THE LAW OF DESTINY:
THE LAW OF DESTINY determines what forces influence our lives to ensure we encounter the life experiences that we require for our continued development.
Destiny is essentially a series of opportunities that enable us to learn lessons, acquire new abilities, develop our consciousness and help others.
Destiny is commonly regarded as fate; a fixed timeline of events that is inevitable and unchangeable. Although the words are often used interchangeably, fate and destiny have quite different meanings: Fate is usually seen as "set in stone" and often has negative connotations, e.g. the jury decided his fate. Fate is an agent that predetermines and orders the course of events. It means that events are "meant to be" and are set in motion by an external force or intelligence.
Destiny is more of a likely outcome and often has a positive feel, e.g. he is destined to become a star. Destiny guides us towards a specific goal, but without our wilful participation we will not achieve our destiny. Put simply: destiny is opportunity and fate is karma. We are in control of our destiny but have no control over our fate. Destiny cannot be forced on us; if we are forced then it is our fate.
Destiny gives us an opportunity to turn a situation to our advantage and accomplish something great through our own efforts. It is designed to give us the best opportunities for the development of our consciousness, but it is only an outline – not an exact script. It doesn't detract from our free-will in any way, because we decide exactly how we want to act in any situation. The basic outline for our life was planned (pre-destined) before we were born to give us the right opportunities for growth. But we don't have to follow the pre-destined route if we don't want to. A life plan can be compared to a maze, and our life's purpose is to complete the maze. We don't know where we are going or where we will end up, so all we can do is make our way through life using our best judgment. Every wrong turn leads to a dead end and every correct turn leads to progress.
A correct turn may not correspond to success in the physical sense, for example: failing to get a promotion may not seem like the best outcome from a financial perspective, but it might actually be the best outcome for the development of your consciousness. We all occasionally make what appear to be bad decisions, but if we learn from those seemingly wrong decisions we eventually discover that they were in fact right decisions. If we deviate from our life's plan we may need to be coaxed back on to the right track, and the further we stray from the optimal path the harder the lessons get. Every choice we make affects our future and therefore our destiny. Right now we are experiencing the destiny (and the karma) that arose from choices we made in the past. Collective human destiny is largely decided by the planetary hierarchy, especially the Manu and the Maha-Chohan. Individual human destiny is largely decided by our guardian angels, who stand-in for our higher selves (2nd triads or souls) until we become fully conscious and enter the fifth kingdom. The more evolved we are the more input we have in deciding our destiny, and the more important it becomes to our development.
Our guardian angels can only guide our destiny to the extent that we allow them. The sensible option is to give them complete control because they are far more advanced than we are and they know what is best for us, but most people are egotistical and think they know better. Mankind is not developed enough to determine its own destiny – that much is evident from the state of the world today. Henry T Laurency wrote in The Knowledge of Reality: "The great cosmic evolution does not work according to a predetermined plan. Only the final goal is laid down: all monads acquiring omniscience about the whole cosmos... The evolution itself creates the conditions and possibilities of its growth. These conditions, however, depend on the individual character of every being, from atoms to planets, solar systems, etc... The past thereby limits the possibilities of the future. A rigid plan would set aside the law of freedom, according to which every monad has the right to the freedom (depending on insight and ability) it has once acquired and continues to apply lawfully. Evolution feels its way forward along every conceivable path in order to find the one most purposeful for each and all."
