Is our destiny fixed? Or we live our lives by free will?

Let us understand destiny or fate as we call it.

Fate means something that is destined to happen (pre written by some supernatural power). You cannot change it.

In many religions, there is a certain half presented philosophy which says that God has written everything in advance. So, humans are mere puppets who are playing their part. This philosophy leaves no control with humans.

However, fate doesn’t work in singularity. Fate or destiny comes from our actions and our behaviour, our behaviours are governed by our thoughts and our feelings. Our thoughts are controlled by our beliefs and perceptions.

Fate is nothing but a product of our belief. If we are able to change our beliefs, our actions will change and so our fate or destiny.

Let us take examples of two of the main characters of Mahabharat.

Dhritirastra - He believed that he was the rightful kind and he lost it to his younger brother Pandu because he was blind. He cursed his blindness and believed his son Duryodhan should be the kind in his place.

Duryodhan - He believed he was the rightful heir as his father (Dhritirastra) was a king. He perceived his brothers (Pandavas) as enemies, hated them to the extent that he thought it was fair to kill them, to become a king.

If we look at Duryodhan, it is obvious, his beliefs lead to certain thoughts, emotions, behaviours or actions. That lead to his destiny to die in the war. If his belief system had changed, if he had left his stubborn attitude and divided kingdom with Pandavas, he would have ruled half the kingdom easily. On the other hand, Arjun made an informed choice of fighting the war, as a part of his duty.

But his belief got him killed. If beliefs can be changed, destiny changes. In other words, our beliefs, our thoughts, our behaviour, our actions (karma) will lead to our destiny. Finally, actions are what matters. Karma is nothing but our actions, or our idea of our duty.

However, we don’t change our beliefs and hence we follow certain karmas to find a destiny we meet. We then say that it was destined or pre-planned.

We put all the blame to destiny and God who has written it. But we don’t reflect on our actions and beliefs that led to the actions.

When you read books like ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ you come across the principle of Freedom of Choice. Humans are capable of making a choice because of self-awareness (ability to examine self), imagination (ability to think beyond today), conscience (ability to distinguish between right and wrong) and independent will (ability to choose a response even in extremely difficult situations). Even in seemingly impossible situation, you can still exercise freedom of choice. Experiences of Viktor Frankl in Nazi camp written in his book ‘The Man’s Search for Meaning’ written testifies to it.

Dr. Sheena Iyengar in her book ‘Art of Choosing’ shares her interesting research. We can divide events that happen in our lives in two categories, one events we have not control on, and two events that we choose to happen. We had no control on pandemic but we had control on how to act in this pandemic.

Cheiro, a famous astrologer, palmist, and numerologist, made number of predictions of well-known celebrities which have come true. Once a reporter asked him, ‘Can we change our future that you have predicted.’ He answered, ‘Yes you can, but in my experience it does not change. Because to change your future, you need to change your mental bent which is extremely difficult.’

Since we see a majority of events happening around us that we have no control over, we start believing that our lives are controlled by divine. But that very divine has given us power to choose (however small it may seem) and create their own destiny.

Thank you.

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