Gautam Buddha was once asked: “Can destiny be changed?” “No. But you can change your habits, attitudes and mental orientation. Once you succeed in changing them, destiny automatically changes,” he replied. The paradox, however, is that for a large majority of Indians, which includes even well-educated people, sense of ‘fatalism’ seems to be deeply ingrained in their psyche. So, they refuse to explore even the obvious truth. Pundits perpetuate the sense of superstition quoting shady texts to exploit human vulnerability, as that serves their vested interest. The irony, however, is that seldom are people conscious about exploring their true nature with the intent to make necessary amend in their approach to life.
It will be interesting to note here that the course of destiny applies only on human beings. Why? Other species such as trees, plants and animals are bound by their basic nature. They keep following their predefined natural cycle. They don’t enjoy the scope to make any exception. Human beings on the contrary enjoy the exclusive prerogative of making choices. But no sooner option is available, the probability of its use and misuse becomes equal. And there is nothing like a free lunch in this world. You will have to own up for the choices made and bear with the consequences thereof. That is what binds human beings to a cause-effect chain. It is on this premise that our course of destiny stands, and which stretches on to even next birth.
To overcome the above vulnerability, human beings also enjoy another exclusive privilege - the faculty of discriminate intelligence. They, thus, could guide their actions by choice and discrimination. The discriminatory ability empowers us to explore the choices available, evaluate them, make reasoned judgment, and pick up right lead. But this faculty does not play out involuntarily. It needs to be consciously invoked on every occasion before taking any call, which remains the prerogative of ahamkara (Ego). The irony, however, is that our egotistical mind gets carried away by seeming realities. They, thus, are tempted to take things on their face value. More often, caught up in the usual flow of life, our egotistical mind doesn’t care to invoke discriminatory faculty for due diligence. Guided by their instinctive judgment, they jump into action without applying proper forethought, and evidently to our detriment.
The question now is: how does our karmic consequences get carried over to the next life? Going by ancient Indian philosophic perception, a being’s life is structured in three layers – Causal, Astral, And Gross. Causal body carries the imprints of the past, which sets the terms of how we are expected to come up in life. These imprints are picked up by the astral body, which translates them into action through the gross body platform playing from the front. All mind functions, including our memory, remains the prerogative of astral body. As one meets the end of life, it is just our gross body that disintegrates. The causal and astral bodies, that are pure energy dimensions, are not lost. Carrying all memory imprints, they move on to higher dimension, to reincarnate afresh with a new gross body platform. The newly born has in store all memory imprints picked up during the past birth, in the form of thought-seeds. As and when they get congenial ground they come into play. So, it is again mind through which destiny indications play out.
Here again, since we enjoy choice option, it also enjoins upon us with the capability to make conscientious choices to checkmate carryover implications from the past and pick up fresh leads. It needs to be appreciated here that mind is a very powerful instrument. It can even self-reflect upon itself, and explore one’s own nature – desire trends, habits & attitudes, likes & dislikes, prejudices & obsessions, as well as indwelling potential. All that is needed is to take charge of oneself. Identify, acknowledge, address one’s infirmities and then redefine the thought process through fresh educative inputs. In the process, you may get over all preconditioning of mind. Following which, your mind power will be available in full strength, which may know no limits. With your expanded vision and improved sense of reasons and judgment, you may see things in the right perspective due. You will be able to discriminate between ‘what you want’ and ‘what is right’ and pick up the right lead. Your inter-personal relations will improve, and therefore, you may be able to relate well with all and sundry. Life may then turn into a beautiful experience.
The writer is an astrologer, vastu consultant and spiritual counsellor. Connect with him at
Tel: 91-11-9818037273/9871037272
