I had a conversation with a friend today about destiny.  His father, an astrologer in the Indian system, holds the view that every thing in life is preordained.  That one’s destiny is written in the stars and that there is nothing one can do change it.  Hence there is no reason to try to influence one’s destiny because the outcome is already predetermined.  One can simply lie back and let one’s destiny unfold.  When the astrologer in Canada told me that it was my destiny to live out my life as an ordinary man, (See  A CHANCE ENCOUNTER WITH AN INDIAN ASTROLOGER) my teacher, Swami Bawra, was not impressed.  His words to me were, “You can change your destiny my boy.”

This fatalistic and passive approach to the notion of destiny is quite misguided and has had a detrimental effect on Indian culture because it assumes that our destiny need not encompass effort on our part.   That nothing we do can have any impact on the outcome. This notion is given momentum by the assertion by mystics that ‘Satwic Mind does not plan’.  

How we live NOW affects our destiny and each choice we make writes that destiny as does each moment we lie back and surrender to indolence.  It is our destiny to be what ever we will be.  So it is safer to assume that the outcome of our destiny will be what ever we make of it and not leave it to the chance in how the wind blows.  On the basis that I am not the doer I suspect that I will revisit this idea because I suspect that it is not quite that straight forward and I that this is not the whole story…..

(See:  Oracle of India: The Mystery of India’s Naadi Palm Leaf Readers)