Random Acts of Brahman, Part 1 of 3

By Chet

This post describes a sequence of incidents which occurred during a field trip to Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The field trip (or excursion) was part of the curriculum for the Vedanta Society’s annual residential children’s summer camp.

Is it possible to observe subtle connections among the events which form our days—connections which are deeper than simply a sequence of seemingly unrelated incidents?

Who actually is the designer of each day, with its strange itinerary of events that momentarily pass through our consciousness? Let us investigate.

We in the West are taught from a young age to plan everything. We map out our careers, schedule our weekends, and budget our time to the hour.

But if we look back to the best moments of our lives, how many of them were actually on our calendars? The truth is, true magic rarely follows a schedule.

When a series of unplanned events and strange coincidences align to create a memorable moment, we might call it chance, good fortune or good luck. But shouldn’t we wonder: are these random at all? Or is random just a fancy word for connections we cannot see?

Quantum physics—the science of the physical world—teaches the smallest building blocks of the universe exist in a cloud of infinite possibilities until they are observed. But can what looks chaotic actually be the universe choosing a path?

In Vedanta, nothing is a truly isolated, random event. Though it may appear so, a mango falling from a tree is not caused by a crane landing in that same tree at the same instant. No thing has an individual cause; the entire universe is the cause of each.

Everything in existence is part of Brahman—one single, interconnected web of cosmic consciousness. We think we see a series of random accidents, but the underlying truth is always connected. What we experience as random, is actually a beautiful, hidden order, playing out perfectly.

In this sacred choreography, we begin to see that the Divine fulfills the inner desires and destiny of all.

Still, it moves stealthily—a path of intrigue and mystery—almost completely hidden from ordinary sight and visible exclusively to the seers and sages whose spiritual realization allows them to perceive these hidden truths.

Centuries ago, the Italian poet Dante Alighieri captured this cosmic truth in Paradiso, the final book of his Divine Comedy. In Canto 33, lines 85–87, Dante looks directly into the ultimate light of reality and observes: 

"I saw that in its depths contained, bound up with love in one volume, the scattered leaves of all the universe."

What may appear to our limited human vision as scattered, random pages torn from a book, is actually a single, masterfully bound story. And the binder, Dante realizes, is always love.

If we observe carefully, we might get a glimpse of this truth in the most unexpected places or at the most unexpected times—even during a camp field trip to visit the Slater Mill.

To be continued. . . .