In a fixed match, things are orchestrated to produce a predetermined result. Is life a fixed match? Is everything destined?

No, indicates the Bhagavad-gita (18.63) through its call to “do as we desire,” which implies that we have the free will to be conscious choosers. And our lived experience confirms our capacity to choose. For example, you can choose whether to go on reading this, as you can choose many other things.

Yet we aren’t entirely free. We can’t choose the family in which we were born. Nor can we choose the weather. Nor most importantly can we choose whether to grow old, get diseased and die – these will be thrust upon us.

Or will they?

The Gita indicates that these affect only the body, not the soul. They traumatize us as long as we identify with the body. But we don’t have to identify with the body.

Fixing things means setting them right. Krishna can help us fix things in our life by setting right the fundamental wrong of our bodily misidentification. When we follow his guidance to fix our mind on him, he gives us a nonmaterial enrichment that raises us above bodily misidentification.

Krishna also fixes things by making a devotee’s life into a fixed match – a match in which the devotee will ultimately win the battle against illusion and suffering. In a fixed match, whoever seems to be winning or losing during the course of the match, the final result is fixed. Similarly, in a fixed devotee’s life, whether there appears success or failure, the final result of the devotee attaining Krishna is fixed.

Unlike match-fixers who are often shady, Krishna is supremely trustworthy as a life-fixer. Why unfix what he’s fixing by neglecting to fix the mind on him?

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 18 Text 63

"Thus I have explained to you knowledge still more confidential. Deliberate on this fully, and then do what you wish to do."

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