CAN WE CHANGE OUR DESTINY


Dear Friends,



Can we change our Destiny or is Destiny fixed and we have to follow the path fixed for us?



Would be glad receive your views on the above.

Pravin Kumar


I had posted the above question in a Spiritual Forum and these are the interesting knowledgeable replies.

FREEDOM OF CHOICE OR FREE-WILL:

If every body has free will, then it is impossible to make successful predictions about the future.

Successful predictions cancels the concept of free-will!

PREDESTINY MEANS:

YOU MAKE THOUSANDS OF CHOICES EVERY DAY.

YOU ARE CHOICELESS IN MAKING THOSE CHOICES. (THOUGH UNKNOWN TO YOU!)

CAUSE AND EFFECT:

Whenever we see any event and ask any person with his third eye open, who can see past, present and future, he will be able to tell you the cause of it, which could be in this birth or any of the past births. And with that you will be satisfied that the LAW OF KARMA IS TRUTH.



PREDESTINY:

But when the same seer tells you about events of places, societies, mankind which is going to happen after hundreds, thousands and even yugas, you will have to agree to the ultimate truth of life as a pre-shot film and that the script is written LOGICALLY WITH CAUSE AND EFFECT INCORPORATED IN IT.

So the LAW OF KARMA IS RELATIVE TRUTH.

And so the PREDESTINY IS ABSOLUTE TRUTH.



A man with ego will immensely like the life with law of karma as truth. Cause and effect is the life line of ego!

A man who has perfectly understood predestiny as the absolute truth without an iota of doubt will find his EGO VANISHING IN THIN AIR. Ego will not like it and fight tooth and nail but if you love TRUTH, ego will have to say good-bye to you forever.

My gurudev Mahavatar Babaji (Chandannagar, Kolkata, India) used to say as follows:

1) NOT A DROPLET LESS, NOT A DROPLET MORE;

NOT A SECOND EARLIER, NOR A SECOND LATER,

EVERYTHING IN LIFE IS PRE-ARRANGED.

2) KARTA (DOER), KRIYA ( ACT OF DOING) AND KARMA (ACTION) ARE ALL HIS!

WHERE IS EVEN YOUR EXISTENCE? (You do not have any power of your own!)


Pravinji,

What I usually find is that all great people in general speak about the art of living with a particular philosophy according to the level of understanding of the audience. It is called relative truth and very fruitful for the audience. It works like medicine by a doctor for a particular patient with particular symptoms.

But when you wish to scientifically search for absolute truth there should be no contradictions and should be fool proof. My comments are based on experiencial facts and could be proven by studying the history of mankind of successful predictions.

Also in general, absolute truth is exactly opposite to relative truth. And relative truth has great value as it helps curing mental diseases of the audience.

Example: If predestiny is taken as ABSOLUTE TRUTH, immediately morality looses all value. Responsibility of the person or society becomes nil. No one is greater or smaller. All are like robots or just a character in a video film which is being replayed. There can be no purpose in life and therefore no path. The way life is understood today will be cancelled.

So in general absolute truth is not even hinted at.

So whenever I read any statement of a great person, I first see whom it is addressed to; what is the level of understanding of the audience! And take that as relative truth. What is taught to worldly people is exactly opposite to what is being taught to sanyasis. Sanyasis are taught progressively finer and finer and then the absolute truth.

I hope I am clear.


Osho is asked about predestination and answers yes and no: Parts of his comments are:

“With freedom, effort is always possible. A machine cannot make errors. To err, one has to be conscious. So your acts have a chain relationship with your previous acts. They are determined. Your childhood determines your youth; your youth determines your old age. Your birth determines your death; everything is determined. Buddha used to say, ”Provide the cause, and the effect will be there.” This is the world of cause and effect in which everything is determined.

If you act with total consciousness, an altogether different situation exists. Then everything is moment to moment. Consciousness is a flow; it is not static. It is life itself, so it changes. It is alive. It goes on expanding; it goes on becoming new, fresh, young. Then, your acts will be spontaneous.



I am reminded of a Zen story.... A Zen master asked his disciple a particular question. The question was answered exactly as it should be answered. The next day the master asked exactly the same question. The disciple said, ”But I answered this question yesterday.”

The master said, ”Now I am asking you again.” The disciple repeated the same answer. The master said, ”You do not know!”
The disciple said, ”But yesterday I answered in the same way and you nodded your head. So I
interpreted that the answer was right. Why have you changed your mind now?”

The master said, ”Anything that can be repeated is not coming from you. The answer has come from your memory, not from your consciousness. If you had really known, the answer would be different because so much has changed. I am not the same man who asked you this question yesterday. The whole situation is different. You also are different, but the answer is the same. I had to ask the question again just to see if you would repeat the answer. Nothing can be repeated.”

The more alive you are, the less repetitive. Only a dead man can be consistent. Living is
inconsistency; life is freedom. Freedom cannot be consistent. Consistent with what? You can
be consistent only with the past. An enlightened person is consistent only in his consciousness; he is never consistent with his past. He is totally in the act. Nothing is left behind; nothing is left out. The next moment the act is finished and his consciousness is fresh again. Consciousness will be there whenever any situation arises, but each act will be made in complete freedom, as if it is the first time that this man has been in this particular situation.

That is why I answered both yes and no to your question. It depends on you, whether you are consciousness, or whether you are an accumulation, a bodily existence. Religion gives freedom because religion gives consciousness. The more science knows about matter, the more the world will be enslaved. The whole phenomenon of matter is of cause and effect: if you know that given this, that happens – then everything can be determined.”-OSHO



Source : from Osho Book "The Psychology of the Esoteric"


Our habits formulate into our character.

It is our character that determines our destiny and how we will be remembered.

As a final note, please consider the difference between accomplishment and character.

With accomplishment, we do not always have control. Our character is always a choice. No one. despite their power and wealth, can take our character away from us.

Please consider the following quotes,

" Watch you thoughts, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. Watch your character, it becomes your destiny"!

I know of one renowned astrologer in Kolkata who could predict very accurately from your horoscope. Many famous policians call on him to learn about their political future.

Once after very successfully reading one horoscope, he remarked, "The life of every being is totally governed by nine planets and 12 boxes of the horoscope and still a man very foolishly entertains the folly of being the architect of his own destinty."

If you have ever come across a successful reading of your own horoscope, you must have been amazed and confirm the truth of the above statement.

I know of a friend of mine, who went to a Bhrigu-Shastri in Kolkata. Shashtriji took out a book and read his entire life of 45 years up to that date DITTO!

Till that time, he was thinking of himself as the architect of his destiny and after this humbling experience KNOWS THAT EVERY EVENT IS PREDESTINED!

Similarly, my and your life keep on flowing according to a written page of Bhrigu-shashtra without we being aware of that!

We must check the history of mankind of successful predictions and firmly conclude that you are just a robot in the hands of predestiny! And then only the burden of doership, worries and fear of tomorrow CAN VANISH FOREVER AND YOU CAN ENJOY THE FILM OF LIFE JOYOUSLY WHATEVER MAY BE THE SCRIPT OF YOUR DRAMA OF LIFE!


If you are the architect of your destiny, you would definitely be able to avoid diseases, old age and death, which nobody ever wants. So we must check the history of mankind to find such a man and follow him!


Hope you will enjoy the above replies

Couldn't be bothered reading it all but it's a biased question Pravin, just using the word destiny implies that events are pre-determined.
Sorry mate you'll have to re-phrase the question before it makes sense.

Yes, it's called Akashik records.

Every human has a record of his/her life.  It's called an Akashik record.

These records are detailed records of a person's birth, life and death.  Where you'll be born, to whom you'll  be born, where you'll go to school, what you're interests will be, how much of an achiever or failure you'll be, what tribulations you'll suffer, what happiness you'll enjoy, everything you do is recorded before you're born.

When a psychic reads your palm/cards (etc.), that psychic is actually reading your Akashik record.  How does the psychic know you'll get married at 25, divorced at 35, have two daughters and one son, get into a car accident and lose your leg at the age of 43 . . . ?  S/he knows because it's all recorded before it happens.  Many psychics don't even know the term Akashic record.  They get information from their spirit guides.  Well, their spirit guides get information on you from looking at your Akashic record.

So if that's the case then we're just robots going through pointless tasks.

Having read up a bit now it seems to me you need to quote some sources for such a sweeping statement.