Everything Happens for a Reason – From Rationalization to Realization
“Everything happens for a reason.” I’m pretty sure I first heard these five words as a kid from my dad. Or maybe it was from one of my uncles. It’s such a common philosophical refrain among South Asians that I may have just picked it up through osmosis.
I’ve had three distinct relationships with these five words so far in my life: rationalization, adaptation, and realization. Let me explain.
Rationalization
For most of my life, I’ve taken these words as a rationalization. Something didn’t go my way…well, everything happens for a reason. Is that supposed to make me feel better about it? Kind of. Will I ever find out the reason? Maybe.
A classic example was when it started unexpectedly raining like crazy in the middle of our outdoor wedding ceremony in 2007. Everyone ran for shelter, the ceremony required a 45-minute intermission, and the mandap (the flowered wedding ceremony structure) never looked quite the same. Now no one said, “Everything happens for a reason,” but many of our guests told us that rain on a wedding day is good luck across cultures (which I took as a similar sentiment). And I thought, what a convenient belief. If it’s sunny and beautiful on your wedding day, you have a reason to feel happy; and if it’s raining, you have a reason to feel blessed. Well I did take the rain as a blessing and that did make me feel better about it so I guess it worked!
Rationalization actually has merit because it helps us cope on a human level, but it’s limited as all rationalization is because it doesn’t deepen our character or our understanding.
Adaptation
Over the past five years, my relationship with those five words has shifted from rationalization to adaptation (I’m using the word ‘adaptation’ because it signifies to me a learning mindset). My view changed from: “oh well, there must be a reason so hopefully I can feel better about that,” to: “what am I meant to learn from this and how is this meant to help me grow?” Instead of throwing my hands up in defeat when things don’t go my way, I’ve been more contemplative and invested time in discovering what’s here for me. These questions have offered me a secret to a more constructive consciousness and experience of life, versus a more resistant and frustrating one.
The lessons are different in each situation when things “don’t go my way,” but in almost all cases, at a minimum, there’s an opportunity for me to learn more about the nature of my attachments and just how much control I desire and even expect in my life. Returning to the wedding experience, my wife and I were so attached to everything being “perfect”…everything going a certain way…as planned…wanting to control every last detail. Well that’s not how the world works. And when it doesn’t, we experience so much distress. And for what? For a little rainshower (maybe letting us know that someone is watching from up above). In our case we were lucky that we didn’t actually feel too distressed about the rain, but this is a lesson I know I’ll be learning for the rest of my life whenever things “don’t go my way”: how do I let go? How do I invest my best efforts into everything I do, and learn to let go of the results because they are outside of my control? My partner Hari Prasada wrote all about this in his year-end reflection about letting go.
I’ve experienced the evolution in my relationship with “everything happens for a reason” from rationalization to adaptation as great progress in my consciousness and in my experience of life as I mentioned above, AND it wasn’t the endpoint.
Realization
Two months ago I had a relatively benign experience through which my relationship with those five words shifted further, from adaptation to realization (actually believing that everything happens for a reason).
My partners Hari Prasada, Rasanath and I are teaching a class that journeys through the spiritual text of the Bhagavad-Gita. The format of the class is primarily discussion groups that the three of us each lead separately. A lot of thought went into the formation of the groups based on what we thought would best serve the class. Hari Prasada, Rasanath and I felt good about the groups. But in our first class, when we separated into our three breakout rooms, I immediately noticed that there were two people in my group who weren’t on my initial list. There was a mistake in the creation of the breakouts.
I found myself a bit distracted. After all of our efforts, someone on our team had made a mistake. Should I interrupt the start of the groups to try to correct it? I didn’t. But I continued to remain conscious of it throughout the class. After the class Hari Prasada and I discussed whether we should switch people back to their original groups for the next class, and we decided not to because we were ambivalent about what effect that would have on the individuals and the groups. But it was still bothering me a little bit. Why was I so fixated?
Over the course of the week, I thought of this phrase, everything happens for a reason. By the time the second class rolled around, I had almost let go of my fixation and felt that this group was probably meant to be the way that it is. And then right before the start of the second class, another thought came to me: why had I been so sure that we had gotten everything right when we had initially created the groups? And then it struck me. Maybe we were the ones who had made the mistakes in our initial creation of the groups! And those mistakes were kindly corrected. Because the universe has a plan that’s more informed than our plans. I laughed out loud. All of a sudden I felt an ease. It felt clear to me that this was exactly who belonged in the group. I had a new understanding of what it means that “everything happens for a reason.” It’s a faith. And it’s immediate (not a “we’ll see how this plays out”). This was a profound realization for me.
Adaptation still had elements of rationalization in it for me. What can I learn from this experience that seemed to go wrong? The new questions that were alive for me all of a sudden included, why do I assume anything went wrong in the first place? Why do I assume that I had it right originally? What if everything were getting “corrected” moment to moment? And I can have faith in "Your plan, not mine." In the moment.
I recognize that this third relationship with “everything happens for a reason” depends on a spiritual paradigm. But so does rationalization and adaptation in many ways. I don’t think it’s possible to believe that everything happens for a reason if you don’t believe in a higher power. And as my faith in a spiritual paradigm has increased, so has my realization that everything happens for a reason.
The thing about the groups is that it wasn't that big of a deal, so making such a big deal of it may feel like a stretch. But I was still fixated on it. Because I like to control everything in my life, and when anything doesn't go as planned, I may perseverate on it. My mind had gone from being stuck on getting this thing right to feeling released because I understood I had done my part. In a moment it became so clear – I didn't need to keep the group formations and implications on replay in my mind. For me, the beauty of this realization is that it was about a relatively inconsequential matter, but the implications were far-reaching. What would it be like if I could keep this realization with me from situation to situation, and moment to moment?
I started thinking about all of the events in my life that had been corrections of my plans. That relationship that didn’t work out. That person who didn’t join my last venture. That poor financial decision I made. That school we selected for our kids but have been second-guessing. Even my nephew getting diagnosed with leukemia. That wasn’t so much a “correction of my plans” because it wasn’t part of my plans at all, but it was an unwritten plan, one of my unilateral contracts (as my partner Michael coined) with the universe – that all of my loved ones must be healthy and well. I can also see now how good has come from such pain. My nephew’s experience of his own unbreakable spirit, his Make-A-Wish dream coming true, his family’s experience of resilience through such distress, the awareness and critical funding raised for pediatric cancer research among our community, I could go on. What if I could see that there’s a divine hand in all of it? Even when faced with something much more tragic. Even if I myself am never able to see the good given my limited perspective.
In the context of this third relationship (realization) with “everything happens for a reason,” the adaptive questions “what am I meant to learn from this?” and “how is this meant to help me grow?” are even more impactful because they’ve changed from “what can I learn from this unfortunate situation?” to “how has this situation been designed for my learning and growth?” The same questions carry a lot more power from this viewpoint, so realization and adaptation go hand-in-hand.
It’s important to mention that “everything happens for a reason” should never be justification for bad behavior. For example, if I’m not doing my best, that’s all right because everything happens for a reason. Or if I’m being unkind to someone, that’s all right because everything happens for a reason. No. Well, maybe, but then I can also expect the universe to respond accordingly and make the necessary “corrections.” I must do everything I can and then recognize that the results are beyond my control.
I’d also like to acknowledge that all of this is much easier said than done. To share an example of how difficult this is for me even when the stakes are low, we’ve been considering getting a house outside of the city for more than a year. A couple of months ago I became captivated by a property we saw. It was beyond the budget we were considering, and I found myself simultaneously dreaming up plans to have it while also praying to stop lusting after it so that we wouldn’t make a decision that we might end up regretting. After weeks of research and working through the details financially, we were finally ready to make an offer last week, and I called the seller’s agent to discuss. He informed me that the house had gone into contract the day before (after being on the market for more than six months). What?!?! If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is. But I was still so disappointed. Why didn’t they tell us someone else was that interested? Why didn’t we move faster? On one hand, it seems pretty clear to me that this happened for a reason (even though the reason itself is not necessarily clear to me yet); and on the other hand, my toddler self is screaming, “BUT I STILL WANT IT!” If this is my response to something relatively trivial, how can I expect to respond when the stakes are much higher? When it’s about people, and there’s tragedy involved?
A few days later I’m still feeling disheartened when I think about the missed opportunity of the house, but I’m also curious what the universe has in store instead. And my recovery from feeling like I made a bunch of mistakes in the process (such as not moving faster) has been swifter than usual. Mostly because I have conviction that the universe has a plan. Is this rationalization or realization? The difference is subtle and the reality can only be known in the individual’s heart.
How many hours have I spent thinking (and rethinking) about things that didn’t go the way I had planned? How much wasted time continuing to think about those things after I had already learned what I had needed to learn? Ultimately, we have no choice but to accept. Instead, I spend all of this time fighting and resisting before accepting. What has changed is a much faster process of acceptance. And a joy knowing that someone much more qualified is also on the job :-)
Why should we trust that everything happens for a reason? Especially someone who doesn’t believe in a spiritual paradigm? Each of our journeys is so personal and unique, but I would invite you to try on “adaptation” and see what happens. Think about the struggles you have experienced in your life, and what you have learned and how you have grown from those experiences. What are you going through right now that’s not going according to your plans, and how might it be designed for your learning and growth? On a human level alone (as opposed to a spiritual one), this adaptive mindset and these questions have the potential to change your experience of life.
And for those who are open to a spiritual paradigm but also grapple with the idea, I would invite you to pay close attention whenever you experience a “coincidence” in your life. Coincidences have become like breadcrumbs for me, and when I’m not listening I easily miss them. But when I am listening, the coincidences in my life seem to multiply, and the trail of breadcrumbs becomes easier to follow. I would also invite you, if possible, to spend time with people you like and respect who have a spiritual paradigm, and observe their effect on you over time. This has been most beneficial to me in my journey from rationalization to adaptation to realization.
A few weeks ago in this telling of his first near-death experience, Hari Prasada’s guru, Sacinandana Swami, shared the profound experience he had of God telling him not to worry because “everything happens according to my will.” In the Bhagavad-Gita, Lord Krishna communicates the same message to his disciple Arjuna over 18 chapters. Given the reach and power of such a God, how can I assume that a seemingly small thing such as the formation of a group (constructed to cultivate spirituality nonetheless!) is not happening according to a divine will.
With time, I can see that everything in my life seems to have had a purpose, even things that still pinch a bit. My realization was about seeing it that way in the moment…before it has become clear…without the benefit of hindsight. That the invisible hand behind the universe is always at work. And always with me. Looking out for me. Correcting the mistakes I wasn’t aware I’d be making. And helping me learn and grow in all of the ways my soul requires. I just need to wake up to it.