Does destiny determine whether a child will live till forty or also what will happen to him at that age?
That is to a large extent destiny.
He will reach the age of 40 or when he is at the age of 40, whether he just reaches the age of 40, what he will be doing at the age of 40, what exactly is determined by destiny. Let's try to understand this. Destiny is like the road topography in a jail.
Let's say picture was tomorrow morning I am going from here to Houston. Now the road is already determined. But what I do as I go along the road, that is not determined.
That means there are certain things that are determined, certain things are not determined. So what I am going to do at that time, that is not determined. But it could be that say at the age of 40, I get a disease.
Or at the age of 40, I go through some financial upheaval. When you think about destiny, you should not think of destiny as something just frozen. Destiny is also dynamic.
Dynamic means it depends on how we act and how we respond. Going back to the road example. If it's raining, if it has rained and the road is slippery, at that time I drive at a breakneck speed.
That the road was slippery was destiny. But my driving at breakneck speed was not destiny. And if my driving at breakneck speed causes a vehicle to skid over or fall into a ditch, maybe the accident, that is not destiny.
So broadly speaking, if we try to get too much into this micro-analysis of what exactly is this time, it can be paralyzing. So even if we are slow, like your example, while we are driving on a slippery road, we are slow, we are very cautious, we still get into an accident. Yeah, that's also possible.
And that's destiny? Yeah, that's destiny. That means, let's put it this way, in our life, in every situation, there is something that is in our control, there is something that is not in our control. So whatever is in our control is what we should focus on.
What is not in our control, we can understand, to be happy, that is destiny. Sometimes we were driving very safely, but on the opposite side, a drunk driver comes, and they hit us. Can't do anything about that.
So understand that. The point of understanding destiny is not to go into a micro-analysis of what exactly is in my control, what exactly is not in my control. What exactly is going to happen when, what exactly is destiny.
It's impossible to know that. So for example, say some people, they have very weak digestive system. Just eat a little inappropriate food, and their stomach gets upset.
Some people, they treat their tongue like a conveyor belt. They put anything on their head, and it goes inside, and they say, okay. So now, we could say that, by their destiny, say the first kind of people, they had a sickly bone, a weak digestion.
Other person, by their destiny, have a healthy bone, resilient digestive system. That's the broad pattern. Now, it's up to the individual.
We decide, should I eat this or should I not eat this? Will eating this be good for me, or eating this not be good for me? So, all that we focus on is our choices. Destiny is not something which is ordered in terms of restricting our choices. So, the important thing is that we focus on our choices, and choose wisely.
Does that address your question?