For whatever reason the notion of fate cropped up in my dream this morning. Although many may use fate as a figure of speech they may not mean it fully nor subscribe to the concept. They may pay lip service. The star struck lovers Romeo and Juliet were fated to meet….
Modern Westerners like to believe that they are partially responsible for the direction and outcome of their lives. The notion that most of their life is already fated or preordained does not sit well. Many would argue strongly against fate “I am, the captain of my own ship…” “I make my own luck..”
Yet they believe it unfair if they get cancer and die young.
In a world where you steer your own course why should fairness be a valid concept?
One can argue that life direction is given a helping hand by circumstances of birth. I was born into a South Wales family where education was a priority into a physical vehicle genetically capable of intelligence and to parents keen to foster reading etc. Therefore I was perhaps fated to study and maybe go on to teach. Although I was a rugger-bugger I am also bookish.
Fate and dreaming prescience are components of world religions. Future events are portrayed in dreams therein. The Pharoh took care of his harvests because of dreams. Such stories are told in Christian circles; the hagiography of Buddha has elephant related dreams. Much of world history has been influenced by dreams. Yet many religious figures, were they around today, would get psychiatric treatment for being weird and abnormal.
“Better stick that Jesus on the anti-psychotics, he has been out wandering and spouting off again. He has been pissing off the rabbis.”
One of the Toltec aphorisms for dreaming suggests that one of the purposes of dreaming is to reveal the next steps of your fate. This is very counter to what “normal” thinking suggests.
Then the idea is, if you have such a “fate” dream, you must follow that guidance from the dream. That way you learn to dream true to your fate.
It might seem a bit random and uncontrolled to your average “sane” person. But with abandon stress is dramatically reduced.
In order to believe in fate one needs to believe in karma. It is also helpful to believe in liberation and enlightenment.
It is fundamental that you cannot achieve liberation while you have karma to work off. Thus one chooses each birth in order to learn and rebalance the karmic scales.
Your fate in this sense is the lesson plan you yourself chose for this lifetime. You select your parents and meat-vehicle in such a way that it is likely to offer you an opportunity for the lessons you need to learn in a given life, to evolve. The shapes and script of the life are largely there waiting for you to step into role, your fate.
I think of the journey towards liberation as a game of snakes and ladders. In any one life you may make great sudden progress via a ladder. Or if you fuck up and are arrogant you can hit a snake and slide down to a level of evolution below where you started this lifetime.
If you miss the ladder you will probably find the snake.
Progress offered and untaken causes a large retrograde step. It is possible to not take the lesson plan you initially intended, throw your toys out of the cot or play truant. You are set back karmically by your own attitude. The next birth is into a vehicle not so able or blessed and you have to start from a lower level. You have to repeat a year in school before you are allowed to progress or matriculate.
Although you have a possible fate available, you chose not to take it and enforced you view of where your life should go. You forfeit fate and squander opportunity.
Your dreamer, your Soul, knows what it intended to learn in this life and will nudge you, sometimes through dreams, in the right direction. You may not like the suggestions it makes and deliberately shoot yourself in the foot by not complying. That way you may find yourself very far from the fate you initially chose to follow, stuck in a karmic trap of your own making. The lessons you planned are no longer available to you because life circumstance has changed to prohibit them. You will still learn a part of that lesson, perhaps by loss, but it will not go according to the lesson plan. The person you called forth into your life in order to learn may no longer haunt or frequent the same circles as you.
Some things you cannot escape. There are some elements of fate that no matter how hard you try to avoid, you must face. These are karmically required elements of fate. To try to resist is not good for you situationally nor for your mental health. Each of us knows when we are bottling or sulking or behaving like a three year-old tantrum practitioner. {Note: tantrum is different from tantric}
We all know when we are being an arse at one level.
When someone appears in your life, your life trajectories intersect. That intersection may be brief and mild; it might be prolonged and intense.
One might say your paths were meant to cross, you were fated to meet. It is helpful to make the most of such interactions if they seem fated and important. You can never be 100% sure but intuition can guide.
If someone keeps on cropping up in your dreams and you do not have a psychological obsession with that person, there is a possibility that you have some element of fate to work out; there is karma to balance.
Dreams can point at methods and approaches to balancing karma. By definition balancing karma is correct and an evolutionary evolution of fate(s) and thus when considered across lives, destiny. Where destiny is the summation of fates across all lives.
How you approach fate speak volumes. If you approach it like a tantrum ridden three year old, it will not be easy. If you are relaxed attentive and flow, life unfolds nicely.
It is possible in this context to completely mess-up and waste interactions which may present in your life. The person was there for a “reason”. You missed this and tried to interpret it from the wrong angle forcing it be how you insisted it must be. Your adamant insistence squanders opportunity. Which may never be possible ever again. The water has flown under the bridge; the horse has bolted and there is no point trying to close the stable door.
As a rule of thumb if your dreamer is trying to prompt you it will persist. It may even resort to nightmares which need urgent addressing. The dreamer can also influence the waking dream which you call reality in order to get your attention!! It is best to listen to dreaming symbols observed in the waking dream too!!
If you accept the hypothesis that glimpses of your fate might be given you in dreams it opens up a whole new way of living which is less predictable and boring than normal rectilinear career progress, house purchase and species propagation.
It adds and extra dimension to living even if it takes you off the reservation for ever.
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Dreamyoga 