Picture Perfect- In Hands of Destiny or US ??

I always get to listen to two entirely contradictory statements whenever I participate or hear any discussion related to Life of a person and how it is governed. For those, who fear God; life is in the hands of the Almighty. Nothing they do, could possibly change their course of life; as everything is controlled by that ONE. The ONE up there would decide how a person's life should sail, how he should walk and which path he should walk...Strange, because that would mean that we are simply puppet in the hands of the puppeteer. And many do agree with this statement. "Sab ishwar ke haath hain" (everything is in the hands of God). People of such perception; call them God fearing, religious, etc would always point any incident as act of God and would not take accountability of it.

The second category is of course of those who believe in themselves. "My life is in my own hands" are the people who carve their own path and decide their own destination. These people don't believe that their life is controlled or governed by any other force except that of themselves. Call them the practicals or atheists; they take responsibilities of their life on themselves.

And now comes my point of view; but before that I would point out few queries which came in my mind, while I pondered on these two battle of perceptions....At one side they say "Believe in God" and on the other side they say "God helps those who help themselves". Strange !! The puppeteer asking the puppet to believe that he is the Master controller, yet the puppet shouldn't put the entire responsibility on him....Sounds to me like the work of a corporate Boss; "I am your boss; but you are accountable for your own work". No wonder majority of humans remain confused as to which side to take. You don't want to leave the side of the ONE; but you can't depend on HIM for your entire life's each and every work either. I suppose the reader is understanding what I am getting at !!

Now comes my view. Since "to each his own", so I have come up with my own reasoning to this dilemma of "PICTURE PERFECT"....If anyone has seen The Matrix trilogy; then they could understand my perception a bit easily. My reasoning is in a way inspired by 'Middle Path'; where I agree to both category's view, yet putting my own flavour in it. In the Matrix (part 1); Morpheus had asked Neo a simple yet very important question about Life- "Do you believe in Destiny?"; to which Neo had replied, "No, I don't like the fact that I am not in control of my own life"..He had acted very much like the second category people. But after watching all the three parts of the trilogy; you would agree that he believed both in Destiny and his own choices with passing time...."There always is a choice", as he had said. My view believes in two aspects- First is Destiny (which is in hands of God/Nature) and second is Choice (which is in hands of a person). Our Picture Perfect is inked with both these aspects all along.

I compare a person's life with that of a B-E-A-utiful painting; a painting which is beyond imagination of anyone. So beautiful that one could keep staring at that painting for hours and hours, wondering how in God's name could anyone paint this awesome creation. Every person's life could be like this painting, I believe. Destiny (or our ONE) it seems has sketched very person's life in HIS sketchbook of humanity. Each person comes to this world with a beautiful sketch of his life; and that's where the role of God ends majorly. Destiny has done its job before you know what Life is all about; rest then HE leaves it up to you to fill the colors. And this is where life of every person goes different. Now it comes to the person's knowledge, perception, ability, evolution (of mind & spirit); as to how he paints his life and transforms the beautiful sketch to either a beautiful painting or a haunted house.

Imagine some one gives you a sketch of a countryside scenery. There is a house, jungle, farm, road, stream, clouds, mountain range in the background, people, animals...a common nice sketch we all see most of times. Now imagine it filled with the right colors for every aspect of the sketch. The clouds are white, the jungle green, snowy white mountain, blue stream...of course every reader's imagination would differ than mine; but you get the Idea !!....The painting after completing would look real nice, and you would love to keep it in your house, may b in bedroom where you could look at it everyday. A glimpse of such magnificent creation, the first thing in the morning would energize you to pass the day no matter what comes... That's how our life is, it could either give you energy or drain you out of it. Now wonder for a second, if someone paints the very same sketch with no idea about color combinations. He paints the mountain- black, the stream- red, the jungle- blue, the clouds- yellow....I don't know about others, but I wouldn't like to keep such a painting in my house...It becomes a disaster; why?? Because the person didn't have the knowledge of the various aspects of colors...Life is similar to such a case...If a person is spiritually not aware, if his knowledge is not worthy of life; then he is assumed to color his life wrongly at some point of his life, maybe most times or maybe every time...Depends how his life is shaped !!

Spiritual knowledge, discipline of mind and body, knowledge of the world & nature around us is required to be learned and known by a person to paint his life's sketch nice and good. We see some personalities from History, whom we believe to have lived their life...to live a destined life. Apparently, these people have coloured the right aspects of their sketch with right colors. Knowledge of life is very important, especially if you want the picture beautiful. Of course we humans are allowed to make some wrong choices here and there, because of which we face troubles and pains in life. I believe this is allowed in very young days; but once the mind has developed and consciousness has emerged, then the person should strive to know himself and the world around. We focus only on education (to excel in competition), recognition, money, family, love, power...things which could come at later point of time too...things which is correctly said that "it can't be taken with us after this life". Once I came to understand this view of life, things & perceptions have quite changed for me.

Spiritual Knowledge; knowledge to evolve our spirit within (and nothing to do with religion). To get detached from the materialistic world and see our life from a wider perspective. To get connected to our true self, which lies deep within; to get acquainted with who we truly are should be a quest everyone should take up....Discipline of Mind & Body; is a way to spiritual enlightenment (maybe not like Buddha, but nonetheless we should try). We born with a body and a mind to walk this earth. Thus it becomes essential to know these two entities, control them and use them for a worth purpose. Just the way a Gladiator knows only to train his body for a fight and not anything else (not money, not business...just fight & win); same way we should train our body to remain fit and pure so as to hold the powerful mind and train our mind to reach out to realms of spiritual world. Knowledge of world and nature around us becomes easier once we know ourselves properly. Since we live in this world, so the rules of this nature is essential to know. VIBGYOR tells you about seven colours apart from white and black; but you need to know features of each colour so as to mix two and make a new colour. Knowledge of nature's game, helps us to live this world the way nature wants us to live.

So coming back to track, knowledge of all these aspects will allow us to paint our picture just for the purpose the sketch was made initially. Lying, cheating, killing, anger, sadness, lust, love, guilt, all such emotions tend us to make mistakes in our life's picture. You lie to someone and you put a mark in that picture; that will add on to your picture's haunted look...You look at a woman with wrong intentions, and another splash of wrong color is struck over the painting. The ONE up there doesn't want all this, destiny wants everyone to have a beautiful picture in their bedroom; its us who paint it bad and blame the world & God for all the wrongs happening to us. We can't do that. If Neo, had chosen to stay back once the Oracle had told him about Morpheus's trouble; then he wouldn't have transformed into the One. He might not have believed in himself as One, he might not have known of his later successes; but he did believe that the sketch was made for him and he had to make a choice.

PICTURE PERFECT is in OUR hands. It is sketched by the all knowing nature (so we shouldn't doubt about its awesomeness); how we could repay back to the sketcher and give justice to ourselves is to evolve ourselves and paint it beautifully....

I know there would be many questions arising from this view of mine (and I welcome to be questioned); after all even I am in the quest to evolve myself !!!!