Nothing is in my control – why worry?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
and also respecting the demigods and the way they are being worshipped. Thank you.
To say nothing is in my control also requires enough control to say the statement of things in my control. So it’s a self-contradictory statement to say nothing is in my control. It’s like saying I don’t exist.
I have to exist to say I don’t exist. Otherwise how would I say that? So even from a common sense point of view, it’s not true that nothing is in my control. So that is one misconception.
The other misconception is that everything is in my control. Everything is in my control. So these are basically in Sanskrit, these are called as two schools of thought.
One is called as daivabha. Daivabha means everything is just fine, nothing is in my control. And the other is karmabha.
Karmabha means everything is in my control. Most people have this idea. Everything is in my control.
If I just work hard, if I just do this and that, I will become the next world’s richest person, world’s most powerful person or whatever. So these are both misconceptions. Why? Because everything, first of all, nothing is not in our control.
Balanced understanding is there are certain things in our control and there are certain things not in our control. So to understand simply this is that karma plus daivabha plus kala is equal to phala. The example of a scientist is a farmer.
Say when a farmer wants harvest, the karma, the duty of the farmer is to plough the land, sow the seeds to make sure that the land is suitable for growth of grains. That is the karma. And a daivabha is that grains come properly on time and adequate quantity.
So karma plus daivabha, both work together and after that also time has to pass. Harvest is not going to come here. Kala.
Then eventually the phala, the harvest will come. Now it’s important that if we think nothing is in my control and the farmer will not grow, farmer will not sow. And then even if daivabha is uncool, even if destiny is favourable, the grains come, but only weeds will grow.
So nothing was sown. So for phala, not only daivabha is required, but karma is also required. And secondly, sometimes the karma may be there, but daivabha may not be there.
Sometimes you may work very hard, but destiny may not be favourable. So the farmer sows, ploughs, but then no grains come. Then the farmer will not get the phala.
But that does not mean that the karma itself has gone that karma is going to contribute to a future positive thing. So the important point to recognize is that there are certain actions definitely in our control. And the whole point of scripture is to guide us so that what is in our control, we make right choices.
And what is not in our control, we entrust to God. So do your best and leave the rest to God. So that way we can work doing our karma, living what is beyond our control to God and be patient so that karma, daivabha and gada, all three working together will produce the result.