One has to accept the card one is dealt with !

Was watching a new show on Disney Hotstar called ‘The Empire’, a rather opulently mounted show on the Mughal Empire. The first season is on the first Mughal Emperor Babur and his accession to the Indian throne. Besides the opulence and the rendition of a familiar incident of history, what struck me was use of the concept of ‘Destiny’ as a central theme around which life unfolds in that era. Regardless of Babur’s predisposition towards finer aspects of a man born in privilege, he was given the mantle of fighting for and leading his kingdom for it was believed that he was man destined to be the ‘Emperor’ and he did! The show is engaging but the questions as well as realisation it left behind are of a different kind. The question whether one’s destiny is prewritten or can be willed upon to change was relevant at that time as it is now. However the more pertinent issue is that even if one were to believe that the destiny is prewritten, one still has to live it whether it is good or bad and therein I guess lies the true test of life. Per the show Babur did it with reasonable aplomb leaving a legacy which lasted hundreds of years. Whether the legacy was just and reasonable is for the future generations to judge but he fulfilled his destiny.

Destiny simply put, is a predetermined course of events in one’s life considered as something beyond human power or control to change. Ancient Indian thought and the spiritual thought does explain that part of the destiny which is laid out is determined by one’s own past actions, good or bad. This is the crux as well as the basis of the Karma theory too. The past actions could have been across multiple lifetimes. The future or destiny when it unravels too is not determined leading to a complex equation of cause and effect tempered with the right play of planets and time. Not only is it difficult to understand the interplay but the fact that it is prewritten makes us mortals the pawns or the stage actors in this story of life as it unfolds in a finite timeframe. There are innumerable instances where regardless of the course our actions take, the destiny has taken a different route confirming that destiny was perhaps meant to be different. If this is true then the question which is uppermost in the mind is that who is the writer of this production or for that matter it’s master conductor? There is one but perhaps that is a discussion for another time.

The more one reads, the more one learns and slowly it dawns that one is not the only one in charge of one’s destiny. It has many variables and knowledge as well as control of all the variables is difficult. Yet the truth is that one needs to live it every minute,every hour and everyday that one is alive. One of the major cause of unhappiness afflicting the human psyche is its inability to deal with the unknown and its inability to control the future if I may refer to it. Babur lived his destiny, so did India and as individuals, we will too whether we do it knowingly or otherwise. Would it not be better if we ‘Accept’ this truth? ‘Acceptance’ even with the unanswered questions is perhaps, a good beginning to understand the new truth which stares us in the face every day which we refuse to acknowledge. It’s also a beginning of new thoughts to enter our mind frame which were hitherto blocked with the decadent knowledge already therein. Once we accept the script our performance levels in the film of life go up many times!!

If you still do have a question on what I have written, I do not blame you, as hearing such profound comments on ‘Destiny’ from an accountant is difficult. It’s perhaps time, as my spiritual mentor says,to remove the veneer of scepticism and let new knowledge emerge whichever and whoever be the medium.

Happy reading and wish you the best for the balance week!