CHAPTER- 13
Destiny Unfolded;
Destiny-Does it exist or it is, free will.

There is surely destiny. There is no doubt about it. You are born in a particular home; you are born as a human being, the color of your eyes, the situations of your birth, everything that goes around you in the universe and all that is destiny. There is no doubt about it. So there is a lot just happening, and is outside the domain of your free-will. Simply call it destiny. Something that you never wished for, desired for, and is yet happening. And of that, the first event is your birth. Does anybody desire his or her own birth? Did you desire your birth? You did not, right? Do you desire that at a particular time a bus must pass on the highway, and also honk? We don’t desire all these things. All this is destiny, and there is no doubt about it. And destiny is important. There can be an earthquake any time. An asteroid may hit the earth, and we all would be vaporized. All this is destiny.We are not denying the force of destiny. All that we are saying is, that in spite of being important, it is nothing compared to another force. And that is the force of intelligence. That is the force of understanding. And destiny is nothing compared to that force. Destiny can only make outer events happen. But destiny can never touch your core. So destiny is powerless when it comes to the real you, the core, there, destiny is absolutely powerless. Destiny cannot touch your core.
The body can be hurt, wounded, destroyed, but your response to that event cannot be dictated by the external force that is hurting, or wounding or destroying. You have no control over what the world does to you, over the various forces in the universe, but you have all the control over yourself? And the one who controls himself, effectively controls the universe. Destiny has no value then. The one who has found himself, the one who has moved to the centre, destiny is powerless in front of him. The one who has not found himself would forever remain a slave of destiny, so whether or not destiny is important, depends on you. The one who has not found himself, the one who does not live at the core, he would always be a slave of destiny. There would only be destiny in his life.“Why do I have a lot of money?  Because I was born in a rich family. Why do I keep chasing women all the time? Because I am a debauch. Why did I choose B.Tech? Because I had subjects physics, chemistry and maths in class twelfth?  So the situations of your birth are dictating your entire life. That is slavery. Your place of birth is dictating your entire course of education. Your education is dictating your job. Your job is dictating your wife. Your wife is dictating your family. And there is hardly anything more to your life. There is nothing more to your life. So the entire life is being dictated by the situations of birth. The very particular gender decides the entire course of your life. That’s it.
How many of you want to live like that? “Because I was born in the year 1993,in the Gupta family, as a girl, therefore I am a homemaker today with five kids. Because I was born in the year 1990 as a Hindu or as a Muslim, so I have influents. These are just random occurrences? Were you greatly interested at the time of your birth, that whether you should be born a Muslim or a Hindu? The moment you were born, did you run towards a mosque or a temple? Imagine the child is newly born, and he is running to the church. And the doctor and the nurses are chasing him. The child is saying, “I am a devotee so after coming to the world, the first thing that I must do is to say-thank you to the lord”. Did that happen?
But today act as if your religious identity is your biggest asset. Is that so? That is the price you pay, that is the punishment you suffer. For not being at your centre. The one who will not live by his intelligence, will have to live by his destiny. In fact the lack of intelligence will become his destiny. When I say intelligence, I do not mean cleverness. Intelligence is that which shines in attention. Intelligence is that which shines when the ego has made way. Intelligence is that which starts shining when the mind says, I want to know.So it is all in your control. The moment you say, I really want to know, the power of intelligence becomes available to you. That is called attention. The feeling that- I really want to know ,is attentiveness. That power is always available to you. Whatever is your situation, you can always instantaneously move into attention. Everything else, all other powers, can be taken away from you, but the power to understand can never be taken away from you. Whatever be the condition, even in your worst of conditions, you can still understand what is going on. So intelligence is always available to you. You can never lose it.Those of you who do not want to live pre-scripted life, predestined life, must learn to be bold. They must learn to move beyond their patterns. They must not be afraid of something new happening. Otherwise you will find that there is a script ready for you, and all that you are doing is going by that script.
Isn’t the script already ready for you? Tell me, is a script not ready for you? How does it feel to live a life as if the chapters of the script are opening? And you are just acting as per the script? It has been pre-decided. It was already certain. We don’t know exactly how our universe was born but the most plausible and most agreed upon one, among every other theory, is big bang theory and so let’s go with it.
13.7 billion years ago, an infinitesimal point, into which the entire universe was compressed, under infinite pressure burst out, throwing all the atoms and molecules and energy outwards. It blast forth with such a spectacular force that these molecules travelled to great long distances, distances we can only imagine, distances we cannot even count. Then as time went on, these random atoms and molecules condensed and started forming dense matters- stars, asteroids, planets, etc. As time went on and on, around 4.3 billion years ago, a chunk of material that detached itself from our Sun settled at a particular point and started orbiting it. Then as foreign matters from asteroids came and settled in this mass of rock; random chemical reactions gave birth, quite by accident, to the first cells which discovered a means of reproduction and propagation. As time went on, process of natural selection- as we call it- set in and complex life forms came forth. Things became more and more complex, as time went on, and then at a particular point of time one of the various forms of life started to think, it gained self knowledge (consciousness). Then it invented rituals and random personifications to explain things unknown to it. This species, as time went on, dominated, through its wit, the entire planet so much.
And new and new innovations, new questions, self doubt, self discovery, everything happened and right now ,one member of that species asks in a format (language) that it created for itself, to its fellow members, through a communication medium (quora) that it invented itself - if destiny exists?   I’m not really sure. Does it exist?                                                             How many of you want to live like this, where everything is already decided? This way even your life-span is kind of decided. Marriage between the ages of twenty-five to thirty, kids at thirty, thirty-five. Even the number of kids is also already decided. Thirty years back it would be three, four or five. Now may be one or two. So everything is destined. Just the time of your birth and the place of your birth is deciding everything. So if your birth place is China, you cannot have kids more than one. Do you know that in India, in a disproportionately large number of families, the youngest kid is a boy? Because the families keep aborting the girl child, till they get a boy. So usually you will find that the youngest kid in the family is a boy. And the boy is born after the three-four girl Childs have been aborted. So, it is pre-decided that the last kid is the boy. Now what will happen to this boy who has come after so much slaughter? Do you want to live like that? You want to live with this destiny?
Do you see how powerless all this is? Do you see that this is sheer slavery? Or can there be freedom beyond destiny? Can there be life beyond destiny? You have to ask that to yourself. If today somebody comes to you and hands over the script of your life to you and says, “live it”, how will you feel? Every single breath that you take has been pre-decided. Is that already not the case? So it’s a good question to ask. “Is there a life beyond destiny? There is, but it is only for the strong,the courageous and the surrendered. Because that is the only source of strength and courage. Surrendered ! Don’t make such grave faces. It is actually quite easy. Quite simple. Some of you are actually looking afraid, Oh my god ! Going beyond our destiny. Why take so much pain when a script is already ready? Why should I write a new script? Somebody has done so much of effort. He has already written a complete script. Why should I violate that? Pay some respect to the script. Just like a puppet pays respect. Have you seen a puppet? Everything is already decided for the puppet. Puppet pays great respect to its script. It does nothing that is not written in the script. Beautiful life of a puppet! You want to live like that? Now the puppet will enter a B.Tech program because everybody else is doing that. The puppet will work hard to get more than seventy-five percent marks. So the master of the puppet will say-son now you have started earning, it is time to get married. And you feel so puffed-up. The next chapter of the script is unfolding.What can I do? The situations were such that I had to do this. You sing songs also where you attribute everything to destiny. “Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam,tum rahe na tum, hum rahe na hum” (if destiny would have allowed, you would have been mine. Destiny was so cruel that I did not remain myself, you did not remain yourself). So everything is destiny.Why are you alive?  Destiny sir. When death will come, I will die. When I had no role to play in my birth, why should I have any role to play in my death? Everything is destiny. Kahani kismet ki (The story of Destiny). It eases our burden. Right? We know that we are stupid. But we won’t say that. What we will say? Kismet hi kharab hai. (Bad Luck!) Why not simply say. I am stupid? Why everything that is going to happen will happen, because they were supposed to happen.
Freewill ;
We are who we are because of what we have experienced in life. So even though we have no control over what happens, we can control how we perceive it and choose to learn from it. Any experience in which we learn and grow from is no less than a meaningful experience, as such; nothing ever happens without meaning. ...action (freewill) - consequence of action (destiny)-find meaning in consequence (freewill)...For my own convenience, I believe that all abstract concepts were developed by humans, for their convenience. The fatalistic schools of thought came up with this one: destiny. Science would obviously dismiss it as being unscientific. But imagine a situation in our historic past when the king would behead anyone who brought bad news. In that situation, destiny could very well have proved to be a very useful concept. I also believe, on a much more serious note, that every abstract concept-whether it was posited by Einstein or was simply one of our superstitions-has a very definite point of origin. It is therefore only because there are people who have believed in it, even found it useful. So, instead of merely dismissing such concepts as being true or untrue. I prefer to view them from the perspective of a social psychologist that is empathetic toward all creations of the human mind. Finally, I also believe in giving everything the importance that is due. No more, no less, if for one person in the world there such a thing as destiny, others have no business dismissing it-even if it is un-or-non-scientific. Well to me at a macroscopic level concept of destiny is true. That is the life cycle follows kind of steps - be it mosquito, ant, humans or other living.            But at a microscopic level the events that happen in life are random collisions, that is not destiny. And nature wants it seriously that way, I feel. Nature is all creative and random. So the learning to me is – we can only generalize things to some extent always. That is not all Indians are stupid and nor all non Indians are smart. An intelligent man lives in attention, not under the influence of destiny. And the moment he starts living in attention, destiny loses its control on him. Now destiny cannot dictate its influence on him.                                                                    
What is destiny? Does it exist? Is it predetermined? Does fate exist? If so, why is it often so unjust? What’s your take on destiny (exist or not)?         On 26th December 2004, an Indian Ocean earthquake measuring 9.1 to 9.3 on the Richter scale ended up killing 2,30,000  to 2,80, 000 people in 14 countries. And it was considered the deadliest natural disaster in recorded history? Was the death of all the people who died-predestined ,that they would die? Or was it destiny that they were supposed to die? And the people who lived did they control their own destiny which is why they didn’t die? Or was it destined they shouldn’t die? What do you think? Did god will this? Was it his master plan? Did he do it so that the people whose families got destroyed, he would test them to see if the families that suffered- would still love him and worship him? Was this an act of anger because people were bad and evil? So by killing all the people near the coastline-God made a point? Or was it that only the people at the coastline were evil, but the people staying far away from the coastline were good people so that is why he sent a tsunami?
The second argument derives itself from the knowledge of modern science. It says that the whole universe is a continuum. What this means is that there is no part of the universe which is isolated from other parts, whatever happens in one part of the universe influences the whole of it. This effect might not be detectable. But that it occurs cannot be denied. For example, if I throw a pebble in the Pacific Ocean then the disturbance it will create is bound to travel to the other end of the ocean and affect the water molecules there. It is entirely another matter whether we are capable of measuring that effect or not. Similarly, take the case of stars billions of light years away from us. Since the light from those stars eventually reaches us, it must be influencing us in some way or the other. We also understand that for any event to take place there must be numerous events in the past which make this event possible. Each event is a culmination of innumerable events in the past as well as forerunner of some other events in the future. For example, for me to take birth the births of my parents were a necessary precondition and so on. If we start tracing back the turn of events which made my birth possible, we will have to go back to the very beginning of the universe. Now let us consider the insignificance of a human being in the scheme of the universe. Even a drop of water in the largest ocean has more significant presence in the backdrop of that ocean than a human being has in the universe. What this signifies is that it is impossible for a man to change the course of events. Since the causes of those events lie not in his domain but in the whole of the past of the universe. Can one realistically hope to negate the whole tide of the past considering the limits of its much less than insignificant strength. Thought or will?


We have power and the freewill to do what we do. Our action, what we choose to do and what we choose to work towards becoming that, is our freewill. However, we don’t really have control over the consequence of our actions. What happens after we do something isn’t up to us. Sure there are many times where the result was exactly what we thought our action would cause. But I’m sure that we have all done something the results being completely unexpected. If what happens as a result of our actions can be random and even opposite of what it was supposed to be, then it could be that, it is by the same chance when things happen, like they were supposed to happen.
Adolf Hitler rose to power as the Chancellor of Germany and then as the dictator initiated the World War 2 with the invasion of Poland in 1939. He was responsible for killing 5.5 million Jews, 19.3 million civilians and under his rule 29 million soldiers died due to the military action.So in this example- was it destined that Hitler should do this? Did he control his destiny and he chose to become evil or was destiny pre planned for him to be evil-so that even if he wanted to be good-he would still be bad? Did the people who die control their destiny or were they pre-destined to die? Was it God’s will, that this should happen? Where was God when Hitler was killing all these people? Or was it that God decided he should intervene at the right time-and the right time was after Hitler killed all the millions of people? If God knows everything, it means he knew Hitler would rise to power and he knew Hitler would kill the same children whom God brought into the world. So did he allow this, so that there would be a special plan implemented and purpose fulfilled? Whether as a solider or a Jew could I have possibly chosen my own destiny? Or changed my own destiny? But then if it was all destiny then why-Hitler should be blamed now. Should he be? Because no matter what he would do-destiny would not allow him to be good. So in other words-Hitler was destined to be bad anyways. So doesn’t that make him good?
There are different laws of life which govern the outcome of an act. Let us take an example. Say, you are going to plant a tree. As long as you have not done it, you have plenty of options. You may choose not to plant the seed at all. You may choose the type of tree you wish to grow. But once you have taken that decision and acted upon it, your freedom is curtailed by many degrees. If you plant a mango tree, then no matter what you do you cannot get any other fruit from that tree. Of course, even for reaping the harvest of mangoes you have to keep your fingers crossed. You cannot guarantee that the seed you just planted will grow to a big tree at all. It may also happen that the tree grows, bears fruit, but you cannot taste even a single fruit. There might be plenty of reasons for this, in other words, your freedom is limited to the actions you take but not to the outcome of that act. This sounds logical because the outcome of any act depends on so many factors that one cannot realistically hope to have control over all those factors. That is why even the best laid plans of the mightiest and most intelligent people turn to dust. This concept is called law of karma, already discussed by us above.
In the Eastern philosophies, like Hindu or Buddhist Philosophy, there is the concept of reincarnation. It says, we all keep taking birth after birth. This cycle of birth and death has been continuing since eternity, and will keep on repeating itself till a human being attains enlightenment. This state of enlightenment has been described differently by different sages. Some have called it self-realization, some have called it self actualization. It is also known as attaining moksha, nirvana or kaivalya. Only after one achieves it, one can break out of this relentless cycle of birth and death.The law of karma says that all that happens in one’s life is result of his own deeds. One can never escape the fruits of whatever he has done. Just like different plants take different time spans to grow up, different actions also take different time spans to bear fruit. It may be that the result of some act may take more time to fructify than the remaining life span of the person who committed that act. In such cases, the person has to bear the results of such actions in his next life. Now we come to the theory which says that all events are predestined. There is nothing called freewill. We are all like instruments in some grand design and nothing else. All our thoughts and actions are predestined. I would give two arguments in favour of this theory.
Let us first examine the subject of astrology. It has also been a subject of a great and inconclusive debate. Is there some truth in the astrological sciences? I think that while it is not possible to establish the efficacy of astrology beyond any doubt, it is perhaps more difficult to deny it altogether. Most of us have had some experience with astrologers where some of their predictions came out to be astonishingly accurate. It can be argued that a majority of astrological predictions fail. But I am not talking of failed predictions. There can be many reasons for that. I am focusing on the predictions which turn out to be true. How can it be possible for someone to predict some event of future?
Let us consider for a moment a journey from one place to another. Is that journey and all events related to it are predestined? I decided to get my face tattooed and finally, this is me getting my face tattooed. Is this destined that I was going to get my face tattooed? Or did I choose my destiny to get my own face tattooed? Or did God had a special plan for me to get my face tattooed? Or was it like God didn’t plan this but I planned it for myself. Which means God doesn’t plan everything –we do, but he stands back and watches to see what’s going on. Then the question goes. If he allows you to do whatever you want-then what about the innocent woman who prays to God to protect her every single day from rape-but a man rapes her-did God allow that? Or did he stand back and watch and decide now is not the right time to interfere in this matter? Maybe after they all die-only then I will reward her and punish him. So until that for the next 50 years let her live with that mental and emotional scar? So what is it, destiny? All predestined? Now we can go on and on and on with examples, hypotheses and assumptions. And the fact of the matter is, each side, group or individual will not agree without putting up a fight and trying to convince the other to their point of view. However, all I can do is give you my perspective.
You see, we as human being –we like to think. Rather, let me rephrase that statement-we as human beings love to think. If we are not thinking good things we would be thinking bad things. If we are not thinking bad things, we could be thinking funny things. And if not that we would be either religious or not.One of the greatest and everlasting debate of humanity has been about the role of destiny in the lives of human beings. There was a time when it was almost an accepted fact of life that each and every event was governed by destiny of human beings. Astrology was considered a science. Then with the advent of modern times the importance of role of destiny as a concept started losing weight. Today belief in destiny is considered a superstition by majority of people, and rightly so, since there seems to be no evidence for the irrevocably of destiny.There are three schools of thoughts about fate; the most prevalent these days seems to be the one which says that there is nothing called destiny or fate.This line of thinking says that human beings do possess freewill. All our successes, failures and actions are governed by the decisions we take. If we take correct decisions and act accordingly, no one can prevent us from achieving what we want to. If we fail, it must be due to something wrong on our part. We have the option to take decisions using our freewill. In this line of thinking, fate is considered a superstition at worst and at best one can regard it as a psychological defense system to cope with the failures in life. Whenever you fail in some endeavor or whenever something happen which is not in accordance with your wish, you use it as a convenient scapegoat. You say, it was your bad luck which caused you to fail. Otherwise, how could you fail? You are never ready to accept that it was you who was responsible for the failure. It may have been due to some bad planning, lack of efforts in the right direction or outright failure to correctly judge the realities of your goal. But since it hurts to accept that you were the one who committed the mistake, you take shelter behind the concept of fate and blame it on your karma. This relieves you of the terrible pain of knowledge and accepting the defeat. This line of thinking has gained currency mainly because of the persons who subscribe to this theory. Among the votaries of this theory, are the people who are successful. Almost all of the people who are considered as successful in their lives agree with this line of thinking, they say there is nothing called fate, they believe in themselves and in the existence of freewill. Other people, looking at the supporters of this theory, grudgingly start accepting it since the logic that one must be right if he is successful, comes into play.
Answer the question of differences between different people at the point of their birth. Why one is born to rich parents and another to poor ones? Why are some children born healthy and some sick or crippled in some way? There are many such questions. But for starters such questions suffice. Apart from offering the word coincidence it has no credible sounding answers. There can be many arguments for and against this theory, but the debate is bound to remain inconclusive.It must be said at this point that once a successful person, who does not believe in destiny, starts experiencing failures, he slowly begins to accept the existence of fate. Perhaps, the experiences of people are the strongest arguments in favor of destiny. We also like to think and reason and give meaning to things we cannot understand. And sometimes when we are jobless, we like to think and ask questions for which no one knows the meaning to –but we simply ask-because we want to know the why of things. And that is where the religious apologists become the experts in knowing everything. For example:
Questions: why did this happen?
Answer: God has a special plan for you or it was destined or you attracted this with the power of your mind or God is punishing you.
Question: why did this bad thing happen?
Answer: God had a special plan for you or it was destined or you attracted this with the power of your mind or God is punishing you.
Question: why did this good thing happen?
Answer: praise God! He listened to your prayers or God rewards those who believe in him or it was destined or you attracted this with the power of your mind.
Question: why did Loy Machedo become an atheist?
Answer: God had a special plan for him or it was destined or he attracted this with the power of his mind or God was testing him and he gave up on him or he had such weak faith.
Question: why did Loy Machedo the atheist lose all his money?
Answer: God was punishing him or it was destined or he attracted this with the power of his mind or God was giving a message or he got what he deserved.
Question: why did Loy Machedo the atheist, earn over $1,000,000?
Answer: God had a special plan for him or it was destined or he attracted this with the power of his mind or God wants him to do good or this is Satan’s money.
The combinations are endless. But here is the thing. Can we prove that any of the statements are correct? No, we can only assume. And whatever combination suits our agenda, our purpose and our thinking, we will accept only that. Which is our cognitive bias
So now the million dollar question is – What is true? What is false? What is the answer?
When I look at my life and see the various transformations I have gone through, I can tell you without a doubt, all those transformations were done by me. I choose to have that particular hairstyle, look or behavior. However, I couldn’t finally, have a look at this:Yeah, this is the happening of the big bang. The two galaxies about to collide about 8,000,000,000 years after the big bang, the very next moment was certain.
If we were somehow able to compute the above situations accurately, we would successfully reach the formation of earth 8.8 billion years after the big bang. Computing further, reaching the present, the current moment could’ve been predicted at the time of the big bang.Thinking deeper, the rivers flowing, the wind blowing, each and every thing was supposed to happen. Even the neurons functioning in our brain right now which made you post this question on quora were predicted to do so 1.3 billion years ago.It’s just its too hard for us to compute these unlike the above situations.
What does that mean?
The present and the future were already written since the beginning of time. Precisely, the future was already destined. So my dear friend, every single thought you’re processing right now, if you notice what I did was, I took credit for my successes and the failures I blamed on my destiny. And I could very well twist the argument the other way around and it would still sound correct to me. So now what is the answer to the question to destiny? Destiny is there or we create our own destiny? The answer is this: whatever you say-whatever that answer is right for you and for you only, we human being like to believe we came into this world to achieve a purpose, to do something special, to make a difference, to achieve our purpose and to do blah! blah! blah! And then one accident and you are dead. So then what happened to your purpose? What happened to -make a difference? What happened -to do something special? Keep this much in mind –as long as you are alive you can keep going on and on about this I’m in control of my destiny, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my ship. All sounds nice-until of course name of your ship is “The Titanic.” I tell you- you decide whatever you feel is correct, karma or destiny or God or no God or pre destined or post destined or I am in control or I can attract to myself-whatever you decide- guess what is right! And I leave it to that. You smile happily and then you leave. Because if I were to tell you the truth that -there is no purpose of your life or that there is no God or after you die- it’s finished, you will not like it.
So the moment of truth is-
As a young man who went through the journey to discover himself- I was head strong about my beliefs, just as people were headstrong about theirs. And what I realized after years and years and years of spending hours and hours of debates, discussion and talks-that answering the question, whether destiny is there or there is full free will is like finding the answer to the question whether the glass is half empty or half full . No one is right and no one is wrong because no one wants to be wrong. And so how can you prove something- that cannot be proved?

                                                The End
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Pavan Kumar Sharma  I.R.S...................................................Author.