Destiny means lot, fortune, fate, predestination – what has been foretold, an irrevocable necessity. The word describes the idea that a person’s life is determined in advance. That is why, for centuries, people have tried to learn their future – through divination, astrology, clairvoyance or prophecy – and then to change it.
Human beings have always looked for signs they could link to their future. They built ever more complex systems, extending them into the future and the past, and with them beliefs and myths that spurred their everyday efforts to improve their lot. What troubled them most, however, were their own daily struggles with a world that seemed impossible to overcome – especially in the realm of feelings, inner experience and the trials fate had in store for them.
Is our fate already written?
There are moments in everyone’s life when we wonder whether our life so far, or some sudden event, was the work of a Higher Being or of blind chance. Many questions arise at such times. Does destiny exist at all? How can we know it? Do we have completely free will? What is our personal responsibility for our own life? Why do we exist, and why has our life taken this direction rather than another?
The answers vary. Some say that we alone shape our lives. Others believe that we are born with a destiny more or less mapped out, which we move towards unconsciously throughout our lives. The author of this article, who read classic playing cards and tarot for many years, leans towards a middle way: destiny exists and can be reached by different paths, but not everything is “written up above”. We have free will – we act as we choose and bear the consequences of our actions. Every choice and every decision can change a great deal in our lives.
A reading as a signpost, not a verdict
Many people visit a fortune-teller convinced they will hear what irrevocably awaits them. Yet experienced readers stress that they can only show various possible paths – and the one that seems most likely at that moment. We confuse things when we think our life is set in advance: it is we, as thinking beings, who make conscious and unconscious choices. A prediction can bring the “energy” of the future closer, but in the end it is you who decides on your path.
From this point of view, a reading is a pointer that lets you spot a possible problem in time and change course before unwanted events occur. A visit to a fortune-teller should enrich you and open your eyes to reality, and foretelling the future can be an adventure and a chance to discover hidden parts of your own self. No reading is an oracle – it is just one of many possible paths. Treating predictions as an irrevocable verdict is a mistake, and this is precisely why fortune-telling is sometimes not taken seriously.
Fatum, the Moirai and Fortuna
The ancients had several words for fate. The Latin fatum (literally “that which has been spoken”) meant an inescapable, irreversible destiny – a decree that no one, not even the gods, could alter. The Greeks expressed this idea through the Moirai, the spinners of human fate, and through Ananke, the personification of necessity. The fate hanging over the hero of a tragedy limited his free will and steered the consequences of his actions in a single, ruinous direction, leading to his final downfall. In everyday understanding, however, destiny can also have a positive ring – its embodiment was then the Greek Tyche or, for the Romans, Fortuna.
Destiny and karma
In the religions that originated in India, the question of human destiny is bound up with the idea of karma – the law of cause and effect that links deeds with their fruits in this and future lives. Hinduism and Buddhism, however, understand it differently.
Hinduism
Hindu scriptures distinguish three kinds of karma:
- Sanchita karma (accumulated karma) – the sum of the effects of all past deeds, from previous lives and the present one.
- Prarabdha karma (karma that bears fruit) – the part of the accumulated karma that has ripened and “bears fruit” in this life; out of the vast store of sanchita karma, only a small handful falls to a single life.
- Kriyamana karma (current karma) – the deeds being performed now; once an action is completed, its effect joins the sanchita karma.
As long as sanchita karma keeps accumulating, part of it turns into prarabdha karma, which is “consumed”, while the rest remains and leads to further births and deaths. The reincarnating soul (atman) cannot attain liberation (moksha) until the accumulated karma has been completely exhausted.
According to some Hindu traditions, karma is closely tied to God; according to others, it is more independent of him. Followers of Vedanta hold that Ishvara, the supreme God, plays a part in dispensing the fruits of karma – in Shaivism this is Shiva, in Vaishnavism Vishnu. Other schools see karma above all as a law of cause and effect, though one that depends on the will of the supreme God. The theistic view is well summed up by the thought that God makes no one suffer and no one happy without a reason – he is just and gives each person what they deserve.
Buddhism
Karma is a fundamental concept in all schools of Buddhism, but here it means only “intentional action” – not its result (called its fruit), effect or destiny. The law of cause and effect is called kamma-vipaka (action and its fruit) in Pali, and it is a universal and impersonal law.
What determines the moral value of an act is the intention behind it. Volition rooted in the unwholesome roots – craving (greed), hatred and ignorance – brings harmful fruit. Volition linked to the wholesome roots – non-craving (renunciation), non-hatred (loving kindness) and wisdom – brings beneficial fruit.
Buddhism lists ten unwholesome courses of action (Pali kamma-patha): three wrong actions of the body – killing, stealing and sexual misconduct; four wrong actions of speech – lying, slander, harsh speech and idle chatter; and three wrong actions of the mind – covetousness, ill will and wrong views.
The Buddhist teaching on karma rules out a first cause – the chain of causes and effects has always existed. According to the teaching of dependent origination, the source of the cycle of existence (samsara) is ignorance, that is, not knowing the truth – for example the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path or the Three Marks of Existence. Craving and ignorance are the main causes of karma and lead to both unhappy and happy rebirths.
Destiny and the meaning of life
The question of destiny is linked to the question of the meaning of life – the goal a person strives for and the path by which they can reach it in line with their convictions. We often begin to think about it only when faced with loss, illness or death. We feel the meaning of life rather than reason about it intellectually – it is something inner and hidden, and we usually notice its absence only when we lose it.
An existential crisis is therefore not an intellectual discovery but a feeling that something in life is missing. The theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich described existential anxiety – the anxiety bound up with human existence itself – and distinguished three types, each with a relative and an absolute level:
- Anxiety about fate and death – at the relative level it concerns fate, which can be resisted to some extent; at the absolute level it is the anxiety of death, before which a person is powerless, and this breeds a sense of emptiness.
- Anxiety about emptiness and meaninglessness – at the relative level one can try to forget it and enjoy life; at the absolute level it is the fear of losing meaning altogether.
- Anxiety about guilt and condemnation – at the relative level it is a sense of guilt, at the absolute level the fear of final condemnation.
The Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, founder of logotherapy, also studied the meaning of life and described noogenic neurosis, which stems from a lack of meaning. He held that having a meaning in life is a precondition for growth and self-realisation. Unlike Freud, who emphasised the will to pleasure, and Adler, who stressed the will to power, Frankl regarded the will to meaning as the main driving force of human beings. His work helped to shed light on the sources of many psychological crises.
Frankl also observed that even reaching a longed-for goal does not always bring fulfilment. Someone works very hard, has a clearly defined aim and achieves it – and yet their enthusiasm fades and a sense of emptiness and disorientation sets in, which Frankl called the existential vacuum. Most people set the direction and purpose of their lives themselves, drawing on their beliefs, convictions and knowledge – and perhaps it is in this very choice that the answer to the question of destiny lies.
Thoughts on destiny
- Paulo Coelho wrote that God reveals the future only very rarely, and only when it has been written so that its course may be changed.
- Albert Einstein remarked that our situation on Earth is strange: each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, though sometimes we seem to divine a purpose.
- Carlos Ruiz Zafón argued that destiny usually waits just around the corner but never knocks at our door – we have to set out to meet it ourselves.
