DESTINY
Destiny in the rigid sense applies only to the outer being so long as it lives
in the Ignorance. What we call destiny is only in fact the result of the present condition of the being and the nature and energies it has accumulated
in the past acting on each other and determining the present attempts and their future results. But as soon as
one enters the path of spiritual life, this old predetermined destiny begins to recede. There comes in a new factor,
the Divine Grace, the help of a higher Divine Force other than the force of Karma, which can lift the sadhak beyond
the present possibilities of his nature. One’s spiritual destiny is then the divine election which ensures the
future. The only doubt is about the vicissitudes of the path and the time to be taken by the passage. It is here
that the hostile forces playing on the weaknesses of the past nature strive to prevent the rapidity of the progress
and to postpone the fulfilment. Those who fall, fall not because of the attacks of the vital forces, but because
they put themselves on the side of the hostile Force and prefer a vital ambition or desire (ambition, vanity, lust,
etc.) to the spiritual siddhi.
Here Matter seems to mould the body's life
And the soul follows where its nature drives:
Nature and Fate compel his free-will's choice.
But greater spirits this balance can reverse
And make the soul the artist of its fate.