All your eggs in one basket...

Many people choose to reserve judgement when it comes to the cosmic questions of life. Does God exist? Is life a one-shot game or is there more after death? Different religions, different theories, and different directives – it can all be a bit confusing. There is a notion that it’s dangerous to put ‘all your eggs in one basket’ by making a firm decision to follow a certain spiritual path. “Maybe I should keep all the options open and focus on being a good person” one may think. Spread the bet.

Interestingly we are all ultimately forced to make a choice. You may reserve judgement on God, but you still decide to live in the world in a certain way, and underpinning your lifestyle choices are certain worldviews. Everyone places their faith in something, even if they don’t believe in God. So we may be afraid of the repercussions of making the wrong decision, but we’ll have to make a decision anyway. By making a choice not to do one thing, you necessarily make a decision to do something else.

In my experience, the problem may not be that we have too many differing options, but rather that we are simply too lazy (or disinterested) to investigate the matter. I was recently walking down Oxford Street when I saw a man come out of the travelagents with about 20 holiday brochures. I’m sure he’s not planning 20 holidays, but rather wants to invest his yearly £1000 budget wisely – after all, it’s a lot money and there is a lot at stake! However, it seems that when it comes to questions of the ultimate destination we want the answer to just jump out at us without any kind of personal endeavour. Rather than allowing worldly trends to sweep us into the default path of life, we may do well to make even a passing investigation into classical literatures like the Bhagavad-gita, which give profound insights into the perennial mysteries of our existence. A little research goes a long way.