DESTINY AND KARMAS

Story of a young girl searching for destiny:

This is a story of a young girl who wanted to know about her destiny. She went around the city and met different astrologers to find her fortune. But even after meeting many of them, she was still not satisfied with their prediction and was getting more and more desperate. One day, she came to know that a World-renowned astrologer is visiting their city. She decided to try one more time to know about her luck.

When she met the astrologer, he told her that he follows a methodology and it always gives the right result. The astrologer draws two circles on the floor, and he wrote on them – a White circle and Black Circle. Then the astrologer opened his secret box which had a turtle inside it. The astrologer told the girl that if the turtle moves on the white circle, it means that her destiny is good but if it moves towards the black circle, it means her destiny is bad.

With bated breath, the astrologer freed the turtle from the floor. In the beginning, the turtle moved towards the white circle, the girl felt very good and excited but suddenly the turtle shifted and started moving towards the black circle. The girl got petrified. As soon as the turtle was on the verge of touching the black circle, the girl rushed up from her chair, picked up the turtle and deliberately put the turtle on the white circle.

The astrologer got very angry and shouted at the girl that how she could dare to disturb the process as it is not ethical. The girl retorted back ‘how can I allow my destiny to go bad, I will not allow it to happen in any case!’ When the girl was answering this question to the astrologer, something strikes in her head and she got the answer to her question which she was looking for many-many years.

The destiny is in her hand only. She is the creator of her destiny. No one can change her destiny without her permission.  

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”
― Gautama Buddha, Sayings Of Buddha               

Destiny sometimes referred to as fate (from the Latin fatum), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual.

Destiny is formed by different factors, some under control and some not. Whatever you are today is not only because of the way you think and act now. It is a combination of five different imprints.

Let’s examine each one:

1. Your Surroundings: Knowingly and unknowingly, you learn many things from your surroundings. The process of learning starts from the early age of two when you start grasping things around you. In the initial years, your grasping power is very high. As per a study, whatever you are today is conditioned from the learning gained to the age of five!

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” – William Shakespeare

2. This Birth karma: Whatever good and bad you think and do creates your destiny. Thus, good karmas* produce an outstanding effect, while bad karma produces an unpleasant effect. This effect may be material, moral or emotional — that is, one’s karma affects one’s happiness and unhappiness. If you have the habit of waking up early in the morning and doing physical activity, you are creating your destiny of remaining healthy in your old age. If you smoke many cigarettes a day, you are creating a destiny of poor health.
   *Karma: the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding one’s fate in future existences.

Control your own destiny or someone else will: Jack Welch

3. Genetic Impact: When a child is born, the genes are transmitted from parents to offspring. These genes carry traits not only from the parents but also from relatives like grandparents, uncles, aunts, etc. In terms of genes, a child does not have control over them but must carry them with him/her from birth. You must have seen many persons whose hair gets grey in the teenage age although they do not have any health ailment, that is generally due to genetic impact.
4. Past Birth: Karma is the Divine Law of Justice that applies to all of us. It’s a LAW, just like the Law of Gravity. Doing Good give, our superior results and doing bad gives awful results. This Law has existed forever, acting automatically in all our past incarnations; and it is acting on you in this birth. Sometimes, you wonder why bad things are happening to you even when you haven’t committed any sin…It’s your past life’s bad karma catching up with you (like a flood or earthquake). THAT person was also you; THIS person is also you. Similarly, you will find persons who may not be very intelligent & deserving but still, all the best things in the world may be happening to them. The classic example is the birth of twins. Although they are identical in terms of birth time and physical appearance, still they are two entirely different personalities.
5. Original impressions: These are the original impressions of the soul that are pure and without taint when our journey started.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”- Steve Jobs

Thus, you are the sum total of five different imprints. The question is what is in your control and what is not? Original impressions, past birth and genetic impact are not in your control. Only two factors are controllable, i.e., your surroundings and your karmas in this birth. You have limited control over your surroundings (at least during childhood), but you have 100% control over your karmas. Whatever you feed in makes your karmas, it is imperative to take care of what you absorb. Maybe in childhood you weren’t aware and did not have much control; but as you grew into an adult, it became your responsibility to take care of what you are feeding in consciously and unconsciously. The kind of self-talk that you do, the type of people you meet, the kind of food you eat, etc. make your present karmas.

If you are born with bad genes and poor karmas, what can you do now to improve? You cannot delete anything from your past, but you can certainly dilute things by doing more and more good karmas.

You are the creator of your destiny. You may have many pitfalls, but you are the owner of your destiny. The onus lies with you.