“I must have done something good in a previous life - I am so fortunate to have a loving family like this”.

“I have not done anything wrong and yet I constantly seem to be suffering?”

“My luck is so bad; whatever work I attempt to do I fail at.”

These statements seem quite familiar in today’s world. Sometimes when faced with adverse situations, we wonder – “What have I done to deserve this?”

In today’s world, 65% of events are destined, that is those events that are beyond our control. These destined events include birth, marriage and death. One must be spiritually evolved to be able to distinguish which events are pre-destined and which are in our control.

What is Destiny?

According to the science of Spirituality, every action of man creates a 'give-and-take account' resulting in merit or sin (demerit) according to the nature of the action. In other words, the Law of Karma applies to every action that one performs.

For example, if ‘A’ borrows $ 50.00 from ‘B’ then ‘A’ has to return that $ 50.00 or its equivalent to ‘B’ one day. If ‘A’ is unable to return it and dies, then the $50.00 remains unpaid and ‘A’ will have to repay it in a future birth. Like this, one can accumulate many things that have to be yet paid back or balanced out with another being. This sum total of one's give-and-take accounts, merits and sins is known as the “accumulated account”. One undergoes a part of this “accumulated account” in every birth in the form of destiny.

Destiny is a spiritual factor and can be of three types.

Endowing the strength to face illness: One of the lady disciples of His Holiness Bhaktaraj Maharaj was afflicted with a skin disease which was causing total peeling off of the skin. To prevent further progression of the disease the doctors advised her to bathe daily. As there was hardly any skin she had excruciating pain while bathing. However she was able to bear this pain by chanting gurumantra ‘Hari Om Tatsat’. In the terminal stages of her illness her sister used to see a yellow aura around her body and the disciple would see a vision of His Holiness Bhaktaraj Maharaj seated on a chair.

When one does spiritual practice one of two things occurs with one’s destiny:

• One gains the strength to be able to bear it so adverse destiny does not affect one as much
• The destiny is minimised or does not happen in the first place

The following is an illustration of how we are insulated from destiny when we do spiritual practice.

By using our willful action to do regular spiritual practice one becomes worthy of the Guru’s grace and can overcome one’s entire destiny completely in one lifetime itself.