Fate And Free Will – Part Iv

First of all we must understand what is fate? According to the Hindu scriptures there are three types of karmas (which form our fate).

They are1)Prarabhda Karma 2)Sanchita Karma 3)AgamiPrarabhda Karma is that which we are presently undergoing and experiencing. Sanchita Karma means all the past karma.Agami refers to Karma that will follow in future.Prarabhda is in between the Sanchita and Agami, and we are experiencing this Prarabhda karma on account of the previous Sanchita Karma meaning the past karmas.Sri Sathya Sai Baba gives a small example to explain all these three karmas from our daily life.He says: “We have got a store room in which we stock all our rice. We have already the old stock of rice in the store.
So what we have stoerd in the room is called Sanchita.
When we want to cook, we remove rice from the store room for cooking last month called Parrabhda.
What we cook at this moment and what we eat last month will pass out our body, tomorrow. Sometiems what we eat may come out in the shape of a belch. Therefore we can not escape from Prarabhda, we must experiecne it in this life.
In the store room, there is only one rice. When we bring it we will be able to cnovert it into many preparations.
In this way, we can make the rice into food; we can make it in the form of ‘Puliyodhara’ (meaning rice mixed with tamarind to make a delicious dish).

We can cook it in the form of ‘Chakkara pongal’ (meaning rice mixed with sugar to form a tsaty dish).It can be made into ‘Daddhojana’ (meaning rice mixed with curd to form a delightful dish). We can make from it ‘idlis’ (rice cakes) and also ‘Dosas’ (one more variety of food) and so on, all of which the base wihch is always rice. You have to start any preparation with rice only. Even though there is Sanchita, if you try to behave in a Sathwic (meaning in a pious and good) way you will be able to change even Sanchita.

You may say that in the rice store, there are titanic stones. They are the resluts of our bad actions. They are in the store miexd with the rice. Before we cook, do we not try to remove away the stones from the rice? So it is quite necessary that when we experience Sanchita we can overcome the bad effects to extent or a great extent and make them clean, just as we make the rice clean.” But can the Sanchita and Prarabhta karmas can be weaken or overcome by prayer?