Are Our Lives Destined by Fate?

I for the best part have always believed that we are in charge of our own Destiny, but I have had occasions to doubt this and wonder if Fate actually controls it!

I have set out on a path that I have thought was the best one to take, but then part way along it things would seem to turn against me and I feel like I am being pushed into taking a completely different direction.

Is it coincidence or is there something else at play to put me on the path that I should be on?

What are your thoughts?

Ahh, another Tool fan.  Despite Maynard's apparent affection for strippers, his lyrics are insightful.  I do yoga to Tool.  I'm probably the only person on Earth who does!  It's a 'special' kinda yoga, my own thing, ya know?  After 20 years of yoga I had to do something to make it more interesting.  I love to dance and I love hard rock, heavy metal.  So I incorporated it all to make my yoga workout thing.  I have all of Tool's albums - great music, all of it.

It's an interesting conversation on balance.  I like the term 'homeostasis', because it's never actually achieved.  It brings to mind the query, if it's a goal, but never actually maintained, then what's the point?  The process is the point.  The world is imperfect.  Take, for example, our solar system.  Each planet rotates around the sun in an orbit, but each rotation is unequal to it's previous one.  It's that imperfection which is both it's cause and effect.  Imagine perfection.  It's motionless, crystallized, still.  It has no motive.  It is perfection.  There is no point.  While the struggle to attain perfection, balance, homeostasis is quite prevalent in nature, it is not a reality.  Now, you could argue that the necessity of the pursuit is, in itself, perfection, balance.  I can agree with that.  If we were all perfectly evolved people we would cease to incarnate at all, the planets would not orbit and time would not exist as a concept.

Something Ken Wilber discusses is the fault of the romanticism of a bygone era.  For example, some romanticize the Natives to the North American continent, pre-European settlers.  They claim that life was more peaceful then, that there was a reverence for the land and spiritual cohesion.  That may be all well and true, but the reason for that was that they did not have the understanding our modern science has afforded us of why volcanoes erupt, why it rains, why droughts occur and various other natural occurrences which affected the natives lives dramatically.  The Aztecs and the Mayans, despite all their romantic reverence for Earth, were motivated by fear of the unknown.  If they had a dry season and crops failed, people starved.  So they figured the gods were angry and made sacrifices, offerings to appease the gods' wrath.  It has been speculated that what caused the demise of the Mayans was overpopulation.  They grew so large that the land around them could no longer sustain them and they starved.  Because of our contemporary sciences, we now understand, relatively at least, what causes drought and how to fend off crop-failure.  We no longer believe it's divine wrath, well, some still do, but that's not the trend of humanity's collective.  We may have developed some arrogance as a result, but I think if we survive global warming, the experience will have tempered our arrogance to some degree.  We needed the arrogance to have the experience of it's temperance, you see?  So my point here is that we may look back on past cultures and think that, because they did not have nuclear war, lack of proper healthcare, and a global economy with all it's problems and think that times were better then, that humanity is not actually evolving, but de-volving; that life was better then and humans were better then.  The fact is that we are evolving.  And this is the big point of my long rambling. Every bit of experience humanity has had, collectively and personally, has been absolutely necessary for us to be in the state of consciousness we are all in now.  Each level of evolution takes with it all the bits of learning from the previous one and expands on it.  Wilber refers to them as 'holons'.  And BTW, if you want to know more about AQAL, read anything by Wilber.  It's his model.  A Brief History of Everything is a great start. 

So all of our mistakes, loves, wars, disease, famine, joys, tears, sweat & blood were necessary for us to be who and what we are now.  We could never go back to the culture the Mayans had, knowing what we now know.  As a matter of fact, we cannot really even begin to experience life as they did, knowing what we now know.  Another lyric of Maynard's comes to mind...

This is Necessary.  Life feeds on Life feeds on Life Feeds on Life.

I was vegetarian for 20 years.  I thought that I could help raise the collective consciousness by raising my own vibrational frequency by consuming foods with a lighter wavelength, less karma and even have a better ecological impact on the planet, leave a smaller footprint.  It was true for me for a long time.  But I was denying something all the while.  I was denying that death and consumption are necessary.  Perhaps global warming will teach humanity a new reverence for life that it never had before, one not motivated so much by fear, tempered with scientific understanding.  Perhaps Gaia can teach us, through her suffering, what we really need and help us to shift our awareness of what is truly necessary.  If that is so, then all of this global warming crisis is absolutely necessary in our evolution as a species.  It seems sad that so many species suffer and die in the process, but suffering and death are a part of Gaia.  They are things we don't experience on the other side.  So I eat fish and chicken now.  And I do so with consciousness and reverence.  I take a moment to connect with the spirit of the animal whose body I am about to consume and make a connection, carry it's being with me while it is a part of my body acknowledge the responsibility I have to it and the all things that were involved in bringing that food to my plate to be the best human I can be.  when I do that, I share a little of that consciousness with all beings that were involved in bringing that food to my plate.  So, in a way, I am helping to raise the evolutionary curve of the animals I consume, whereas before, when vegetarian, I was denying them that.  Right now, the cow's milk I am consuming in my coffee is serving as a connection to the cows who produced it for me.  They are getting a little of the vibe coming from me right now as I write this and it helps them to evolve.  I owe it to Gaia and all the creatures here to expand my consciousness, all the time, in all endeavors.  If my body did not cry out for that food I would not consume it.  I did suffer a bit during my vegetarianism.  I thought that, my suffering brought me closer to Gaia.  It did.  And it did so in a way that placed an enormous burden on me, one I could not take any longer.  There is such a thing as too much empathy.  I think I was punishing myself in a way, for being part of a cruel species.  And in doing so, I created a great deal of anger toward humanity.  I became condescending and cynical.  I still am, to some degree.  The damage is done.  It's hard not to be cynical seeing Junior through his 2nd term in the White House.  But despite all of my political activism, things got worse.  So the peace I have come to is this:  This Is Necessary.  Some beings require more suffering to learn.  It's sad but true.  Earth is a hard planet to be on.  Gaia, at her core, is indifference.  I do not believe that humanity is, by nature, empathic or compassionate.  They are learned behaviors we created out of the need to survive.  I think, perhaps, aliens have been amongst us for a long time, who have had many lives in other realms, who have influenced humanity greatly and are teaching some of them unconditional love.  I mean, after all, we used to be apes.  Compassion and empathy are nurtured responses to a survival instinct of social creatures.  It's not nature.  Gaia is indifference.  Perhaps that means that, once humanity has been able to incorporate unconditional love, empathy and compassion into it's nature we will no longer need to incarnate on Earth, unless it is to help teach it to the ones who haven't gotten it yet.  I am not meaning that humans aren't empathic or compassionate.  Some are, some aren't.  Lets face it, if love & compassion were true to our nature we would not be in this war, there would not be people dying of famine while others struggle with obesity, there would not be people dying from leprosy and polio.  We may not even have a global warming crisis if conspicuous consumption weren't the American way, the Westerized way.  We would not be so selfish a people. 

I know this is gong to be a controversial post, but alas, it seems to be my lot in life to bring up controversy.  It is not my intention to upset anyone.  I merely want to get people thinking.  And apparently that is not much of a challenge in this forum.  Everyone here is thinking away!  It's great!  Just when I thought the vast majority have their heads up their rears, I read some wonderfully insightful posts and I feel a little lighter for it.  Thanks to all of you who have posted and continue to do so here.  Today I am a little less cynical of humanity. 

mspw - You've brought up some interesting concepts. I hadn't thought of Gaia as indifference before. I need to contemplate on that some. I heartily agree that all of our experiences were needed to bring us to the point we are at now, individually and collectively. I realize that if I didn't have the experiences of my childhood and youth, I'd be a completely different person. I know I have evolved.

There's many more things I'd like to address, but for right now, I just wanted this thread to be back at the top. There has been such good insight and conversation here that I'd like it to continue.

Perhaps we cannot advance to a more enlightened dimension, until all the energy on our planet is positive - until all souls assigned to this planet achieve a certain level of awareness .

Perhaps that's the motivation of the spirit to keep coming back and continuing to learn.

How wonderfully compassionate of you, kathy.  I share in your feelings on it.  But it may be awhile before that happens.  I have often wondered if Earth is simply not the stage for that kind of evolution.

The idea about Gaia's indifference came to me through a documentary on dinosaurs.  In it, a mother came upon the scene directly following the death of her baby.  She scared the other dino off, and looked at the baby, dead on the ground, then ate it!  I realized that it is the way of nature here.  Like it or not, we humans are animals in these bodies.  We have evolved to be what we are through our relationship with Gaia.  In that, we are no different than the mother dino eating her young after it died.  I do not mean that she never felt compassion or love for her child, perhaps she did, but it evolved out of the survival instinct. She needed to feel love and compassion in order to not kill and eat her own young before it could grow up and procreate, in order that the species would perpetuate.  It is obvious that the need to love and care for the young no longer existed, so she ate it, in order to survive.  It was food.  It was no longer a child.  I think we are similar in that we have developed certain emotions we experience exclusively here on Earth in order to survive in this life on/in/of Gaia.  You know, like how you feel when you bite into a sweet, juicy strawberry or when having sexual climax.  These things are exclusive from the other side and perpetuate our human survival.  True love and compassion which transcends survival instinct is not of Gaia or humanity, naturally.  It may have come from beings who developed those characteristics in other incarnations in other realms.  I really am not sure.  I am playing around with the notion.  It's kinda new to me.  My husband and I have been discussing it a lot lately.  What do you all think?

I guess I have shut down yet another forum.  I'm sorry as it certainly was not my intention.  I was really enjoying the discussion here.  Y'all please come back. 

Why does this keep happening?  Do I smell funny?  Do I have a booger hanging?

ha ha I don't think it was you, people just move on. Thank you for taking part.

I'm still pondering Gaia's indifference. It resonates with me and I don't know exactly how or why. I was thinking about this thread yesterday and am still putting thoughts together.

I say we keep coming back here. This thread is wonderful.

Well you are more than welcome to keep it open as long as you wish, but people need to post for that to happen.

I'm working on it. I really am.

Speaking of spiritual matters, do you know anything about Louise Hay and her philosophies? I've been reading her again. She has been a very positive influence in my life.

No can't say that I do moonikins, so I'll be interested to hear some of them.

She's really into affirmations and positive thinking. She believes that all diseases are dis-eases and that we bring them on ourselves because of inner turmoil and how we feel about ourselves. She cured herself of cancer.

I have to go home now, but I'll try to post more later. I have a newsletter link and a website link. Her philosophy is very positive and very simple. Her books are easy reads.

OK I can see where she is coming from with that, so I'll look forward to the links. Definitely would like to know more.

Louise Hay's main website is www.louisehay.com and she created her own publishing company, Hayhouse. Info about it can be found here: http://www.hayhouse.com .  I just googled her wikipedia info and it gives a very basic background on her.

Her first books was a list of symptoms, root causes and affirmations to help heal. I've done some of those and they really work. Her main work, You Can Heal Yourself has spread to all kinds of things. You can now get an accompanying workbook, there's a Cd and they just made it into a movie.

The Hayhouse site is a good place to explore other spiritual authors from many different persuasions and backgrounds. It is also a commercial site.

Yea, mooni, I know about Loise Hay.  I have two of her books.  My husband is a Reiki Master and knows her better than I do, but she was one of my first reads when I started to learn about alternative healing techniques. 

Another good one is Christiane Northrup.  She is an MD, and OB/GYN who has a book called Women's Bodies Women's Wisdom.  It is a book about her cases and she details the emotional stresses women go through and how they manifest as physical illness.  One instance is a woman who had Fibromyalgia and could not have satisfying sex with her husband.  Northrup asked her to draw a picture of herself and it was of herself only from the waist up.  After going to some counseling she was able to uncover a repressed memory of having been molested as a child.  No wonder she was denying herself her lower body.  As a result, she had cut off her qi (pronounced 'chi') and disease ensued.According to Northrup, since she started to heal the emotional wounding, her disease and it's symptoms receded. 

I like to think of the morphing of emotional distress into physical illness as similar to dream interpretation.  Often our physical symptoms are an expression of our emotional distress which we are not connecting with.  It's as if our bodies are trying to get a message to us.  I have heard so many stories of women who've had breast cancer, survived, and claimed that it actually saved thier lives, the disease.  It taught them a better way to live and they could never go back.  Disease can be a teacher for us.  I like to think of it that way. 

I realize the idea of Gaia as the manifestation of indifference is a hard pill to swallow.  It explains a lot to me, but I am not really 'native' to this planet, meaning I don't normally incarnate here.  I had a contract with someone over this incarnation; someone with whom I created some heavy karma in a previous earthly incarnation and have had to sever that tie.  It had to be done here.  So I am sorry if I have offended anyone with the idea.  I know a lot of ppl think of compassion and altruism as human attributes, and certainly they are, but I have witnessed so much more of the opposite in humans that I have a somewhat more cynical view of it in that I am beginning to think it is not true altruism and compassion, I mean without some survival mechanism driving it.  Ever notice how, when someone overlooks something, it is rarely at thier own expense?  It could just be that my perspective is warped from my life's experiences.  Perception is 100% perspective.  So reality is relative.  In that, I admit, I could be dead-wrong. 

Several years ago I had a manifestation of canker sores in my mouth. At one point I had about 15 of them. I could barely drink water they hurt so bad. I looked up Louise's description and it fit so well it shocked me.

Canker Sores - Probable Cause: Festering words held back by the lips. Blame. - New Thought Pattern: I create only joyful experience in my loving world.

I was going through a really rough patch. I was vacillating between taking responsibility for my emotions/feelings and blaming my childhood. I was very angry with my mother at this point. This experienced helped push into letting go of the blame and resolving the anger.

I'm not sure if I am native to this planet either. I know I have a deep affinity for mother earth. I feel for her. I have also felt many times in this life that I don't belong here. Yet I know I do.

In many ways I incarnated as a person way ahead of her times. I'm pretty sure one of my main focuses in this life is acceptance morphing into forgiveness morphing into personal growth. I've seen quite a few cycles of this.

This is getting really interesting. I'm a reiki master too and when I was doing my training at the end of a session we all got turns of having a mass hands on reiki from everyone else there. So it was my turn I lay on the treatment couch and six others started giving me reiki including the master. Wow what an experience. I had m first ever regression, it was so clear, there was no confusion I knew it was me that I was watching in another life and I was totally fascinated. I didn't want the session to end because I wanted to continue to watch but at the same time I wanted it to end because I was so excited and couldn't wait to tell the others.

I can feel where you are coming from moonikins with your of this earth but not, hence why I feel that I haven't achieved my lifes purpose yet.

Guys I've just started a new group in the Interests section (then other) called Life, Fate and Destiny I hope to get this thread moved to the group (don't know if it will be possible but I'm trying).

Anyway if you are interested in having on going discussions on this kind of topic please feel free to join