“Life is given to us as our destiny…Every day we must die and we must experience that death. And every day we must be reborn and we must experience resurrection.” – Siri Singh Sahib.
Gurbani says that when we are born, our destiny is already written.
“Pehlay Buni Paraptay, Pachay Buni Sareeer” – First the Destiny is written, then the body is created.Whatever is written is according to our past deeds and karmas from past lifetimes. One way to clear these karmas in this lifetime is through the practice of Bani, Bana, Simran and Seva, the fundamental practices of Sikh Dharma. When we live in that consciousness, challenges may come but it doesn’t look difficult. The teachings of the Guru give us the strength to deal with it and accept it with happiness. Bad times become good times because our consciousness has changed. Destiny never changes –our understanding changes through our spiritual practices. Through the lens of consciousness even difficulties don’t look difficult to us. We get the power and the grit from the Guru, and we can see the blessing in each challenge that life brings us. We can accept everything as the Will of God. That is why the Siri Singh Sahib told us we are Siblings of Destiny – it is pre-written that we are destined to serve the Guru’s house and live and be together as a sangat of the Guru. It is our choice, our free will that determines if we follow the path of our destiny or the path of our fate. Destiny is the path of consciousness, or dharma. Fate is the path of action and reaction, or karma.
“Samskaras are the account of those karmas you have earned in the previous life; that is why you got this body. This physical body was granted to you according to those samskaras. Then with those karmas, you make the karma in this life; samskaras and karmas get together and that guides your destiny.” Siri Singh Sahib 1971
Rashid Latif Ansari says:
This is pure and simple wild imagination and has absolutely no basis whatsoever. How did SSS find that out? Did he talk to Bhagwan? Did He tell SSS that He first decides the destiny and then puts that into a body?
If so why should anyone even move a finger? Let destiny take him or her to whatever has been scripted before his or her birth.
OngKar Kaur Khalsa says:
Sat Nam Rashid,
You might like to read this lecture excerpt, where he discusses the difference between destiny and fate (at the end, there’s a link to the full lecture, where you can listen to the video as well). Blessings to you.
“….when you base on something in life that is called destiny and when light is gone out of you darkness come that’s is called fate. So you are subject to light and fate darkness, you are subject to destiny and fate.
One day one of my great student Mukhia left and I fell in prayer that I my child is dead and I said to God and that day I became very direct and I said, “Look God, wait a minute, what do you think I am doing, there was nothing wrong about him and he has left dharma, he has left all that, answer me, he had that destiny, I saw it, I am not wrong, why it happened.” Then I saw destiny what I saw then but at that day God was merciful, I saw also fate laughing.
She said, “If it is all left to you I will have no work, keep me busy too.”
I asked the question that day. I said, “Fate why so? God gives the destiny.”
And the fate said, “God created me too, I am not the ear of the academy, I am the test of the academy, every destiny shall pass through fate, if it crosses then person makes it.”
And I said, “How come?”
She said, “Could you yogi stop discussing with me, don’t waste your time you remember there is a Yogi Bhajan?”
I said, “Yeah, you are talking about me.”
She said, “I am asking your direct question, answer me.”
I said, “Yeah there is a Yogi Bhajan, I know him well.”
She said, “Then you don’t know him at all, it’s his teaching and let me quote you that you go to the destiny through the test of the fate.”
I said, “But that’s what the scripture says.”
She said, “No, scripture says it and you said it and that is the life we always say to the valley of death we pass through to reach the valley of heavens and exactly speaking to you that is what all life is about.”
I have yet to see somebody going to a college and not passing the test and then is entitled to a degree. Exactly in spiritual life destiny is granted to you by God and fate is also given to you by God to test you and when I was that much communicative fate said a wonderful word.
She said, “Yogi, count the basic steps to God.”
I said, “Sarm padh, karm padh, Shakti padh, sehaj padh, Sat padh.”
She said, “I am the master of the Shakti padh, that realm belongs to me, so don’t challenge me either way.”
Since then I am trying to learn and become a student again to tolerate fate, that score time of sitting and going through the papers and answering all what you have read in life and I have actually fallen in love with fate. You know, it brings you to a confrontation of all what you have in shortest time so your spiritual teaching, your chanting of the Nam, you are doing everything is based on one thing, it’s called Christ principle and that principle is when you are wrongly nailed, wrongly nailed and you feel innocent and nobody listens to you and nobody does anything but mock at you, at that time if you look down and you forgive, if you look up and ask for blessing, that’s all it is about and in Sikh dharma there was no more mastery of this display but by Guru Arjan Dev; he Sat on a hot plate, hot as hot you can understand, red hot, and red hot sand was put on the month of June on his head, he was baked like a potato, he was alive and well and was blessing those people and that is not the cruel hand of God did not work further, then he was put in a boiling pot to boil like a potato. First he was roasted like a potato, that you do you understand, then he was boiled like a potato, then they told him you are to be, now you are to be killed because with all these two things he didn’t die, and he was smiling, they couldn’t tolerate it, then they wanted him to put in ice cold water. When you are all burnt ice cold water is the most painful thing and they told him they are going to take him to the river Raavi and put him in the cold water, because he asked, “If my death has come I want to have a bath.”
He said, “O my God, you still thinking of taking a bath? All right we will give you a bath you will never forget, we will put you in the cold water, ice cold water of the river.”
He said, “What after that you are going to do?”
He said, “Then we are going to a kill a cow and take the flesh, fresh hide and stitch you in it.”
He said, “Then what you are going to do?”
He said, “Then, then we will put you in the ground.”
He said, “Then what you are going to do?”
He said, “Then we are going to forget about you.”
He said, “That part is difficult, that part is forget.”
He said, “Why?”
He said, “I come from the lineage of Guru Nanak, lineage of Guru Nanak has only one thing which has made me Sikh and made you Sikh. Nam chith avey.”
Remembrance of God is our principal hope, principal strength and principal reality and that is what Sikh dharma is about. That’s why we remember even Guru Arjan today and we shall remember. People are not remembered for their wrong, they are remembered for their right and therefore they took Guru Arjan and put him in the river because he was a personified Purkh, Guru Arjan Partkhar.
He was a personified God when they put in the cold water, the water, the father, water the father, pavan Guru pani pitah, I am just working around that one line, pavan Guru pani pitha, the water the father took him, they couldn’t find anything but they did had a net in which they put the body. You know the crab you put a net underneath, like that kind of thing, they put him in that iron net to put him in water but when they pulled the net out, that iron cage out, there was no Guru Arjan, the father. That’s what Christ says to the father, my father has many mansion, my father, that father in the form of water totally took him into in.
‘Joth sang joth rali.’
When the light merged with light and when the cage came out empty they freaked out, they couldn’t believe they couldn’t do anything further and that is what life is about. Life is a living challenge but life is a living challenge unconscious, subconscious and conscious. If God gives me health and I shall be with you, I may be allowed to serve the Guru but that’s all I wanted to say to you today. Wear your bana bani will come to you, do your Simran, seva will come to you, be dharmic kindness and compassion will come to you and these are the gift real which will live forever and if your habit is to abuse me, go ahead and do it, my habit is also not to react.
So if for eighteen years you have abused me and I have not reacted and you have not got the joy of your life, I today in the presence of the Siri Guru Granth want to apologize I do not know how to, because my problem I want to tell you those who are very abusive and negative and those who are trying to do my character assassination and physical assassination, please I want to let you know one thing very clearly, I do not believe in reacting, I only believe in acting and I do see the hand of God in you too, and it makes me very humble that’s why when you receive my letter I say humbly yours, I truly mean it. So if I am not American, though I am American national, I am not a American to the extent that I don’t freak out and I continue to guide my life in a very discipline and loving manner that is my personal note, that is my personal freedom and though you love me and you want to come in my presence in a very weird bana and sometime you do very weird things to draw my attention and if you are not satisfied what I am saying I can tell you again, I shall not react because I am falling in love with fate also, fate has to do what fate has to do, destiny has to do what destiny has to do and those who will live to the Guru’s word and keep the Akal Moorat they shall merge in the undying God, that’s the promise of Guru Nanak and so be it.
“Wahe Guru Ji Ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru Ji Ki Fateh.”
You can listen to or read the full lecture here:
https://www.libraryofteachings.com/lecture.xqy?q=%E2%80%9CMool%20Mantra,%20the%20Root%20Mantra%20of%20all%20Mantras%E2%80%9D%20sort:relevance&id=f0feda4e-dbcb-3a9e-3a92-9d903d9858a8&title=Gurdwara—The-Mool-Mantra
Harnan says:
Its a matter of belief. If we believe in something it is there and if not then nothing.