Are destiny and God the same thing?
Answer Podcast
Video:
Thank you. Hare Krishna. Are destiny and God the same thing? Answer, not exactly.
Destiny works under the supreme will of God. The Mahabharata refers to the Lord as the Lord of destiny also. Destiny is essentially the sum total of whatever actions we have done in our past, which shapes the things that happen to us.
Now, God is the supreme being who decides how destiny comes upon us. So, we could say destiny is like the karmic bank account tally within us. So, how much credit we have, how much debit we have, all that is tallied and stored in a bank account, a karmic bank account.
And that karmic bank account tally is destiny. Now, what we are going to get when, that is determined in normal bank account by simply by if we wish to withdraw some money, we withdraw some money. If we wish to invest some money, we invest some money.
That’s how it works in a normal bank account. But in the karmic bank account, now what we do becomes an investment, but what we get depends not just on our free will, it also depends on a higher plan. God has a plan for our spiritual evolution, for our growth in wisdom and devotion, for enhancing our understanding of our spiritual essence and of our ultimate spiritual destiny.
And for this purpose of spiritual evolution, he orchestrates things in such a way that we sometimes may not get the results for the actions that we have done and sometimes we may get more than the result, either in a positive or negative sense, because some other past reactions may also come at that time. So, destiny works under the supervision of God. Of course, in a conversational sense, sometimes destiny may be equated with God, but we understand that destiny can sometimes be favorable and sometimes unfavorable.
Sometimes we may be going through a bad phase, when many bad reactions are coming upon us. But God always remains favorable to us. He is beyond destiny and he is always benevolent.
He is always the well-wisher. So, if we equate destiny with God, then we will start thinking that God is cruel and God is hurting us. But if you understand that God is beyond destiny and that even when destiny is unfavorable, God remains favorable and God can give us the strength even to face the negativities that come upon us because of our destiny.
So, God is with us, within us and he helps us to evolve and grow through whatever comes upon us according to our destiny. Thank you.