Destiny

[Guest Papi]

i was just thinking today, gubani tells us again and again that the actions we do are pre-determined right?

kwcy Bwfy swij invwjy AMqir joiq smweI ]

kaachae bhaaddae saaj nivaajae a(n)thar joth samaaee ||

He creates and adorns the earthen vessels; He infuses His Light within them.

jYsw ilKqu iliKAw Duir krqY hm qYsI ikriq kmweI ]2]

jaisaa likhath likhiaa dhhur karathai ham thaisee kirath kamaaee ||2||

As is the destiny pre-ordained by the Creator, so are the deeds we do. ||2||

if our destiny is already pre-written then why do we need to do any good karam? i mean surely if its written then we will do good karam rite? this question really boggles my mind, maybe some blessed souls can shed light on this. i would really like some sort of an answer.

[Guest Papi]

it seems that any thread i start doesnt get any replies

eh ki gull aa??

[Singhstah]

VahegurooJiKaKhalsaVahegurooJiKiFateh

from wat i understand, i think we have many possible destinies. Like sometimes in gurbani it says that guroo sahib activated your destiny to meet the lord. so if u show devotion guroo ji will be pleased and give u mukti, if u dont he wont activate ur karams.

VahegurooJiKaKhalsaVahegurooJiKiFateh

[Pheena]

" It is rather intricate and complicated. There are only two systems of sadhana -- of spiritual practice. The basis of one system is resolve, and that of the other is surrender. Both lead to the same goal but they are diametrically the opposite of each other.

The methods of Mahavir and Patanjali and Gorakh are based on resolve, on effort. All life-energy is devoted to the effort. When there is absolutely no energy remaining outside that effort, when you have given yourself up to it wholly, that very day the event will occur; when you have left nothing for yourself, your resolve will be complete and perfect.

Nanak, Meera and Chaitanya have followed the second path, the way of surrender. It is entirely different; the seeker believes that nothing happens through one's own effort -- only through His grace do we achieve. Now this does not mean you make no effort, but don't put too much faith in your prowess. Try you must, but remember that the outcome will happen only through His grace.

This is very, very important. If you rely only on your own labors, you will strengthen your ego. Therefore it is easy for a yogi to be proud, because he begins to believe that things are happening because of him.

Once this ego develops it is very difficult to be rid of it. It is easier to be rid of the arrogance of wealth, it is not difficult to renounce the pride of position, but it is very difficult to be rid of the ego of one's own endeavors.

There is every possibility of the seeker feeling that whatever is happening is because of him; the I becomes primary and God secondary. Because of this danger, Mahavir, Patanjali, Gorakh and others who follow this path lay great stress on the annihilation of the ego.

Make the effort, put your all into it, but renounce your ego is what they stress so emphatically. If the ego functions along with the effort, it will get stronger and stronger. Then you feel in whatever you do, I am doing it: I have done japa, I have done penance, I have attained occult powers. And if this arrogance is not eradicated in good time, you will have opened many doors but not the last. All your efforts will have been in vain.

Therefore, Nanak says: Try with all your might, but remember, His grace alone can bring about the happening. With this precaution, the risk in the method of resolve is removed. But there is a different risk in the path of surrender, which arises at the very beginning.

The danger is in feeling that there is no need to do anything. If the happening occurs only through His grace, what can we do? It becomes an excuse for not doing anything. So you remain involved in all the useless daily activities of life. You may assume it is not yet His will that you should set out on this path -- and so you wait. Meanwhile you indulge in all that is most contemptible in life; you wander in the maze of the material world.

Thus the danger in the path of surrender lies at the very onset -- you might become lost in laziness and inertia.

So try you must in the fullest measure, while remembering that the fruit of the endeavor is attained only through His grace. Therefore Nanak repeats over and over: His grace showers only on those within the gaze of His compassionate vision. On whom does this compassion descend but those who prepare themselves for it through their efforts?

Understand that in everyday life the meaning of a compassionate look is quite different. Does He too show partiality? Is He kind to His own but lets the rest be? Does He select a few to shower with His grace while He leaves others to suffer? We cannot associate God with such injustices. Things would become meaningless if a sinner might receive His grace while a saint is deprived of it. There would be no sense in doing anything.

No, this is not the meaning of the compassionate look. It is not that He chooses someone that suits His whim or fancy, or that He favors those who flatter and sing His praises. His grace showers on all, but there are some who have turned their pots upside down, so that they never get filled. If your pot is upright, it is bound to be filled. And don't imagine that your upright pot caused the grace to shower! Grace showers all the time.

Nanak says the filling takes place by His compassion, but some effort you have to make -- by placing your vessel in the proper position to receive.

And you will have to see that there are no cracks or holes in it, that it is not lying upside down or slanting so that the grace cannot reach the mouth of your vessel and enter it.

His grace pours on everyone incessantly. It is you who are not standing upright to receive it or in your twisting and turning, it slides off you.

There is an apparent contradiction: if you are deprived of grace you have only yourself to blame, but if you attain grace it is only because of Him. You attain through Him, lose through your own self.

When following the path of surrender it is imperative to remember that if I am losing, it is I who am wrong; if I am gaining, it is entirely by His grace. This way the ego cannot be fattened, because there is no space within for it to expand -- or even to exist. He who has no ego finds that God is within him. "

[Pheena]

I'll post this too, but be watchfull of the dangers mentioned above when surrendering.

Generally this feeling comes about after a person has tried his very best to get out of some trying circumstances. Having made full use of his sense of doing, he finds himself defeated on all sides, and then he turns to Him in desperation, leaving everything to Him; but this is no real surrendering. From the very beginning you should not make any effort to change your circumstances, but leave everything in His hands.

Nanak's concept of supreme surrender is the ultimate spiritual path, the highest practice of a devotee. Then you needn't worry about choosing a path or method or scripture. You needn't worry about logic or proof of any philosophy; you have no use for any of these. The devotee rids himself of all these in the one stroke of surrender. He leaves everything at one time and cries out: "Thy way, not mine, O Lord! Thy will be done!"

Experiment a little and you will understand. Nanak is no philosopher. He has not written a scripture, his words are the expression of his inner feelings. He is giving voice to his own experience. You will have difficulty at every step because of the ego, whose very cry is: I know what is right and what should be.

There is a short story by Tolstoy: The god of death sent his angel to earth as an emissary to bring back the soul of a woman who had just died. The angel found himself in a dilemma because the woman had given birth to triplets.

All three were girls: one was still sucking milk from the dead mother, another was crying and the third was so exhausted that it had fallen asleep. Such was the state -- three little babies, the mother lying dead and no one to look after them, since the father was already dead and there was no one else in the family.

The angel returned without the woman's soul and told the god of death: "Forgive me, I did not bring back the woman's soul. You can't be aware of what I have just witnessed: there are three little babies that this woman has given birth to, one still suckling at her breast. There is no one to care for them. Can't you allow a little time to the mother so that the girls are big enough to look after themselves?"

"So you have become very clever and wise, it seems," said the god of death, "perhaps wiser than he who wills both death and life to all mortal beings. You have committed the first sin for which you shall be punished. You will have to return to earth and, until such time as you laugh three times at your own foolishness, you shall not return."

Understand this: laugh three times at your foolishness. The ego always laughs at the nonsense of others. When you can laugh at you own absurdity, the ego breaks. The angel readily agreed to undergo the punishment. He was quite certain he was right under the circumstances, and wondered how he would find an opportunity to laugh at himself. He was ejected from heaven.

It was almost winter. A cobbler, who was on his way to buy warm clothes for his children, came upon a poor man, bare to the bones and trembling in the cold. It was none other than our friend the angel. The cobbler felt sorry for him. Instead of buying the children's clothes with his hard-earned money, he went and bought clothes and a blanket for the naked man. When he also came to know that he had nothing to eat and nowhere to go, he offered him the shelter of his own house. However, he warned him that his wife was bound to get angry but he should not be upset, everything would be all right later on.

The cobbler arrived home with the angel. Neither the cobbler nor the wife had any idea who he really was. As soon as they entered the door the wife fired off a volley of abuse at her husband for what he had done.

The angel laughed for the first time.

The cobbler asked him why he laughed. "When I have laughed again I shall tell you," he answered, knowing that the cobbler's wife was unaware that the very presence of an angel who was her unwanted guest would confer a thousand benefits.

But how far can the human mind see? For the wife it was a loss of warm clothing for the kids. She can only see the loss, but not what had been found -- and free of cost, at that. So he laughed, because she didn't know what was happening around her.

Within seven days he learned the shoemaker's trade, and within a few months the cobbler's fame had spread far and wide. Even kings and noblemen ordered their shoes here, and money began to flow in an endless stream.

One day the king's servant came to the shop, bringing special leather in order to have a pair of shoes made for the king. "Take care you make no mistakes, for this is the only piece of leather of its kind," said the servant. "Also, remember, the king wants shoes and not slippers." In Russia, slippers are worn by a dead person on his last journey. The cobbler gave special instructions to the angel to be extra careful with the king's orders, or else they would be in trouble.

In spite of this the angel made slippers for the king. The cobbler was beside himself with rage. He was certain now he would be hanged. He ran to beat the angel with his stick. The angel laughed out loud at the very moment that a man came running from the king's court, saying, "The king is dead. Please change the shoes into slippers."

The future is unknown; only He knows what is to be. Man's decisions are all based on the past. When the king was alive he needed shoes, when he died he required slippers. The cobbler fell at the angel's feet and begged forgiveness. The angel replied, "Don't worry. I am undergoing my own punishment." And he laughed again.

The cobbler said, "What makes you laugh?"

The angel said, "I laughed for the second time because we do not know the future and we still persist in desires which are never fulfilled, because fate`has different plans.

The cosmic law works, destiny is set out, and we have no say in the matter. Yet we raise a hue and cry about things as if we are the makers of our destiny. The king is about to die, but he orders shoes for himself! Life is drawing to a close and we keep planning for the future."

Suddenly the angel thought of the triplets: I did not know what their future was going to be. Then why did I intervene unnecessarily in their affairs?

Soon the third event took place. Three young girls, accompanied by an old rich woman, came into the shop to order shoes. The angel recognized the girls as the daughters of the dead woman who had been the cause of his punishment. All three girls were happy and beautiful. The angel asked the old woman about the girls, and she said, "These are the three daughters of my neighbor. The mother was very poor, and died while nursing her new-born babies. I felt pity for such helpless babies and, since I had no children of my own, I adopted them."

Had the mother been alive, the girls would have grown up in poverty and suffering. Because the mother died the girls grew up in riches and comfort, and now they were heirs to the old woman's fortune. They were also to be married into the royal family.

The angel laughed for the third time.

He told the cobbler, "My third laugh is because of these girls. I was wrong. Destiny is great, while our vision is limited to what we can see.

What we cannot see is so vast. We cannot imagine the enormity of that which we cannot see and of that which is to be. Having laughed at my foolishness three times, my penalty is completed and now I must leave."

What Nanak says is that if you stop putting yourself in the middle, and stop getting in your own way, you will find the Path of Paths. Then you needn't worry about other paths. Leave all to Him and be thankful for whatever He has caused to happen for you, for whatever He is making you do this moment, for whatever He will cause you to perform. All praise unto Him! Give Him a blank check of gratitude. Whatever He has chosen for you and through you, whether you liked it or not, whether you were praised or blamed, whether people called it your good fortune or misfortune, let there not be even a trace of difference in your thankfulness.

Nanak sees only one path and that is: You are the formless, the almighty, You who abide forever. I am too small, like a wave in the ocean. I leave everything to You. You have given me so much. Your bounteous grace pours all the time everywhere; so much so that if I were to give myself as an offering a thousand times, it would be too insignificant. He knows only one path: Whatever pleases You is best for me.

[curious_man]

Destiny is pre-ordained!!

u walk the GURMAT way ...u will meet ure DESTINY!!

u walk the MANMAT way....u will meet ure FATE!!

choice is urs :TH:

:umm: .... i know its not much info in my post... i will definitely post a suitable answer... right now i have to go... !!

[fanaa]

I recently read some where. Destiny is what you are supposed to do in life and fate is what kicks you in back to make you do it.

I dont belive in destiny.

[Guest Papi]

thank you pheena ji,,,,

so to sum it up if i understand it correctly, desinty is there and written according to my past deeds, its my choice to either go with it and be content with it or fight it and become all workedup for nothing because there is really nothing i can do about it.

correct?

[Pheena]

thank you pheena ji,,,,

so to sum it up if i understand it correctly, desinty is there and written according to my past deeds, its my choice to either go with it and be content with it or fight it and become all workedup for nothing because there is really nothing i can do about it.

correct?

Yes, the key is in the perception, the view point you take in what is happening to you. Be content with what is happening, but you must allow the thought that it is his will to pierce your heart. That is the key. Even thought it might have been something from your past actions, it doesn't matter. If today you have surrendered yourself, the moment this surrender happens, then everything becomes his. The Good and the Bad, The Joy and the Pain, The Bliss is from him, as is your suffering. It is his will that you must remain content with. Then Happiness and Suffering become alike, from duality to Oneness.

suKu duKu dono sm kir jwnY Aauru mwnu Apmwnw ]

sukh dhukh dhono sam kar jaanai aour maan apamaanaa ||

One who knows that pain and pleasure are both the same, and honor and dishonor as well,

hrK sog qy rhY AqIqw iqin jig qqu pCwnw ]1]

harakh sog thae rehai atheethaa thin jag thath pashhaanaa ||1||

who remains detached from joy and sorrow, realizes the true essence in the world. ||1||

[curious_man]

http://www.mrsikhnet.com/index.php/2006/01...y-in-your-life/

i hope ure questions will be answered in this video !!

vaheguroooooooooo