Q: to Jaggi about Destiny?

Q: If everything is destined about our life, where is the scope or where is the need to use our intelligence?

Whoever told you everything is destined? Nothing is destined. It is just that unconsciously you have made yourself into a certain possibility. So, naturally, you are moving in that direction. This is not destiny; this is a blind man walking. You create certain tendencies within you with your unconsciousness, according to the tendencies you keep moving in that direction. This destiny that you are talking about is something that you created unconsciously; you can also create it consciously.

The very first moment when you utter the word spirituality, whether you realise that or not, what you are actually saying is ‘I want to take my destiny into my hands’. It doesn’t matter what my karma says. It doesn’t matter, what somebody in the heaven is going to say. ‘I want to move towards liberation.’ This is taking destiny into your hands. The moment you say ‘I want to walk a spiritual path’, you are saying ‘I want to take my destiny into my hands.’ If you want to go where you want to go, you better take your destiny into your hands; otherwise, you will exist here as an accidental being.
I know for a long time they have been telling you that God is making your destiny. Sitting there everyday and plotting your life for you. They told you many things like this but I think you are adult enough these days. They even told you your marriage was made in heaven (laughs), you believed it for three days. They have told you such things and got away with it.
There is no such thing as destiny. There is a limited sense of destiny working, there is no ultimate destiny. That is something that you have to choose. In a limited sense, the accumulations that you have within you form a certain attitude and tendency within themselves and it starts moving in that direction. It is not because somebody is guiding it in that direction. Simply because your tendencies are such, you are going that way.
Now, the river that is born on top of this mountain, at one place it’s a brook, at another place it’s a waterfall, in another place it is just a meandering river. Somewhere else, it’s become a wide estuary to join the ocean. In another place it’s become the ocean. Is this the river’s destiny? No, this is the water’s tendency. To constantly move from one place to another depending upon the levels that are there. If the oceans were placed high, the rivers wouldn’t go to the ocean.
I want you to strip yourself of all fancy stories and come to terms with life. The river is not longing to go to the ocean, although your poet said so. Water just finds its own level and keeps going, that’s all. If you dam it, the river is not sitting there and crying I want to go to the ocean. There is no such thing. It's poetry; let's enjoy the poetry, but reality is different. Enjoying poetry, enjoying the current realities around is one thing. When you are talking about reaching your ultimate reality, it’s a different thing.
Like they say in Zen; when you’re an ignorant person, rivers are just rivers; trees are just trees; mountains are just mountains; clouds are just clouds. Once you become a seeker, rivers are no more just rivers, trees are not just trees, mountains are not just mountains, clouds are not just clouds - everything has a different dimension to it. But if you reach, if you become enlightened, once again rivers are rivers, trees are trees, mountains are mountains, clouds are clouds. Then what is the point?
If you are ignorant, it is the same way, if you are enlightened it is the same way. Yes. An enlightened person is just as good as an utter fool, but completely in a different world. An enlightened person is not in any way special the way you know special, because your idea of special is adding parts to yourself. Isn’t it? Your idea of special is that you start identifying yourself with many things and become special. In that sense he is not special, he is more ordinary than the ordinary but it is a full circle. It’s a different dimension of existence all together.
Sadhguru Jaggi VasudevIsha Yoga CentreNew No.55, Moosa StreetT NagarChennai - 600 017Ph: 91-44- 24333185, 24348732