It's time you take charge of your Destiny!

It is true that we are born with a destiny but is it correct to say that everything that happens in our life is governed by destiny? If we think that destiny cannot be changed that is the doctrine of fatalism. It leads to an attitude of resignation and passivity that results from the belief that people are helpless against fate.

Let us assume that everything is predestined. Then it must mean that in our past countless lives we did not perform actions by our free will as everything was predestined. But then what determined our destiny in the present life? Logically we must have performed actions with our free will in some past life. If we did so in a past life, we can do them now as well.

We humans are bound by the law of karma, but understand the principle of free will through the example of the bow and arrow in archery. The accumulated stock of arrows in the archer's case slung over his shoulder is the sañchit karma. Similar to this is our stock of karmas from past endless lifetimes. A part of the sañchit karma, is the prārabdh karma that we have to bear in this life. Therefore the arrow that has just left the archer's bow is the prārabdh karma and the arrow in the hand at the moment is kriyamāṇ karma, this is the karma we are free to perform in this life. The archer can decide not to use this arrow, or he can choose to use it either to protect the weak or to harass them. Thus while prārabdh karma is something which cannot be undone and we have to enjoy or suffer its fruits in this life, we have free will available in the form of kriyamāṇ karma. 

Right here in the present moment you possess the free will to perform actions that elevate your consciousness to sublime heights or perform actions that degrade you to demonic existence. The choices that you make in the face of adversity or favorable situations are your own. For this reason, the scriptures say that it is lazy people who blame destiny for their substandard achievements:

Ramayana says - ''While working, don't bring destiny into your mind, or it will make you lazy." If you do, you will start running to astrologers to know what your destiny is, rather than focusing on performing your work properly.

It is a fact that there is an element of destiny. But that should not bother you because God has also bestowed the power of free will to you. You possess the freedom to act as you wish. If you were destined to win a jackpot of a million dollars, you will win it. But beyond that, it is your self-effort. If you work hard, you could multiply it into ten million dollars, and if you develop profligate habits, you could squander it away in drinking and gambling. That would not be decided by destiny; that would be your own puruśhārth or self-effort.

Always remember these words of an Urdu poet,

खुदी को कर बुलंद इतना कि हर तक़दीर से पहले,

खुदा खुद बन्दे से पूछे बता तेरी रज़ा क्या हैं। 

"Make your efforts so strong, that before giving you the results of your destiny, God himself asks you what you want."

Next Blog Article:- Carelessness leads to Downfall of a Devotee!

What determines the Destiny!

 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!''