Can destiny be changed? Gautam Buddha was once asked. “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, sense of ‘fatalism’ seems to be so deeply ingrained in the psyche, that they refuse to even explore the obvious truth. Pandits rely on superstition and quote shady texts to exploit human vulnerability for their vested interests. The paradox, 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 is interesting to note that the course of destiny applies only to human beings. Other species such as plants and animals are bound by their basic nature. They follow a predefined natural cycle and don’t have the scope of exception. Human beings on the contrary enjoy the exclusive prerogative of making choices. But no sooner is option available, the probability of its use and misuse becomes equal. There is nothing like a free lunch in this world. One has to own up the consequences of the choices made. That is what binds human beings to a cause-effect chain, which sets the premise on which our 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 can guide their actions by choice and discrimination. The discriminatory ability empowers us to evaluate the choices available, make right judgment, and pick up right lead. But this particular faculty does not play out involuntarily. It has 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 than not, 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 just energy fields, 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. Remember, mind is a very powerful instrument, which can reflect upon itself, and explore one’s own nature — desire trends, habits & attitudes, likes & dislikes, prejudices and 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 and 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. Evidently then, life may turn into a beautiful experience.
The writer is an astrologer, vastu consultant and spiritual counsellor. Connect with him at
Tel: 91-11-9818037273/9871037272