Did Karna choose his fate or was he fated to die?
Thank you. So I said Karna chose his fate but can we say that that choice was his fate? Just as say Bhishma chose Iccha Matyo.
See here we have to understand that the word fate can have multiple meanings usually the word fate means like something unfortunate is happening that was his fate on a fateful day something terrible is going to happen so usually destiny refers to what happens to us whereas our free will is how we respond to what happens to us destiny determines what happens to us our free will determines how I respond to it so two people may you know we may get the same sickness same germ may affect them or same sickness, two people may get the same sickness and one person may just get resentful, frustrated depressed the other person may look at the bright side, at least the sickness is diagnosed I have a good doctor, I'll be treated soon, I'll be cured so what happens to us is determined. We cannot say that our choice is destined our choice is up to us In the Vedanta Vedanta Sutra Commentary by Baldevinde Abhoshan there he quotes the previous Vedanta Sutra commentators and he says that if we say that our choice is determined if our choice is destined then he says scripture becomes meaningless because scripture tells us do this and don't do this if you do this you'll get good, if you do this you'll get bad, therefore do this and don't do this. When scripture is telling us do this and don't do this that means we have the capacity to do this and not do this so scripture would itself become meaningless if our choices were destined we can say that we are prompted towards certain choices we are pushed towards certain choices but we are not forced pushing means somebody can push me in this direction but I can hold and push back so like that all of us based on our past habits, past conditionings we are pushed towards certain actions so a person who is habitually eating meat the person is again pushed to eat meat the person's higher intelligence awakens the person's conscience awakens the person says no I don't want to eat this anymore so no one can say that I was fated to make this choice you can say that I was fated to come under this circumstance but what I do in that circumstance is up to me now as far as Bhishma's Kshamatyu is concerned it was that he chose the moment of his death but it is not that even in his case it was not that he was destined to die at a particular time he was going to die he had chosen to fight against the Kauravas against the Pandavas, that means he would have to die his choice was the exact moment of the death so even in his case it was not that his choice was destined he chose to fight on the side of the Kauravas.