Sunday, February 16, 2014

What you can do and can not do!

In the movie Pirates of Caribbean there is a nice quote "The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do". Sounds pretty logical but is so difficult to follow at the same time. What can you do besides what you really can do? Nothing more nothing less. And mind that these decisions are all determined by our past, by the past of the creation. The past completely determines the present. Sorry my friends who believe in "free will", but "free will" is a scientific impossibility.

But the trouble is that we mostly start thinking of theoretical possibilities for each action we take. We start cross linking them to "beings, things and happenings". And finally we end up in a mental situation which we call "pain"! In stead if we think (at each moment) what we can actually do and what we can not, then we will find (surprisingly) that destiny offers us but only one least-effort best-potential path. And it also is the most obvious one.

Now how to make sure that we choose this path of discrimination for each action? That needs practice to see the "beings, things and happenings" the way they actually are (without bringing our prejudices and past-experiences into play). This is best appreciated in the Buddhist texts and I am really surprised at the way Buddhism makes a science of self-actualization.