Sunlight: [Sunlight] These Decisions

Monday, June 08, 2009

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These Decisions

The old argument continues about fate and free will with
the king and his advisors

talking. The king rebuts their contention that all actions
are predestined. "But

surely we must be responsible for what we do! Why else
would Adam admit guilt?

Rather, he would have used Satan's answer, You led me
astray. Adam did have a

choice." Yet somehow both are true, destiny and free will.
We vacillate between

journeys. Shall we go to Mosul for trade or Babylon to
learn occult science?

These decisions are real. One person drinks a lot of wine.
Does someone else wake up

nauseated? When you work all day, you get the wages. A
child born from your soul

and body holds on to your legs. When has it been otherwise?
And if the consequences fail

to show up here, be sure they have taken form in the unseen.

-- Mathnawi VI: 403-20
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Soul of Rumi"
HarperCollins, 2001

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