Spiritual concepts
Fate
Destiny and Fate are not the same, despite the often confusing use of the words in everyday use.
Destiny has its own definition.
Fate is an effect - something that has happened.
I don't believe there is fate in the sense that Islam conceives it, nor fate as many other religions may see it. It smacks of a lack of responsibility and an inability to accept the role each person plays in deciding his own 'fate'.
So, it is not fate that we had a car accident, it is an outcome of the fact that we were driving along the road too fast and not paying attention. It is not fate that had us arrested when we stole the bag of sweeties, it is the obvious outcome of theft. It is not fate that we end up crying ourselves to sleep for months over this married man who won't leave his wife, if we had worked it out we would have known what the outcome was going to be.
'Fate' is occasionally a rather dense person's excuse for the fact they aren't very good at simulation. When the seriously dim witted have not learnt the systems of the universe or the systems of man, they have a tendency to be totally bemused by what has happened. Because they don't like to admit they are dim witted and don't learn and don't pay attention, they say it is fate. It was 'meant to happen', the gods had 'willed it' or alternatively 'Allah has willed it'
Well, no. Allah willed nothing. They brought it upon themselves by not predicting the outcome and avoiding it and not working out the outcomes given the inputs they had.
So in general, fate does not exist. It is the result of the person's inability to learn and their inability to simulate outcomes. It may also be the result of their obstinate refusal to disregard the simulation they had formulated in the hope it would all work out for the best. And of course, it never does. Because the systems of the universe and of man are fixed.
And that may be a better way of looking at fate.
As Margaret Thatcher said 'You can't buck the system'
The exception that proves the rule
There is however another aspect of Fate that I cannot ignore. As part of the Great Work we have an entirely invisible set of tasks, of which we know nothing and which, it would seem, we would probably not understand even if we knew what the actual tasks were. If we are in some ways key to a particular sequence of events happening, there does seem to be some evidence that ‘Fate’ does take a hand in order to steer our course in the right direction. To do this it may put Adversity in our way.
Thus Fate is not a predetermined outcome it is more correctly personified in the way the Greeks saw it, a series of spirit ‘helpers’ who interfere [and this is key] with what is happening here on the physical plane on an ongoing basis – meddling in other people’s business, as my Mum might have said!
If I use the analogy, in computer systems the only time that a predictable outcome can occur, is when at every step in the program, the inputs are already known, have been decided, or are entered at each stage of the processing so that that is the way the logic runs.
If I use the example below, which shows a series of paths in the logic of our activity [Path or road], there are actually 10 possible outcomes from starting off at the first point. We are making these decisions as we go along doing things, and we even refer to them as alternative paths along life’s journey. Shall I pat my dog or not today? Shall I give him a hug? Shall I give him a kiss? What will be the outcome? [actually this is not a good example because the outcome is the same he will wag his tail and grin at me.]
Let us suppose that if I decide 'A' I go the X route, if I decide 'B' then I go the Y route and if I decide 'C' then I go along the Z route. Having got there even more options open up to me.
The only time we know the outcome of any decision we make with certainty, is if we, or our Spirit helpers the symbolic Fates, can control all the circumstances. Thus, for example, if “Fate” has decreed that the outcome will be the execution of T then it has also made certain that the only route open was the one that led from X to T. The choices were predetermined. Or if you prefer there was no real choice. Likewise if “Fate” has decreed that the outcome is the execution of M, then it has also predetermined that the first decision can only be to Z and the second decision always leads to M.
The same is true of every effect however long the chain and sets of paths that get you there. An effect can only be predetermined if the outcomes, of the decisions made at each point where a decision has to be made in the cause effect chain, have been fixed in advance or are fixed along the way.
There appears to be quite a bit of evidence on this site that there is manipulation of some people going on at every step. Even if we ignore the messages, something else happens and we get ‘steered’ , we are more like a flock of exasperating sheep than people in this respect [which is why one assumes there are so many references to the good shepherd].
And it would seem that a tiny number of people who are there to make a real difference – who have been marked out from birth to achieve certain changes – are steered in a major way. The steering might be incomprehensible from our point of view and will only be understood looking back - occasionally the apparently bad has longer term consequences that are desired. The spiritual world has its own agenda.
If the person concerned is unaware of his [or her] role, he will find that at every step of the way, he is thwarted if he goes in one direction, but has a smooth and easy passage if he goes another way. If he persists [because he has free will] in choosing the path opposite to the one the spirit world have chosen, then all of a sudden another obstacle appears and the path he wants to take is blocked, meanwhile another is opened out and after a while, wearied with fighting against the inevitability of it all, he gives in and 'goes with the flow'.
So the Fates as Spirit helpers and shepherds of an unruly flock, do exist.
Observations
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- Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness - 04 On spiritual experience
- Aurelius, Marcus - Meditations - Fate
- AwoFa'lokun Fatunmbi - Making rain and lightning
- Bayard Taylor - Poems of the Orient – The Angel of Patience
- Beowulf - Wyrd
- Blake, William - We reap not what we do not sow
- Blithe spirit - What dying feels like, a personal story of my meeting with the 'Widow Maker'
- Boethius - The Consolation of Philosophy - Imagine a set of revolving concentric circles
- Borgund stavkirke
- Carl Gustav Jung and the integration of the conscious and unconscious aspects
- Carlson, Chester – Trust in God, ‘Thy will be done’
- Chuang Tzu - The death of Chuang Tzu's wife
- Daniélou, Alain – The Way to the Labyrinth – Is our destiny foreseen
- Dr Eugene Osty - Supernormal faculties in Man – 01 Fate is not fixed
- Dr Eugene Osty - Supernormal faculties in Man – 02 Fate is not fixed
- Dr Eugene Osty - Supernormal faculties in Man – 03 Fate is not fixed
- Dr Eugene Osty - Supernormal faculties in Man – 04 Fate is not fixed, prophecy applies to people
- Dr Eugene Osty - Supernormal faculties in Man – 05 Fate is not fixed
- Dr Eugene Osty - Supernormal faculties in Man – 06 Fate is not fixed, but prophecies can be very accurate
- Dr Eugene Osty - Supernormal faculties in Man – 07 Fate is not fixed, but Destiny is
- Echo & the Bunnymen - The Killing Moon
- Epictetus - The Enchiridion - 16, 17, 18
- Euripides - Fragment 965
- Euripides - The Bacchae and the fates
- Gardner, Ingrid - Effing broadband
- George Harrison - While my guitar gently weeps
- Gnostic Gospels - Philip - The dark powers imagine
- Goethe - Selected poems - Who never wept to eat his bread
- Heine, Heinrich - The poor soul speaketh to its clay
- Hesiod - Theogony - 04 The emotions
- Holderlin, Johann - Once Gods walked
- Holderlin, Johann - Patmos
- Holderlin, Johann - To the Fates
- Homer - The Iliad - The Hours
- Jeans, Sir James - The Mysterious Universe - Atoms and dice
- Jeans, Sir James - The Mysterious Universe - Death as a function
- Jeremy Bentham - The Principles of Morals and Legislation - On Adversity
- Jung, C G - Memories, Dreams and Reflections - Fate and destiny
- Just impossible
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1002
- Khusrau, Amir - Ghazal 1034
- Lamb, Charles - Living without God in the world
- Leibniz - Wisdom comes from the Higher spirit
- Lowell, James Russell - A little of thy merriment
- Lowell, James Russell - He who hath felt life’s mystery
- Lowell, James Russell - We see but half the causes of our deeds
- Mesopotamia - Its technology and culture 04 Astrology, Astronomy and Mathematics
- Mesopotamian - Means of achieving spiritual experience 08 Believing in the spiritual world
- Mirabai - Life in the World
- Mircea Eliade - On Fate, Destiny and the Spindle
- Mircea Eliade - The Moon, Spiders, Fate and Destiny
- Monroe, Robert - The number of intelligences
- Mucha, Alphonse - Fate
- My Wealth of Knowledge - Drixoral Cough Liqui-Caps and Robitussin - by E. Gates
- Norman Lewis - The World, the World - A case of synchronicity
- Omar Khayyam - The Rubaiyat - And on the Throne of Saturn sate
- Omar Khayyam - The Rubaiyat - Magic Shadow Show
- Omar Khayyam - The Rubaiyat - Roll of Fate
- Ovid - Metamorphoses - Jason and Medea [extract]
- Parmenides - On Nature - 08
- Parrish, Maxfield - The Arabian Nights
- Poetic Edda - Sayings of the High One [extract]
- Poimandres - Hermes Trismegistus
- Ramakrishna - Misc. Quotes - Is it possible to understand God’s action
- Reverdy, Pierre - Arc en Ciel
- Rilke, Rainer Maria - 01 First elegy
- Rilke, Rainer Maria - 25 Fifth Elegy
- Rilke, Rainer Maria - 30 Seventh Elegy
- Rilke, Rainer Maria - 50 Tenth Elegy
- Russell, George William - Call not thy wanderer home as yet
- S'RÎMAD BHÂGAVATAM – Canto 10, Chapter 01 – Kamsa’s attempt on his sister’s life
- Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - Fate and destiny
- Schulz, Charles - On fate
- Sri Aurobindo - 04 Savitri Book IV Canto I
- Sri Aurobindo - 06 Savitri Book VI Canto I
- Steiner, Rudolf - How to Know Higher Worlds - The understanding of the ecstatic
- Tennyson, Alfred Lord - In Memoriam A H H - Be near me when the sensuous frame
- The Line of Destiny - Palmistry for all - Cheiro
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 02 - 4 Marking out the route
- Tulsidas - Kavitavali 07:73
- Whitton, Dr Joel - The Bardo – a Summary of Case histories
- Wilcox, Ella Wheeler - As you go through life
- Wilcox, Ella Wheeler - But whatever is – is best
- Wilcox, Ella Wheeler - It might have been
- William Drummond - This is that happy morn
- Wonder, Stevie - All In Love Is Fair
- Yeats, W B - Anima Hominis - On Destiny
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Letter Omega - 07
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Letter Omega - 11 and 12