12 Sep 2008 —
Question
Q81: God Will & Effort?
Question 81:
“If everything that happens to us is predestined or God’s will, why should we then bother to do any effort in any direction at all?”
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To succeed in life, we need two things : effort and god’s grace. Effort alone cannot bring about a positive result ; the element of God’s grace has to be there as well. God’s grace can only be received through some effort on our part. We cannot know when grace will come, or whether it will come at all. We have no control on it. The only thing we can do is making efforts. Without individual efforts, grace cannot flows on us. Individual effort is the prominent component in the latter.
Through this question i can only contemplate & put it into practise one of the many teachings Amma says “We are mere instruments in God’s Hands”. So whatever happens is truly scripted by God, we only Act in this so called “World” Playful Drama, Mother Give Us Strength To Play Our Part Well. Om Namah Shivay
Whatever we think “we decide” is actually already predestined or God’s will. If we decide not to bother to do any effort, that itself is predestined to happen. However, the more our sense of faith in and surrender to Amma (Guru), the less will the predetermined part of our destiny apply to us. If we just try to keep holding on tightly to Amma’s Lotus feet, we will see how our destiny changes from what astrologers will tell us looking at our astrological charts. Amma cares for us so deeply that She is willing to alter our destiny to help us reach our goal faster. Amma never forsakes us. It is only we who look the other way, trying to look for gold in the bag of the world’s dust, being so helplessly pulled by the force of Maya. Hiding below the Guru’s feet is the way to rise above Destiny.
I don’t think everything is God’s will. I think certain things are, and maybe certain events, but not everything. If it were, then Swamiji wouldn’t have to lecture about how to do what the Universe wants us to do – we’d already be doing it. So, I think the important thing is to act in accordance with God’s will as much as possible, and that involves putting an effort.
God gave us the gift of the freewill to make choices, and thus experience as an individual unique soul what is to be experienced. This is how the law of karma starts playing… Our duty (effort) is to put spiritual dharma and values in practice while exerting our freewill/gift…
Everything is predestined because we are the cause for our own destiny.
This birth is the continuation of the previous one due to our vasanas or unfinished desires. A little effort from our part and with blessings of satguru like Amma we can rewrite our destiny with God’s will.
“If you surrender to God, the arrow of karma, which has already left the bow of your past life, cannot hurt you.” —Amma
(sometimes this happens to me.. I read Amma’s message which appears randomly in the home page of amritapuri.org and the question of the day/week will be related to that.. is it predestined ? or is it God’s will? i know this is a webpage electronically generated from bits and bytes.. and if God or my karma can manipulate this electronics and give me answers to LIFE’s Questions… ! Yeah I do believe “everything that happens to us is predestined or God’s will”)
I know this is not a direct answer but look at the answer that i got.. its not direct either ! 🙂 the Arrow has already left the Bow.. it’s my Amma, who’s going to protect me from it. because i don’t know the right answers yet. And Amma Knows both the Questions and Answers.. and why she found me can be because of my ” Efforts ” in the past…
Yes, everything is God’s will. Everything happens according to His itcha. That’s the truth. But as long as we take credit for all the good things we do, the doer will be the individual only, not God. When you reach the supreme state 100% that everything is God’s will, then naturally you can sit without putting any effort………….
As pointed out by serveworld in this blog, Amma has many times said we are only instruments in God’s hands, period. Not “instruments…but.” The Leela that is the individual wants to “interpret” this in a way that allows squirm room for “personal” effort to assert itself as a sort of co-creator. “Nice work if you can get it,” as the saying goes. God obviously gave us apparent free will, but what was “free” about the personality we were born with that determines the nature of our thoughts? When we try to control the next thought coming into our minds, we see we can’t, anymore than we could “free-will” ourselves to sit in a chair doing nothing indefinitely because God is in control. Contemplating all this at a deeper level is a fast-track to bliss.
Laziness is a curse upon mankind. It should be brushed off by all means. As AMMA says, the human efforts have limitations. It is the Grace of God that makes everything complete. Having done the best efforts, AMMA tells us to surrender to God.
It is my belief that the future has already been laid out there. The very Self (Amma) causes us to act so that a predestined result may be achieved. If we think that “I/We” did put all the effort and that’s why the result happened…then you see the “Ego” at play. Otherwise “It just happens” powered by the WILL of Amma. The power of Maya is so strong that if it is required for you to act…you cannot sit idle on your chair.
There is an incident in Mahabharatha where Arjuna after the Pandava/Kaurava war had to fight dacoits and thieves who were plundering the Yadavas and taking away their women. Arjuna was unable to remember the mantras to power his “Astras” (divine arrows) and he asks Krishna to repeat the Bhagavad Gita and show the “Viswa Rupa” for him. Krishna says that He is unable to do it now. He says that it happened the first time due to a divine inspiration which He is not able to recall anymore. Such is the WILL of God that He himself by His own WILL subjects Himself to the Laws of Nature.
All saints say, nothing can happen without God’s will, but, God also gave us free will and discrimination, and if we were to use these correctly, we must continuously make efforts to think & act in such a way that will take us towards God (Amma for me). This will bring us liberation, otherwise we are always in bondage, that is, acting under the influence of Maya, dictated by our karmas.
If God did not give us free will and discrimination, than the question is justified – why make any efforts when all is God’s will!
I believe that there is such a think as God’s will. But there is also such a thing as free will, in some cultures you can think of it as saturn, evil….. God guides you but you have the free will to neglect him and choose not to believe in him. That is when your life would be off track and everything goes astray.
Why do we need to work or even bother? If you want to be a peace with yourself and the world and just with everything, you have to make a conscious effort. There will be distractions, people who will tell you to go off track and only God can keep you on your right path. You plant a seed, it becomes wheat, that wheat has to be harvested to get rice, that rice has to be boiled to be edible. Thus to get something, you need to work.
Why don’t we just eat the seed, why do we wait for it to grow and why do we harvest it?
Even inaction is action. Everything that we do, say or think is God’s Will. Act selflessly and be detached.
Destiny is pre-determined, but it can be regulated by ourselves,engaging in noble deeds like chanting,doing sevas,and positive thinking are some of the ways.AMMA teaches us all the good values,listen and follow her, SHE will help us.
“If everything that happens to us is predestined or God’s will, then why should we exclude effort?
I presume: It was predestined that this question would be asked but for that the moderator had to post it, and to answer i have to type …so we are bound to do our karmas and it is predestined. Our past karmas decide our future and Amma says we have only the present moment in our hand…i pray to Amma to make me do good actions so that blissful future comes up ….which is predestined 🙂
Our efforts and faith in GOD/AMMA can change everything. If GOD’s/AMMA’s grace is bestowed upon you need not worry about anything, just surrender your self totally to them and they will take care of the rest.
Well, to relax seems a big effort to our conflictual mind.,. but it takes practice and devotion to relax and trust …. for me to relax doesn’t mean to lie back and let things happen. It means to me, not attributing to much importance to our actions and learning while letting go.
This is how Swamini starts chapter 10 in “Torrential Love” :
“What is the secret of your success?” someone asked Dr. George Washington Carver. He replied, “I pray as if everything depends upon God, then work as if everything depends upon me.”
thank you for those questions and the possibility to answer and to read others.
Story of King Pareekshith is an answer to this.
We can learn a lot from nature. Look at flower and see how it blooms from a bud into a flower. If we understand that, then, that is the answer to the question. Is there struggle, disappointment or frustration when bud blooms into flower? No
When all is surrendered to God, whatever work is done is effortless. Any effort arises when ego exists.
When real surrender to the divine happens, we work, not because we want something good to happen to us, but because we want to use all the positive forces around us to be used in a constructive manner, to serve the society. So i would say that, instead of considering everything pre-destined, our purpose would be to feel the divine force, energy within us and achieve great heights in terms of spiritual growth.
Everything is God’s will.
I believe it’s a state of mind. Can one hold this point throught out and keep himself cool? No it’s impossible for normal humans. There is equal and opposite reaction for each action and everybody has to pass through it. As Amma says, through severe penance, prayers and good actions the negative reactions can be nullified.
When people have no answer’s left they use the term ‘God’s will’. They use it as per their convenience, for good events that happen they give all credit to God, for bad events that take place even if they say it is God’s will ultimately they label it as human error or karma. If God is responsible for good things He is also responsible for bad things, be fair and square in everything that is said. Having said that one’s effort obviously counts but effort alone is never enough, destiny is strange, if only God could ensure that no matter what, no one experiences deceit….of one’s faith, trust, innocence and passion…….But His will be done irrespective of how hard we try, even if it leaves us devastated, is what He believes in!!!
same answer as of ani. we can change our destiny by AMMA’s Grace along with our faith and positive hard work.
Because we are not separate from God. All the effort should be to become aware of that, and let our small egoistic merge into the Divine will.
God does have a will for us, but this will isn’t like playing with puppets. We have to fulfill our dharma too. God gave us unlimited possibilities. He gave us the ability to believe, and when you believe, you will receive. What’s more, God even gave us the freedom to believe in Him or not. All this is at no cost at all, other than the cost we put on ourselves due to our guilt. So God gave us the choice to follow His will by doing our Dharma and making the best we could out of our lives, and the choice to do what we please, which isn’t always what’s good for us.
In Baghavat Geetha, the Supreme Lord Krishna says, despite the fact that I am the supreme and no need to do any action, still continue to follow ones karma. The same thing is done by Amma. So for the well-being of the universe we have to do our karmas without fail.
if you decide not to make efforts, it means that you are predestined to be idle. so better see to it that you work.. if the fruits of the actions are predestined then even actions are predestined..so if you are sitting idle then remember you are predestined not to gain anything in life. surrender everything at the Lotus feet of Amma.
can i even put any effort without God’s will…???
i had stopped working for a few years after my daughter was born. one day suddenly Amma said to me “mole you should go to work”. i did not know how i was going to start all over again after so many years. but strangely, very soon a job landed in my hands and the job required me to work hard. Ever since i have had to take on more responsibility with every job and am handling work that i never imagined at the time that i could do.
So was it not God’s will that i could work? is it not God’s will that made me able to put in effort? is there anything i can do without my Amma’s will?
Yes everything happens according to God’s will only. Even for a little figure to move, God’s will is required. But it doesn’t mean to sit idle and wait for God to fill our stomach without doing any effort. Bhagavan Krishana never sat a moment without doing action. But In order to succeed in our efforts, God’s Grace is very essential. Amma gives this example: A farmer had done everything at the proper time in the field, put the seeds, irrigation, but at the time of harvesting there was a huge flood. What to do?
Is there anything i can do without God’s will? just surrender your self totally to Amma/god and she will take care of the rest. She makes me able to put the effort to think and write. Even for writing this blog’s answer we need Amma’s grace.