The Law of Destiny
The Explanation
(8.5) What Is Destiny?
(8.5.1) Everything that lives develops towards the cosmic final goal. It is the destiny of us all to reach that goal sooner or later. How this will be achieved, what path we shall go, nobody can predict. It is part of our freedom and individual character that we choose and take the consequences of our choices. That we will reach the goal is certain. And the goal is the only thing that is determined and common to all. Everything else is part of our individual destiny and of the numberless collective destinies we share, now and in the future.
(8.5.2) Life is a hierarchy of collectives without number. The whole cosmos is a collective being that consists of lesser collectives; these of still lesser collectives and so forth down to the individual. Every individual develops under conditions that depend on the larger unit he enters into as a part. The collective has its common destiny, which limits the possible destiny of the individual. The welfare of the individual human being depends on the destinies of his nation and of mankind.
(8.5.3) Destiny is neither blind nor omnipotent. The powers of destiny are those intelligent agencies who, being subordinate to the great purpose of life, influence man and put him into situations where he may have the experiences that are necessary to his further development. This does not mean that man has these experiences. The powers of destiny just afford the opportunities. Man’s free will appears in the fact that he has his full freedom to choose. Therefore, it is ultimately man himself that determines his destiny and has to take the consequences of his choices according to the law of reaping.
(8.5.4) The law of reaping is the law of necessity. The law of destiny is the law of opportunity. In their cooperation they put man where he is to stand, where he must stand, where he should stand and where he may make his best contribution. By his actions and omissions in lives past man has by and large laid out the path he must wander in this life and in many lives to come. By the experiences he has had ever since the self was roused to consciousness, his individual character has been formed into the eternally unique being that he is himself. He has reached a certain level in evolution. The law of destiny takes all this into consideration when it lets us be born into a certain nation, family, and other human relations.
(8.6) We Create Our Destiny Ourselves
(8.6.1) Destiny is man’s own creation, the effect of his own action, the result of his own positive or negative attitude to life, his own attractive or repulsive consciousness expressions. Man has no reason for either self-pity or self-justification. He should be grateful for the fact that there are laws that help him to develop, to increase his freedom, his power over his own destiny.
(8.6.2) Life is an offer, an opportunity of development. If we have understood that we are here in order to have experiences and to learn from them, that there is a life-task for everyone of us, then we also understand that the best we can make of our lives is to find that task and do it. Then we shall also be spared that rebuff of life, which in new incarnations burdens us with even more compelling circumstances and limits our freedom still more.
(8.6.3) “Nobody escapes his destiny.” But our destiny is our own creation and for our own good. If we hold that attitude, then we make the best of our lives. Holding the opposite attitude we counteract evolution and harm ourselves. We must reach the insight that however hard our destiny is, it is not just inevitable but really the mildest suffering as well as that which best favours our further development from the point where we are now.
(8.6.4) Still more important for our self-realization is the insight that the powers of destiny are intelligent agencies that take an interest in our self-development and promote it. If you make the one important decision, and so definitively take your stand under unity, then you put in the strongest possible force for the change of your own destiny. That force can change your future completely. To work for evolution and unity is to walk the shortest path out of ignorance and impotence, the quickest path to freedom.