Destiny governed by Fate or Faith???

An Abstract from "Arrow of the Blue Skinned God" - Jonah Blank

""Perhaps", I ventured, "fate is a Borgesian labyrinth. We are perfectly free to wander through it at will, but the paths we treat are wholly determined by the walls of the maze. We can select any route we please, even change routes from time to time, but we still must follow the corridors wherever they may lead."

"Yes indeed," said the whistler, " If every road went where we desired, each of us would be a big movie star"

"But", his friend addressed me earnestly, " we do not all have the same destiny."

"Quite true," U said, "the maze is different for every person."

"Why not break through the walls?" said the whistler

"Cannot be done," said his friend. "No way to alter fate, you know that. The walls of this maze," he said, "must be made of cast iron."

"- We cannot see the goals but we can't just step forward and reach them. We can't get there by a straight course - if we try we hit our nose on the thin air. We become angry and frustrated, because we do not realize we are in the maze at all. Instead, we should feel our way along the invisible borders, as we wind roundabout along our proper path."

Fatalism is no call to inaction, no license for passivity. Even if your maze has a clear path to the finish, you will never find it by merely sitting still. You cannot change the world, but you can - and must - change yourself. The Hindu faith places greater emphasis on an individual's action than perhaps any other religion in the world. Faith governs your life, but ultimately you govern fate.

Belief in absolute destiny would be depressing only if it came from outside. If people saw some external force dominating all their actions, perhaps they would wallow in despondency, but in their view destiny is a power inside our very souls. Faith is the search for the power each of us carries within."