Life and death. Space and time. Fate and chance. These are the forces of the Universe. And then there is destiny. Of that, there is no doubt. You are born in a particular home, as a human being, the color of your eyes, the situations of your birth, everything that goes around you in the universe, all that is but destiny. There is no doubt about it. So there is quite a lot that is just happening, outside the domain of your free will. Simply we shall call this ‘destiny’.
Something that you never wished for, desired for, and is yet happening. And of that, the first event is your birth. Did you desire your birth? 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.
So there is destiny, and there is no doubt about it. And destiny is important. There can be an earthquake at any time. An asteroid may hit the earth, and we all would be vaporized. All this is destiny.
A lot of things that we carry inside this body, is destiny. We all know that people are genetically predisposed to diseases. Are they not? Who knows that the reader of this answer might actually be carrying the seeds of a dangerous disease. All that is destiny. You never wanted it, but you get it. But far more important than destiny is something else.
I am not denying the force of destiny. All that I am 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.
All that destiny means is external situations. And that external includes the body because the body is external to you. You are your center, your body is an external entity. So whatever happens here or there, it’s all just incidental, accidental, and hence destiny. At the center resides the great power of intelligence, and that power is far bigger than the power of destiny.
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 is what 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 center, 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, would always be a slave of destiny. There would only be destiny in his life.
Em Hotep - Patrick Gaffiero