सर्वभूताधिवासं यद्भूतेषु च वसत्यपि।
सर्वानुग्राहकत्वेन तद्स्म्यहं वासुदेवः॥

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings,
who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the universe, the limitless being:
I AM THAT. -- Amritabindu Upanishad