Against fatalism

Astrologers predict an already recorded future and we take that to mean that our destinies have already been written in stone and there’s nothing one can do about it. But what the stars are foretelling is a destiny that has already been formed based on past lives. So, we may be living out our past destinies—and this is the crux of the matter—while we are creating our fate for the future.

This needs to be understood clearly— each action we do is not merely a throwback from the past, but also a seed being sown for future destiny, which is being formed all the time.

So it is important to not treat life with a fatalistic passivity, or let life merely happen to us. What is required is alertness about what we do, each time we do it. No action should be done without the awareness of its equal and opposite reaction. Every action, however innocuous it may seem, is also the seed slowly being sown for the next life.

There are two major forces in the universe—fate and individual energy. And individual energy can modify and even frustrate fate. Sri Aurobindo puts it thus, “No doubt what we have sown we must reap in this life or another.

We are creating our fate for the future, even while undergoing old fate from the past in the present. This gives a meaning to our will and action and does not, as European writers wrongly believe, constitute a rigid and sterilising fatalism.”

Fatalism is a negative acceptance of past karma—a passive acceptance or belief that nothing can be changed. But astrology is really a record that presents us with a fait accompli—of a sequence already formed. After viewing this, one can use it to change one’s responses to the already formed life. That is utilising individual energy to deal with fate.

The circumstances of our lives are predestined but our responses to these are still a matter of individual effort.

The writer teaches at Mumbai’s MMK College.