The sheer mystery of how future events unfold intrigues everyone. It is this anxiousness to determine the pattern of future events that drives us to face readers, tarot card readers and palmists. These astrologers reveal the glimpses of our destiny, the things that we will experience in the future.
Now let's say someone hit a jackpot and become an overnight millionaire while someone else lost all his fortune in a stock market crash. In ordinary life, we will attribute both these differing events to destiny. But then the primary question arises if people are destined to experience such events in life, who decides the course of our destiny?
People are of different opinions, some believe that destiny is thrust upon us by an inscrutable power; others believe destiny is a result of our past karmas, while many others believe that destiny is a fallacy of the human mind. Let us understand the concept of destiny through the help of Scriptures. The Hitopdesh states in this context:
"The actions we performed in our past lives become our destiny in this life."
This clearly means that destiny is not something that has come down from the heavens or a horoscope chart that is revealed to us by the astrologers. We have created our destiny ourselves by actions in past births. It is the 'Law of Karma' that determines our destiny in the present life. The law of Karma however is quite complex.
To start with there are three kinds of karmas: sañchit, prārabdh and kriyamāṇ. God has an account of all our karmas in endless lives. This is called sañchit karmas. At the time of birth, we are given a portion of our sañchit karmas, to enjoy or suffer in this life. This is called prārabdh karmas. The prārabdh is fixed, but within this life, we have a freedom to act, and the actions we perform are called kriyamāṇ karma. The kriyamāṇ is not pre-determined; it is in our hands and can be changed as we wish.
Now the results we get in life are dependent on a number of factors, including:
1. Our prārabdh karmas.
2. Our kriyamāṇ karmas.
3. The Will of God.
4. The karma of other people present in that situation.
5. Chance events in which we happen to be present by accident.
Since we humans are not all-knowing, we cannot fully correlate the results we get with the exact causes behind them. We ignorantly take a myopic view of the results of our present karma and feel bogged down. For example, we notice sometimes that a good person fails and an unscrupulous person prospers. It seems that the law of karma or destiny is not fair and just to humans. But the fact is that the law of karma keeps an account of our past endless lifetimes. Therefore, the good person was not always good; the bad person was not always bad.
"Life is like playing a game of cards. The hand that is dealt to you gets fixed, that is your destiny. But how you play with the cards is not fixed, that's your self-effort."
Next Blog Article:- ''Now it's time you take charge of your own Destiny!''
Beautiful explanation. It is very true that the actions we performed in our past lives become our destiny in this life.So we create our own destiny mainly according to our action and But everything will be finalized by God alone.
ReplyDeleteDestiny is not something that has come down from the heavens or a horoscope chart that is revealed to us by the astrologers. We have created our destiny ourselves by actions in past births. As Swamiji said "we are the creator of our own destiny" Nice article!
ReplyDeleteThe kriyman karma is not pre determined,it is in our hands and can be changed as we wish.thank you Swamiji.
ReplyDeleteMost of people not aware about what is the destiny? here very simply explained by Swamiji.
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ReplyDeleteVery nice explanation about how our own karmas create our destiny. .
ReplyDeleteLife is like playing a game of cards. The hand that is dealt to you gets fixed, that is your destiny. But how you play with the cards is not fixed, that's your self-effort...Beautiful article :)
ReplyDelete"The actions we performed in our past lives become our destiny in this life." This says it all. So we should stop pondering over what and why something is happening to us rather we should try to walk towards the path of Bhakti so that we carry the benefits of bhakti with us in our next birth. Beautiful article
ReplyDeleteLaw of Karma is very complex and we can never comprehend it. Our only duty is to accept our prarabdh (result of karmic reaction due to actions made in previous lives) gracefully and use every moment of this life to make progress in our eternal journey.
ReplyDeleteNicely explained about the importance of self effort in our destiny
ReplyDeleteWe have endless Karmas from our previous lives that we do not know what they are. The only thing that we can do to perform Sewa and love God and Guru selflessly to attract Their grace and Bow in
ReplyDeletefront the Will of God. Thank you Swamiji!!
Great article to understand the philosophy of karma and destiny.
ReplyDeleteReally great and inspiring words to create self destiny. Thank you, Swamiji.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful article....
ReplyDeletenice article inspiring me
ReplyDeleteRadhey Radhey Thank you swamiji much for sharing beautiful information...
ReplyDeleteShort article from Swami Mukundananda with in depth comments about destiny like I had never heard before. There are many contributing factors including how we choose to use our current circumstances. Make the best of it!
ReplyDeleteVery important knowledge, our present karma influences our destiny in future. We all need to be conscious of our actions.
ReplyDeleteVery important article explaining how destiny is actually fruit of our past actions.
ReplyDeleteWe really need to assimilate this important knowledge deep into our psyche only then we won't blame others or have ill feelings towards others or circumstances when life presents us adverse situations.
Our best action in such situations would be to calmly accept the seeming misfortunes as God's grace by reducing our bad karma and keep making progress on our devotional path.
However this attitude will only come when we repeatedly contemplate on this knowledge
very very important article explained by swamiji...
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ReplyDeleteWonderful blog Swamiji! I understood that, "As you sow, so shall you reap". Our destiny is like a fruit of tree and our actions are seeds. We need to be extremely careful until we know what are good and bad actions.
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