Because one has
a predisposition toward a certain condition does not mean that we have no
control over that.
If there was absolutely no control that we could have over
our dispositions, mentally, physically, psychologically, we would be said to
have predisposition; we would be subject to the whims of fate, as it were,
Physiological fate, if nothing else. And that simply isn''t the condition of the
human experience. "If God and I decide to change something in the
biochemical factory called my body, we will go ahead and do that,
predisposition or not. And, really, nothing can stop that process.
And it is
precisely by this process that people have cured themselves of cancer, and
turned around other physical and emotional conditions by which they might
otherwise have been beset, and imagined themselves to have been fated to
experience. The genes of your body are simply indicators, not unlike astrology,
astrological signs. I think that the genes in our body provide us signs, much
like astrological signs are provided for the largest body that we call the
universe.
And so each of
us, it has been said, is a universe in miniature. And I think our genes are not
unlike astrological signs. That is to say, they can be indicators of directions
in which we may travel, but they''re not signs of the inevitable. And so our
genes simply point the way, indicate a path that could be taken and that, in
fact, is most likely to be taken, if you please, unless we change our mind
about that. When Siddhartha tales the starving Sankhya Muni (He should not be
mistaken for Kapil muni who wrote Sankhy Shastra.) that his philosophy of pain and
suffering was unacceptable to him because, "I have not experienced it
myself'', he was only echoing the ancient voice of Vedanta. Similarly when Swami
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa tells Vivekananda: "I have seen God. You can also
see Him. Experiment for yourself, he too was emphasizing the spirit of Vedanta
where all knowledge has to be verified before acceptance where actual pangs of
pain precede salvation. Etymologically speaking the expression "Vedanta"
is derived from two Sanskrit words ''Veda'' meaning knowledge and ''Anta'' meaning
end that is the end of knowledge, more precisely the ultimate in verified
knowledge, Vedanta is the antonym of blind faith and the synonym of
science which is based on reason and verification. Vedanta is validation, it''s self
awareness.
It is the inner
light which dispels inward loneliness. Awareness was the free gift from the
realized to the unrealized souls. To quote S Radhakrishnan: "Our predicament is due to the lack
of adjustment of the human spirit to the startling developments in science and
technology. In spite of the fact that the great scientific inventions have
liberated us from servitude of nature, we seem to suffer from a type of
neurosis, from cultural disintegration. Science has relieved us from the
grinding poverty, mitigated the tortures of physical pain. Yet we suffer from
an inward
loneliness”.
Vedanta shows you that your happiness is your own happiness. Realize the truth
and you are free. Vedantic realization is hard to achieve because a vast
majority of people (in the West in particular) think that they have to change
themselves into God that they have to create the godhead in them.'' But according
to Vedanta you are already God, nothing but God. Your soul is impure or sinful
by nature.