A definition of ‘Fate’

Re: 08: A Shrine for the God of Love by RY Deshpande

on Tue 10 Apr 2007 07:46 AM PDT Profile Permanent Link

The Destiny’s Dice The question of Destiny doesn’t arise for the transcendent Savitri; it arises for her only on the earth, in this mortal world, when she incarnates herself here, here where are present all the difficulties of the inconscient nature and all the possibilities of the superconscient spirit. She accepts them all by taking birth as the incarnate power. In it her one single concern is the conquest of Death. Earth is the chosen place for this, the battleground, the grim playfield for this godlike game. It is that game she must win or lose—win or lose not for herself, but for the small struggling helpless soul of man.

The purpose of her birth is to hew for it the great ways of Immortality. But then this whole operation also entails uncertainty. There is the unease, the reservation, the doubt if she is going to succeed or fail in this stiff and complex encounter. No one knows if she is going to win or lose the godlike game—not even Narad, the heavenly sage. He was asked by Aswapati, Savitri’s human father, if she is not going to prove to be the winner when the high Power is supposed to be the compeer of Fate that seems to dominate everything here at the moment. In the process, he also provides a definition of ‘Fate’...

But Savitri’s fate is not a soldier’s fatalistic image of the bullet that has his name written on it. It is not the popular kismet taken for the will of God. But in the vast cosmic working there are countless pulls and pushes, there are determinations defeating powerful determinations, there are a thousand operations which are contradictory to each other, which clash with each other.

There is fate, there is destiny, there is kismet; there is the threefold sanchita-prarabdha-agami destiny, that which comes from the accumulated past actions, that which is worked out in the present life, and that which will add to the future determinations; there is the nature’s will, there is the will of the ego-self, of the inner being’s, of the soul’s, the spirit’s, there is purushkar, the gods’ will, the will of the cosmic Purusha, the will of the supreme Being transcending all, the Creator’s will. There is the criss-crossing of a thousand wills and a thousand forces in the working of this strange mysterious World of God, a thousand wills having their separate causes and giving rise to their corresponding consequences.

But all these will get purified, get consumed in the yogic fire kindled in the will of the spirit. Even as Savitri shall do the Yoga of the Conquest of Death, her will will acquire another strength and another keenness. But even that may not be powerful enough. The winning power will come only in her will becoming one with the supreme Will. Nay, even more than that. When it becomes “What Thou Willest, What Thou Willest”, then in it is established the absoluteness of Destiny, then in it she gets her true free will. Then the Power that dwells within her will become the high compeer of Fate. When Narad tells Aswapati that a greatness in his daughter's soul resides, the greatness that can transform herself and all around, he is actually suggesting this identification of her will with the supreme Will, she even in the physical experiencing “What Thou Willest, What Thou Willest”. That is the Mantra of Transformation, the moulder of destiny. RYD