Final One. “Your Future is already written”
Let’s get right in to it. ‘Is future already written? Is everything predestined? Is there a destiny?’
If so,
Where does ‘free will’ come in to play? Is there even such a thing as ‘free will’ to begin with?
Do you really have control over your life?
Does the decisions you take and not take have any impact on your life whatsoever?
These are big questions to answer. I will tell you what I know (as of now) from my experience. There is no need for you to believe it, nor accept it. I am just writing out some experiences, do what ever you want with the information.
And like always, if you are an Atheist, I recommend you just skip this post. This is a spiritual look at Time. The past, present and future.
Some of these has scientific backing, and some of these doesn’t. ( at least as far as my knowledge goes ). And since we are dealing with the spiritual dimension, and since science is just a baby trying solve the mysteries of entire existence with the limited vocabulary and data it has, lets not give much weight to what science can prove or disprove. Like always, if you want to know the truth, you can do it by yourself, no need to hide behind so called ‘logic’. Just sit down and close your eyes. You will know the truth.
Okay, so, being a nerd my whole life, things like small talk, politics, or any thing ‘ordinary’ didn’t grab my attention. ( Not saying they are bad or lower or higher or anything. It just was never for me ). My world was facts, science, science fiction, fantasy and engineering. I was religious, but never had much interactions with the spiritual side of being religious. Went to temple, did the things, that’s all. Then a long long time back I got introduced to actual Buddhism, the meditations and so on. I did that for years, and then lost track. Then again came back to spirituality. This time with a different perspective. So, today’s post is on what I felt in recent years. Again, not saying these are correct or not. Just sharing.
So, one of my fascinations since as far as I could remember is Time Travel & Parallel Universes and Destiny. And imagine my surprise when I found out that many religions in one way or another give indications of Time Travel, Parallel Universes, Multiverse Theory and of cause Destiny. All of these are fascinating and I don’t have time to get to each of these. So we will stick with Time for today.
Lets directly answer the question
‘Is everything already written?’
( The word ‘written’ might throw you off, because that would infer there was ‘someone’ doing the writing. Like I said in post 2, don’t get tangled in the world of words. It’s just a way of expressing the spiritual things in a way that a majority can understand. So, bear with me when I use the word, written.)
Essentially the question boils down to ‘is the existence already planned’. Right?
Well, the answer is Yes.
Now, hold your horses, I know what you are feeling, all those dozens of questions and arguments that are popping up in your mind, I had them too.
‘If everything is planned, then what is the use of effort? I can just sit and do nothing my entire life. Is that what you are saying Eshan?’
You might ask.
Well, yes, That is exactly what I am saying.
I know it’s a scary thought.
I know that it completely snatch your ‘Control’ over your life. You feel like that that’s not possible. You feel like, you must have control of your life every moment of every day. You feel like the moment you take your hand off of ‘controlling’ life, that it will fall apart.
Well, no. Nothing will happen. You can take your hand off. You can just let things happen. And whether you want to or not, things will happen as they are suppose to happen. It’s not something that you can change.
You know why?
Because the ‘YOU’ that you think has the control of your life, doesn’t exist.
You could call it Nirvana, You could call it Non-Self, You could call it Athman, Paramathman, You could call it being one with God, you could call it anything you like ( its just a play of words ). In simple, you are everything and you are nothing.
You might be wondering, wasn’t this post supposed to be about Time? Yes, I am coming to that.
You have this sense of ‘Me’, That causes lots of confusion, lots of suffering and pain.
Because, in your mind ‘Things happen to poor old ‘ME’’, right? Good or bad, it happens to YOU. ( At least that is what you are thinking ) You get so attached to this ’ME’, so much so that time begins to play a huge role in your life.
Yesterday this happened to ‘Me’
Two years ago ‘I’ did that
Tomorrow ‘I’ will be doing this
If I do this today, next year something good will happen to ‘Me’
And you start to believe this construct of time as something Past, Present and Future, where Present is something which is sandwiched between Past and Future. You think Today is between Yesterday and Tomorrow.
You start perceiving Time as a linear thing. From Past, Through Present, To Future.
Which is absolutely fine, for all intents and purposes of normal every day life, that is how it should be.
But reality is not like that.
Present doesn’t exist between Past and Future.
Then where does it exist?
Well, first of all, Past and Future doesn’t exist. They exists in your perception because you are perceiving the time in a linear manner. Human brain is not capable of comprehending time in a different way, at least not without some spiritual practice.
We will not get in to that now.
Coming back, Past doesn’t exist. Future doesn’t exists. ( Present doesn’t exists either, but in a way. Its hard to describe in a written post )
It’s like, when you find the ‘it’, you are not happy, nor sad, you just ARE.
Similarly, all that is there is ‘now’.
Which also has many names. Let’s use my favourite one, ‘The Eternal Now’.
Let’s give you a glimpse of it.
What is ‘Present’? What is ‘Now’?
Do not be superficial. Go deep. Try to figure out what is ’Now’?
What does ‘This moment’ means?
Is it this second?
Is it a half a second?
Is it a millisecond? Micro second? Pico second?
What is now? Stop and think very deeply.
Think from experiential way ( PicoSecond and all the sciene-y measurements doesn’t make sense for your comprehension after a limit. Just like you understand what 1000 is, million is. But when it comes to billions, you don’t feel it, you know what a billion is but you do not feel the scale of it, because it’s beyond the usual usage for a human brain. Like that we feel what a second is like, we feel what’s a half a second is like, but we don’t feel the concept of milli seconds. It’s too little for the brain to comprehend. )
So, think from an experiential way, without thinking about words and labels, think of what is ‘now’
Try to figure it out right now. Just close your eyes for a moment and try to figure out what ‘now’ is.
You have to figure this out by yourself. I will just say what you will figure out, but that will only be a piece of fact, piece of knowledge for you. That will do nothing for you, you need to understand this experientially,
What you will realise is that ‘now’ is all that is. There is no past, there is no future, there is not even now. There just is. You are not in the past, not in the present, not in the future. You just ARE.
This will then lead to a very horrific ( actually amazing when you look back, but initially it feels shocking ) realisation. That is that you don’t THINK your thoughts. Since there is no Now, you don’t have a TIME for thinking a thought. You don’t take a decision to think a thought. Thoughts just happen. You think you THINK them, but if there is no NOW for you to take the decision to THINK a thought, then you are not the one thinking a thought. That means you are not the one who is taking the decisions nor actions. You just ARE.
Thoughts just go on thinking one after the other. ( If you think deeply with this and the very root teaching of Buddhism ‘patichcha samuppada’, you will see its the same thing. It is all just a happening. One after the other, just a happening in this existence.
A stream of energy, manifested as a stream of thoughts. And like a fool, YOU have thought that this stream of energy, this stream of thoughts is YOU.
In Buddhism, it’s called ‘mamathwaya’.
Like a fool, you start believing this stream of thought is ‘Me’.
It is not. It is just a happening.
The moment you realise that there is no ‘Me’, the moment you realise there is no Time, the moment you realise that you have no control over your life whatsoever. Things begin to open up.
Think of it this way.
You start watching a movie. You start to believe that the main character is YOU. Now everything that happens to that main character, you feel, you take it personally. You get angry at people who does harm to this main character. You want the villains to be punished, you want the beautiful girl to fall in love with the main character, you get invested in the character thinking that it’s you.
So when in the movie, that main character goes through ups and downs, you feel those ups and downs. You feel the happinesses, you feel the pains and sufferings.
But that character is not YOU. You just assumed that’s you. Hence the suffering.
What if you just give up that belief. You will just enjoy the movie without the suffering.
What if you give up this belief of the ’stream of thought’ is ‘ME’.
You would be free, wouldn’t you?
So, this is why it is important to understand Time. Understanding Time leads to ‘it’.
See, this is the thing. ‘it’ can be anything you define, I am not here to define that for you, nor I have the capacity or the need for jumping in to that mess. You define ‘it’ for yourself. If you correctly define it, then there are many ways to get to ‘it’. One is through the understanding of Time, just like I explained above.
Now let’s come to Past, Present and Future again and the concept of Destiny.
What is Destiny?
Destiny, in simplest form, means that your life path is already determined and planned.
What does that mean? That means Future is fixed.
What does that mean? That means Future already exists.
I know it’s hard to grasp. You will always feel contradictions in Spiritual journey, specially when you are transitioning between experiences. For example, you would sit down for a meditation and you will feel that only 5 minutes have passed, but when you come out of it, it would have been an hour. At the same time another meditation would take you to a place where you spend a lifetime and come back and it will be only 30 minutes gone here. It looks like a contradiction, but it is not. Just like that when you start thinking about Time, you will see contradictions with your spiritual experiences. Don’t worry, don’t get attached or fight it, in proper time it will automatically get clarified for you. Remember, everything is already written, so no amount of you jumping around would get you there faster or slower. You will get there exactly when you are supposed to be there.
You can call it Karma, you can call it God’s plan, you can call it whatever you want. But that is what will happen. So, why so serious?
Okay, Future already exists. Past still exists too. This is the place we will clarify now.
How can this be? How can Past, Present and Future exists at the same ‘time’? ( Well ‘time’ is not the correct word, but that is the only word in English that we have, if we go to Sinhala, Hindi, Sanskrit we have different words such as kaala, mahaakaala, mohotha, nimeshaya, kshanaya and so on. Like I keep telling you, don’t get tangled with the play of words. Try to see the underlying meaning )
So how can all three exists at the same ‘time’? How can it exists in this ‘eternal now’?
How can the 5 years ago you, the you who is reading this now and the you who is 5 years in future exist at the same time?
You are thinking of a ‘YOU’. You are thinking that ‘stream of thoughts’ is YOU. You are attached to the idea of ‘I, Me, Myself’.
If there is ‘Me’, then ‘I’ must exist. If ‘I’ exist then I must exist at a certain point in time. You begin to think ‘I exists, so I must exist right now at this moment and no where else’
But there is no YOU. You do not exist. So YOU did not exist in past, YOU do not exist now, you will not exist in future. The need for Time exists only when YOU exist. But when there is no YOU, all three can exist at the same time, because there is no one to perceive Time. Only thing that is there is a stream of energy, a stream of thoughts. That is deterministic.
The simplest way I explain this is through this example.
Think you are reading a Harry Potter book.
You are at 78th page.
You are reading the 3rd paragraph of that page.
You know what happened so far in the story up to the 3rd paragraph of 78th page.
You know what is happening at the 3rd paragraph as you are reading it.
You still do not know what will happen in the 4th paragraph, nor in 79th page nor in 200th page.
Why?
Because you haven’t read that far yet.
You haven’t perceived the story beyond the 3rd paragraph of 78th page yet.
You haven’t experienced the story beyond the 78th page yet.
You know what happened before the 78th page. That is the past.
You know what is happening in the 3rd paragraph of 78th page. That is the present.
You do not know what will happen in the next paragraph and next page and the rest of the pages. That is the future.
Understand?
Now, just because you haven’t yet experienced the next page of the Harry Potter story, does that mean Story doesn’t exist?
No.
The entire book exists. All the pages exist. How the story ends exists. Pages you already finished, page you are on right now, and pages you haven’t opened yet all exist at the same time, because the book exists. The entire book, the entire story is there. Fully. Only thing is you haven’t perceived it yet.
Same with your life. You haven’t perceived it yet. That’s all.
Now, think deeply. You are at 78th page paragraph 3. You do not like what is happening. You want it to change. You want to control it.
You cry, you complain, you do this and that, you pull your hair, you punch the wall, you jump up and down.
Will the story change?
No.
Why?
Because the full story already exists.
So why do you suffer?
Because you want control. You want the story to happen the way you plan.
Well, that is the root of the problem.
Life is the same.
You have a plan.
You want life to happen according to your plan.
You jump up and down and do all these things, for this fleeting sense of Control, this delusional sense of ‘I am in control of my life’ and you suffer. You want things to go according to how you want it to go and when they align you become happy, when they differ you feel sad, angry, frustrated.
What would you think of a person who is reading a Harry Potter book and then in the middle of the book who just go in to tantrum wanting to story to happen another way? What would you think of a person who jumps up and down and pull their hair wanting Harry and Hermione to become the couple, and not Harry and Ginny? You would say ‘Don’t be an idiot. Story is already there. You just accept it and enjoy it.’ Right?
Same with life. Your story is already there. End to end.
Its very important that you understand the above properly. So take your time and re-read it if needed.
Okay, before we go to the last part, lets take a very small detour.
There are 2 ways to look at future.
– Future is fluid, it’s totally in your control. Nothing is fixed.
– Future is fixed, there is nothing you can do to change it.
There is this belief that; Only some ‘chosen’ people can change their future ( This is egotistical and at the root it falls under the category future is Fluid. )
There is also the other belief that; We can change our future if we are really determined and put effort ( This also falls under the category future is Fluid )
So there are only two ways that things could be. Future is fixed, or Future is not fixed.
You can choose to believe whichever you want. Nothing will change.
Okay, back to original discussion.
The future is fixed. Let’s see from the perspective of Religions. ( I am paraphrasing here )
I will take Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism and explain why Future is fixed in the perspective of religion as well.
“On a day not known to man nor to the heaven, but only to the father”
Bible says about the return of the saviour in future. The second coming of Jesus.
Think deeper. Jesus is coming back. All the things are said, how the world will be, what the people will be like, what will happen during the second coming.
Well, future is literally ‘written’ here in the Bible.
In Hinduism, let’s just take one example. Vishnu. We have 10 Vishnu avatars and 9 of them has come and gone. The 10th one, Kalki is yet to come. All the details of the Kalki’s arrival, right down to the year is written in Vedas and Puranas.
Future is literally ‘written’ here too.
In Buddhism, we know what will happen in future. How and when the next Buddha will come, what will happen to Davadaththa after suffering through many many kalpas. Doesn’t that mean Future is already fixed?
Let’s dive a little bit deeper to Buddhism. You usually take these at face value, but I wish you see the deeper meanings.
Think of our Buddha. Gautama. Today is also the Vesak Poya, so it is fitting that I end this series with a mention of Buddhism.
We all know the history. All the way to Taṇhaṅkara Buddha. All those kalpas ago, when Gautama Bodhisawatha ( just a man at that time, not even a Bodhisathwa ), got ‘Niyatha Vivarana’. A confirmation that after billions of years in future, you will be born in Dabadiwa as Gautama Buddha.
Same with everyone else. From Suddhodhana to Mahamaya to Prajapathi, from Ananda to Rahula to Yashodhara. All of them got pre-ordained ( for a lack of better word in English ), they all got fixed. At this point in time, in this kingdom, all of these will be born, meet and fulfil they destinies. Fixed.
Think.
This is what you need to think hard on.
Not whether being vegetarian is good or bad. Not whether lying is good or bad. ( Those things are good but they will not make you realise the ‘it’ )
Think.
All those means that the Future is fixed.
( I know, I know, the pompous-ass in you, if you are like the old me, would be now brining in all this and that on how Earth is only 4.5 billion years old, then how come there could be kalpas and many Buddhas and so on. Well, again, you are limited with your understanding, that is all. No one said that everything happened on ‘This Earth’. There are parallel earths, parallel universes, parallel ‘YOU’s, yes Parallel YOUs. These are also mentioned in Buddhism as well as Hinduism. I will not get to that here. Its very confusing to express via written text )
Coming back, the future is fixed. It’s all just a happening.
You do not exist.
All your suffering is because you are taking things seriously.
You want to be in control.
You think the thoughts are yours.
You think you are the one who is thinking the thoughts.
That is not how it is.
Thoughts are just a happening.
You are not there. You are not anywhere.
( Essentially we are talking about ‘mamathwaya’ in a different way )
Okay, So what happens when you realised that you are not in control. That its just a happening that you can do absolutely nothing about?
Well nothing.
That is the point.
Because it’s a happening. It’s a ‘weagayak’, a momentum of energy. Patichchasamuppadayak.
Whether you keep holding on to it as thinking its ‘YOU’ or you just realise that ‘YOU’ don’t exist, it will still happen. And keep on happening.
Only thing is YOU will not be there to suffer.
…………………………..
This ends my 3 post series.
I wrote this series on Facebook 15 years after my first set of posts on spirituality on Facebook.
And I have no plans to write anything for next 10 or 15 years either.
By that time probably Facebook wont even exist.
So this would probably be the last written post on Spirituality from me on this platform.
In any case, when we meet, if we meet, if you are interested, please do ask me anything you wish.
I will share what I know. What I know and experienced up to this moment. Next moment I might experience something that negates everything I know, and I will change my perspective. I am not attached to anything I said in these 3 posts, I urge you to not get attached either.
Good bye.
Remember,
It’s just a happening.
So, “why so serious” about life 🙂
In Zen it is said,
“Before ‘it’, chop wood. After ‘it’ chop wood”
Nothing changes.
YOU just cease to exist.
Where do YOU go?
Nowhere.
Why?
Because YOU were not there in the first place.
It was all a delusion.
A wonderful Illusion.
Byeeeeeeeeeee.
