I realize suggesting a topic like this in today’s world – governed by free will determinism and a belief system that relates every outcome to our own actions – is fraught with danger…but here I go.

Here’s a story of a King and his dear friend. The King always liked to have his friend around him and immensely trusted his advice. One of the things the friend always used to say and believe in was “whatever happens, happens for the best”. Once the King and his friend were out hunting in a jungle and had an encounter with a tiger. While the King managed to eventually kill the tiger, the King lost his left thumb in the duel. The King was deeply disturbed by this. His friend, however, kept reminding the King of his favorite saying, “whatever happens, happens for the best”. This bothered the King to no end and he got so upset with his friend’s “unkind behavior” that he asked for him to be locked up in the state prison. As life went on, in a few months’ time, the King went on another hunting trip. This seemed like an unfortunate one as he lost his way in the jungle and got captured by the local jungle tribe. The tribe was extremely excited with this auspicious catch and decided to sacrifice the King to the Gods. As part of the preparation for the ceremony, the tribesmen completed applying a special balm onto the King’s entire body. As they discovered the King’s missing left thumb, they rushed to their leader and asked for the King to be released – as per the tribe’s tradition, in order not to annoy the Gods, the sacrificial body had to be whole. For the first time, the King began to understand the thought behind his friend’s saying. As he went back, he asked for his friend’s immediate release. As they met and hugged each other, the King asked, “While I now understand why the loss of my thumb was eventually for my best, how do you explain the benefit of your struggling in the prison all these months?” The friend responded, “It is obvious, my highness. Since you and I always traveled together, after the tribe let you go, they would have inspected me and found my body whole”.

In one of my recent posts, The Ultimate Reality, I had talked about the concept of the universal life energy and its immense intelligence as exemplified by our own miraculous bodies and the wisdom of our cells. The universe is unfolding as it needs to. The sun rises and sets as it needs to, the winds move, and the water turns into rain as it needs to, the plants are born – some to become trees and some to die early – as they need to. The universe is also unfolding and manifesting in our lives as it needs to. It is we, who often don’t let it. Our overactive analytical minds make us believe we can and are controlling the future impact of all our actions. If we simply look at some of the biggest decisions of our lives, many of them may not have been made with a great deal of information and the ideal analysis that we may usually require. It could be decisions about our career, life partner, buying a house and many others. Many a times, they come from our intuition – an inner wisdom that exists for all of us. In a simplistic sense, this intuition is our connection to the universal energy. The more we trust it, the more it grows and guides us.

This faith in the universe should not in any way be confused with complacency or a fatalistic attitude. As the Bhagvad Gita elaborates at length, it is really about action with detachment – living out the purpose of our life without any expectations of results, as the best that needs to happen, will happen. It’s about living our “dharma”, in complete harmony with nature and the universe. It’s about understanding how several hundred thousand actions of the mind, body, and universe are happening involuntarily; yet, appreciating the need for voluntary actions – like the nervous system carrying out the brain’s desires to eventually get the results. It’s about acknowledging both aspects of our reality – the decision to have a child is a voluntary act and yet depends immensely on the natural forces for the final result. Living in this awareness and wisdom can not only make our lives simpler, wonderful and joyous, but also allow us the opportunity to appreciate and create miracles in our own lives.

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