Sushi: What’s your view on Ramesh Balsekar’s “Life has already been scripted. The movie is already in the cans” comment?
Jagjot: Yes, Sushi! That’s what I implied in my article on free will. It seems as if you are making a choice between tea and coffee, but the choice has already been made. You are simply executing the action. Similarly, the story of life is also scripted.
Sushi: How do we know this?
Jagjot: This is a concept Sushi and not the truth. I have no proof of any of the concepts. Science is divided on the concept of determinism. Although I can give you a lot of scientific theories that confirm determinism, that won’t be convincing, as there’s always a counterargument.
You see, on my homepage, I wrote “Life is too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.” We arrived on a planet that is a part of a galaxy that moves 130 miles per second. The planet itself is the only tilted at 23.4 degrees, is at an appropriate temperature to sustain life, and revolves around a star keeping itself at an appropriate distance. Even one variable changing slightly ends all life on the planet.
Other than the above external factors, we are born in a particular culture with a genetic blueprint that conveys loads of information about our future: our traits and tendencies, physical attributes, the diseases we are predisposed to as we age, and more.
Although it’s not 100% accurate – maybe it’s because of our inability to fully understand the DNA. We do not fully understand how evolution works at the molecular level. We did not choose our DNA.
The moment of either birth or death is not planned by us. Not only do we inherit genetic material from our parents, but we also inherit behaviors, traits, and tendencies that dictate our relationship with others for most of our lives.
Not just parenting, but everything starting from conception, to schooling, friends, relationships, culture, economics, and politics, shape the course of our life. And none of it was in our control. Everything happened!
Getting down to absolute basic, even “your” ability to ask a question depends on the appropriate thought arising at the appropriate time. Even the idea that “I can change things through my will” comes from conditioning.
Nobody has any control over any thought that arises in consciousness in the next moment. Our reactions are also determined by these thoughts. Where do these thoughts come from? Naturally, it is a part of the script laid out for us. For what reason or purpose? We cannot know.
The script of life or the cosmic law is beyond the grasp of human intellect. To me, it doesn’t make sense why God would create a beginning (birth) and end (death) for a particular piece of life and leave the script in-between.
But you see, God has given us the intellect to make decisions and act, but every action has a precursor. Every thought (even subconscious) comes from past conditioning.
This has to come from your experience. Ramesh would say that you investigate if any thought you ever had was your own or did it come about as an extension of another thought or something you saw or heard at that moment.
For me, the idea of my life being scripted is liberating as it frees me from the burden of doership. It enables me to enjoy and flow with life rather than changing variables to suit “my” personal preferences.
Some scientists claim that time itself is an illusion and that past, present, and future exist at once. If this view is true, then it is evident that a preexisting script is running as frames in the present moment or now. Think of all possible outcomes as a wave of potentialities out of which only one is actualized based on cosmic law.
The double-slit experiment in quantum physics is the most stunning problem that baffles physicists even today, where a subatomic particle changes nature (from particle to wave interference pattern) when an observer (detector) is placed to record the observation.
It’s as if the subatomic particle was aware that it was being observed. Science, till now, has not been able to figure out why this happens. But again, this is always debatable. There will never be any evidence of these things, therefore, rely on your personal experience.
