“We are not permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what we put into it is ours.”~~Dag Hammarskjold
[Don’t go looking for parts 1-11, because I just made up “Part 12”. This is a topic I think about a lot and there may be other posts about it.]
I ran across this quote from the UN Secretary-General of the ’50s, and it made me start ruminatin’ yet again about destiny vs. free will. This is not a religious question for me, but a philosophical one: Is it all preordained or do we have a choice about our lives? If it is not preordained, how can I see events that will happen in the future? And, for people who are not psychic, is the question less–or more–important or difficult? And lastly, what did Dag know that the rest of us don’t?
I have meditated, read, and thought quite a bit about this. I was raised Presbyterian, where preordination is the prescribed belief. God plans it all out for us, according to the Presbys. Even though I left the church long ago and am not religious, this belief informs my thoughts and feelings today.
I have read other teachers’ works which claim that our souls plan everything ahead of time, before we are even conceived. I find that can be comforting, especially in difficulty. To believe that you had a good reason for planning whatever tragedy has befallen you can be somewhat soothing. But then I think, isn’t that the same thing as saying, “It’s God’s will”? And “It’s God’s will” always pisses me off, because why would God want you to suffer? One reason I am not religious is that I don’t believe in a God who allows, wants, or causes suffering.
But if you have chosen your path yourself, and you assume you had a good reason, does that help? “Why in the world would I want to lose [this person I love] at this stage in my life?” And we don’t know.
The other side of this coin is that everything may be random. Stuff just happens, and you can make things happen or not happen if you think and try and plan and work hard enough. It’s “free will”–another religious thing I don’t like, as if we are actually programmed one way, but then “God” gives us freedom from that programming so we can be free to sin and screw up for Him. Pfffft.
After working with clients for over ten years, and making accurate predictions for them all, one day I finally determined that our lives are a combination of Destiny and Free Will. It seems that there are events I call “Destiny Points” that will happen no matter what you do. Examples are the person you’ll marry and the children you will (or won’t) have, a car wreck, a job or career, that kind of thing. The choice part comes in how fast or slow you get to those points (unless they are tied to a specific age, which seems possible) and how happy you are getting there.
This worked for me pretty well. But I kept coming back to the idea of, if I can predict it accurately, doesn’t that mean it is already in motion? Already a plan? Already happening in a future time? And I predict all manner of random things, not only big “Destiny Points”, that turn out to be true. I’ve had premonitions of things that were not connected to readings or clients, such as my husband’s death and September 11–how is that possible, if they were not already going to happen?
My theory that we have Destiny Points and our choice of happiness and speed between them matches Hammarskjold’s quote fairly well. What do you think?
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