Destiny

 

 

What’s that?

 

Definition according to the Dictionary:

“Destiny, sometimes also called fate (from Latin fatum ‘decree, prediction, destiny, fate’), is a predetermined course of events.” 

 

Do i belief in something like “destiny?

 

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A ways back—I must have been in my late 40s or so—I had this burning question to myself, my soul, God maybe:

“Where am I destined to be? What am I designed to be? What is the place and occupation that serves the world best and is what I am meant to be and do?”

A bit silly, I would now say, albeit with a gentle understanding of my younger self’s eagerness. Since I obviously was already all that I was destined to be. But impatient still, I guess. Imagining the grass greener on the other side of the hill…

But lo and behold, the answer came—delivered in a kind of inner picture, a moving vision of myself sitting on a mountain top.

Or rather, a very high, oddly shaped hill that looked sheared off on one side, exposing a steep cliff extending all the way down to the valley floor.

In this vision, I live up there, right at the cliff, in a small hut all by myself.
My favorite activity is to sit at the very edge of the abyss and look out over the world below, the sky above, letting in the whole vista.
In the vision, it was apparent that this is a metaphor for witnessing the world—Samsara, as the ancient sages have named it.

Samsara—a Sanskrit word literally meaning “wandering through”—is a cycle of reincarnation, including one’s actions and their consequences in all times: past, present, and future.

In the vision, I was just doing that: witnessing it all.
Me, you, all people.
Present activities, past dramas, future potentials and possibilities.
And making sense, extracting wisdom, seeing meaning in the chaos of life-as-a-whole, as it manifests in its myriad forms.

In the vision, I was living alone, but from time to time, some people came to visit.
To ask me questions about life and God and all.
To seek clarity for their personal situation and challenges.
To find relief for the burdens on their mind, the pains in their heart.
Or looking for inspiration, for reconnection to Spirit.

And they brought me food in the vision, although I did not need to eat much to sustain my body.

Those were the days—and that was the vision. My destiny.

 

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And now here I am, a few years later.
Sitting at sea level, right by the great Pacific Ocean.
Looking out “over the world.”

Witnessing
Sense-making
Wisdom-gathering
Loving it all

 

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Is it destiny? Do I even believe in destiny?

Here is what my friend Cora has to say about destiny:

 

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