This duel experience of fate on the one hand, and freedom on the other, has given rise to the interminable controversy between the believers in fatalism and the upholders of free will.
My fate is in my own hands. If it is to be it is upto me to get on and do it. I am in control and life is a ‘do-it-to-self’ process, not a ‘being-done-to’ process.
Everything that is happening to us is in accordance with the law of karma. What is happening to us today is only what we did in the past returning to us. Therefore, let us hold no grudge in our heart against anyone. Let us explain to ourselves that old accounts are being settled.
Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
Man is architect of his own destiny. Fate or destiny is nothing more than the shadow of action and exertion. The key to success is neither with fate nor with the astrologers, palmists, pundits, purohits and temples etc.
Each one of us is the maker of his own fate.
Fate moves in rhythms of gain or loss, in cycles of accumulation and deprivation. The force which brings us loving friends and hating enemies is one and the same.
There is no such thing as accident or chance or fate or luck in life excepting the results of one’s own previous actions which have all these appellations.
It is man’s ignorance, which makes him feel that he is weak, and that he is ever dependent on the invisible land of fate. This ignorance will lead him only to his degradation. To utilize the present is to conquer the fate.
The unity between our character and our destiny is inseparable; the connection between our way of thinking and the course of events is unerring.
The Indian explanation of fate is Karma. We ourselves are our own fate through our actions, but the fate created by us binds us; for what we have sown, we must reap in this life or another. Still we are creating our fate for the future even while undergoing old fate from the past in the present.