Who Really Shapes My Fate?

In King Kuru's family ​King Dhritarashtra was born to Queen Ambika, the first wife of King Vichittravirya. After death of King Vichittra Virya, His mother Satyavati asked her first born sage Ved Vyasa to give Queen Ambika a son. So, Dhritarashtra was born from glance of Ved Vyas. Similarly Ambika's youngest sister Ambalika, wife of Vichitravirya, bore Pandu. ​

King Dhritarashtra was born blind, where as was born with sight. Pandu was highly competent and knowledgeable, but due to some strange turn of events, Dhritarashtra became the King of Hastinapur.

He and his wife Gandhari had 100 sons, known as the Kauravas (after King Kuru's name), who were strong warriors. However, during the great battle of Mahabharata, all of them were killed by the five sons of Pandu, called the Pandavas.

After losing his sons, Dhritarashtra, filled with sorrow, questioned Lord Krishna fir the reason of such a calamity.

Dhritarashtra: I know you are God. You could have stopped the war, in which all my hundred young and strong sons were killed. While am I, their blind and old father, am sitting here mourning their death. Why did this fate befall me? I never committed such a grave sin which resulted in such a horrible punishment!.

Krishna: Do you remember all your karma from your past lives?

Dhritarashtra was a very pious person and was a great scholar possessing in-depth knowledge of the Vedas. Dhritarashtra recalled his four past lives and evaluated them. Then he responded with

Dhritarashtra: I remember four of my past lives and every action that I performed in those lives. I led a very virtuous life and committed no sins in those four lives.

Shri Krishna : You have been given the human form countless times before this one. In each of those lives you performed innumerable good and bad actions. You just remember four out of the uncountable past lives! Then how can you say that you do not deserve this?

In the human form, we perform actions every moment and each karma yields a consequence. In each of those uncountable past human lives, if one commits only one sin, even then the past sins become uncountable. But the merciful God does not make us undergo the fruits of each action right away. Very few karma result in instant fruition e.g. eat food and feel satiated. The rest of the actions are stored in our subtle mind, which are called sanchit karma. Before the birth of each jeev God predetermines a handful of those sanchit karma, to be borne in the present life.

There are only five things for every soul to undergo. The five mandatory and unchangeable things in life are:

आयुः कर्म च वित्तं च विद्या निधनमेव च। पंचैत्यान्यपि सृज्यन्ते गर्भस्थस्यैव देहिनः ॥ हितोपदेश
āyuḥ karma ca vittṁ ca vidyā nidhanamēva ca. pañcaityānyapi sr̥jyantē garbhasthasyaiva dēhinḥ . hitōpadēśa

1. Age 2. Profession  3. Wealth  4. Education  5. Death

​​These five events are also known as fate, destiny or  prarabdh karma. We have to undergo the consequences of the remaining stored actions over the course of several future lives.

Blaming God for bad fate?

Human beings are permitted to perform fruit-yielding actions or kriyamaan karm (क्रियमाण कर्म). Kriyaman karm can be done to
1. build a worse future
2. build a better future or
3. attain the ultimate goal of life

Jeev neither remember the good or bad karma performed in their previous lives nor do they recall their material or spiritual status in those lives. Yet, Almighty and omniscient God, due to His inherent nature of mercy, keeps an accurate and complete account of all our actions and mental dispositions. In our subsequent lives, God rewards us for our good deeds. Without even knowing the reason we get those gifts and enjoy them without any feeling of gratitude towards God. On the flip side, we are very prompt to blame God, when we attain the result of our bad deeds.

​The saints explain the consequences of sinful karma to forewarn and dissuade us from doing wrong things. But, being ignorant we callously ignore those warnings by saying, “we will cross that bridge when we get there” Well, later one would have to endure the consequences. Now is the time to choose which action is perform.

The saints also advise that bhakti alone can

1. dissolve the fruits of all our past good and bad actions (1) and
2. reward us with the aim of life which is Divine love bliss.

Bhakti means always acknowledging our permanent relationship with God and engaging the mind in His roopdhyan.

Only real bhakti to God purifies the heart and thus creates natural vairagya, a disinclination towards committing sins. The reason being, the devotee remains absorbed in the ecstasy of remembering God and has no time to spare to get involved in insignificant matters of the material world. His total submission to God makes him realize God and enjoy His divine bliss forever. 

Ever since all-merciful God has been sitting in our hearts. He notes all our actions and is eagerly waiting to grace us with divine bliss. Despite this knowledge we are disinclined to obey His orders. Generally, His saints and the scriptures tell us these rules. Sometimes, He descends Himself to tell those rules. He gives us multiple opportunities to rectify our lives. His saints are dearer to Him than even His own soul. History gives evidence that we have been hostile to those great saints like Tulsidas, Soordas, Meera, Kabir, Nanak, Tukaram, Prahald, Dhruv and innumerable others. Yet, overcome by mercy the moment we surrender ourselves to Him, He nullifies all our previous actions and embraces us. Additionally, He confers all His divine property viz; divine bliss, divine knowledge, divine abode and all His divine powers forever.

Thus, apparently, we shape our own destiny. Our destiny is not something which is imposed upon us from somewhere by someone. Our actions in the present time build our destiny in the future. So we are the builders of our own destiny.