Chaitanya Charan das

ISKCON Aurangabad does god laug at our plans

Does God laugh at our plans?

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“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” – Woody Allen

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This quote provocatively restates a universal truth, enshrined in sayings such as “Man proposes, God disposes.” We all have dreams and we make plans accordingly. We envision our life going along a smooth line leading to destination happiness, with happiness being equated with the fulfillment of our dreams. However, life rarely goes the way we plan – factors beyond our control disrupt things. If we ascribe those disruptive factors beyond our control ultimately to the supreme divinity, then we could say that God has disposed the plans we had proposed.

But does God really laugh when we make plans? Is he a sadist who delights in disrupting our plans? Certainly not. The point of God’s laughter is subtle and non-literal. To appreciate that point, we need to understand that our perspective is very limited – so limited in fact that our plans often involve such a huge degree of presumption that it makes those in the knowledge of things laugh indulgently. Suppose a small girl plans to build a sand castle and tells her parents that her dream prince will come on in shining armor on a white horse and live with her in that castle. The parents laugh not sadistically, but indulgently, at the child’s grandiose imagination associated with the sand castle.

Similarly, when we make our plans in this temporary material world where everything is swept away by the tides of time, even our best-laid plans can be seen to be not much different from the child’s fantasies about a sand castle. Seeing the grandiosity of our plans, God laughs – not sadistically, but indulgently.

The key illusion that we need to counter is the notion that we are controllers who can make the world bend to our plans. However, countering this illusion doesn’t have to be disempowering, implying that we have no control and are utterly helpless. We are parts of God, and as he is the supreme controller, we as his parts are controllers in our own small right. Just as parts are meant to work in harmony with the whole, we are meant to use our capacity to control in harmony with his plans.

Those devoted to God make plans, but they do so in a mood of service without becoming attached to their plans. Their attachment is to God, not to their plans. If a particular plan of theirs get disrupted, they may be temporarily perplexed not being sure what to do. But they don’t become disheartened, thinking that nothing is worth doing. They soon regain their perspective, focus on their ultimate plan of serving the Lord and find some other practical way of continuing their service to him, thereby moving closer to him.

Gita wisdom explains that we are meant for something much bigger than this world. Just as the child needs to grow up and learn more constructive engagements, we too need to grow up spiritually and learn more constructive engagements. Whereas the child needs to stop building sand castles, we don’t need to stop our endeavors in material life – we need to redirect our consciousness from this world to God and invest our emotions primarily in him. With our consciousness thus invested, we can see the world as an arena for contributing in a mood of service, according to our talents and interests. If our life’s overall plan is to serve our Lord, then that plan makes him smile with joy.

Indeed, the purpose of the Bhagavad-gita was to inspire Arjuna to harmonize his plan with Krishna’s plan (18.73). And in the ensuing battle for establishing dharma, Arjuna did make daily plans for tackling various enemy commanders, and Krishna aided and guided him in executing those plans. Arjuna’s diligence in doing his service – in planning it intelligently and executing it pragmatically – made Krishna smile in satisfaction.

Just as parents already have a home in which the child can live happily with them, God too has a home for us in his personal abode where we can live happily with him. When we grow up spiritually and redirect our life’s endeavors for his pleasure and for our purification, then we can function in this world effectively but without excessive emotional entanglement.

When we live devoted to him, making him our goal, then on leaving our body at the end of our life, we attain his eternal abode. Thus seeing the return of the prodigal child, God laughs in joy.

It is never too late

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It is never too late to be what you might have been – George Eliot

Sometimes we feel that life has passed us by, that it is now too late to do many of the things we wanted to achieve in our life. Such thoughts demoralize us and prevent us from taking the small incremental steps on the path to improvement that may still be possible for us.

Amidst such demoralization, Gita wisdom offers consolation and inspiration with the insight that it is never too late because we are eternal. We are at our core indestructible souls who continue to exist even after the destruction of our bodies. With this spiritual worldview, we understand that we will always have opportunities to improve – if not in this lifetime, then in a future lifetime. Such understanding causes hope eternal to spring in our heart. Being animated by this hope, we can resist the temptation to quit.

When we keep trying determinedly, we are often pleasantly surprised to discover that we are able to do many of the things that we had thought were beyond us. Undoubtedly, certain achievements depend on certain material conditions; if those conditions are changed irrevocably, then those achievements may become impossible. A sports player who grows too old to play can’t become a champion in that sport.

Thankfully however, this irrevocability applies only to material achievements, not spiritual achievements. The summit of all spiritual achievements is to connect lovingly with Krishna, our all-attractive Lord whose parts we are eternally, and to rejoice forever in that connection. The opportunity to develop that spiritual connection always stays with us, no matter how many material things are taken away from us.

Thus, the spirit of the statement that we are never too late applies most realistically to our spiritual growth. The Bhagavad-gita explains that the soul never ages. Being eternal, it exists beyond time. And realizing ourselves to be souls opens the door to a fulfillment that exists beyond time, a fulfillment that is never too late to pursue and achieve. Learning to live as souls by practicing yoga, especially bhakti-yoga, raises our vision beyond bodily pleasures. Such pleasures become too late to enjoy when our body ages and loses its capacity to enjoy. Even when the body has that capacity, those pleasures remain at best fleeting and unfulfilling.

When we internalize Gita wisdom, we realize that life has much more to offer us than what we had been taught to believe by our prevailing materialistic culture. Life is meant for redirecting our love from the world to the source of the world, the all-attractive supreme, Krishna. When we learn to purify our heart and center it on him, we find ourselves becoming that which is our hearts’ deepest calling.

Ultimately, life’s greatest achievement is not in getting or doing – it is in becoming. Or more precisely, it is a becoming by which realize our being. As souls, we are, by our very nature, blissful beings. Only because we misidentify with our physical bodies and become attached to worldly objects do we become oblivious to our innate blissfulness. We become aware of our essential identity and the concomitant joyfulness by practicing bhakti-yoga. And as bhakti-yoga, the path of eternal spiritual love, is the perennial calling of the deepest layer of the human heart, it is not dependent on anything material, not even age.

So, yes, it is never too late for us to be what we were meant to be – spiritually realized individuals contributing harmoniously to the all-attractive whole and therein relishing sublime, supreme fulfillment.

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