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Transcribed by: Sudeep Naik
Question: Are we meant to face our destiny or to fulfill our destiny?
Answer: It is both.
Here we are referring to destiny in two different senses: (i) philosophical (ii) conversational.
Philosophically speaking destiny refers to the sum of our past karma whose reactions have not yet come upon us but are going to come. Sometimes, we may do good but get some bad reactions because it is the reaction for some other action from the past. Such destiny we need to face.
However, destiny also refers to something which we are meant to achieve. This sense of destiny is more referred in a conversational sense and not in a philosophical sense. For example, somebody has great talent for musical since early childhood and the person grows and becomes a musical maestro, then it is said that they have fulfilled their destiny. By our destiny we have been given certain talents and using those talents to achieve something worthwhile is in one sense fulfilling our destiny. That is something we all are meant to do.
Some of us may feel we do not have any special talent so what destiny can I fulfill. Our material talents can lead to the fulfilment of some destiny at a material level in terms of getting some fame or making some contribution in this material world. However, we all have spiritual destiny which every one of us can fulfill irrespective of differences in our material talent.
We are at our core souls and the soul has potential for an eternal life and eternal love. The soul is a part of the whole God. If the soul learns to love the whole purely through the evolution of its consciousness, then it can attain eternal life and eternal love by graduating from this temporary material world to the eternal spiritual world. That is the spiritual destiny which we all are meant to fulfill. Through multiple lifetimes and multiple species, we are evolving towards that ultimate destination. By practicing the process of bhakti yoga diligently and directing our love towards the Lord through such practices, everyone irrespective of their material destiny, can fulfill our spiritual destiny of attaining eternal life and love.
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