I strongly believe in fate, and I'll tell you why. Humans are fragile beings, a person can die from a paper cut if it happens in the wrong place. I know that I should have been dead years ago, and yet, here I am, typing up my beliefs on my pc. A lot of people don't like to believe that they don't have control of their own lives. but is that so bad? Think about everyone that you have ever met or been in contact with in anyway. What if you changed that person, or caused that person to do something that helped others? Would that give your life meaning? It's possible. I am sure of one thing, and that is that I cannot die until  I accomplish something. What it is that I am supposed to accomplish? I have no idea. All I know is that I tried to commit suicide using sleeping pills, and should be dead, and yet im not. I overdosed, and my major organs should have failed, but instead, I woke up the next day. How do you explain something like that? I have had many NDE's. The one that effects me the most is the one where I was concussed lying on my back staring up at the sky, trying to stay awake so that I dont go into acoma, and I decided to live. I made the decision, and so far, I've stuck to it. Maybe I'm dead wrong, maybe we all dont have some higher purpose. But I strongly believe that we do, and no matter how small the purpose may be, you still matter. If the afterlife allows you to make up for mistakes, or learn more about life itself, that is spectacular, because there is nothing that I would like to know more about.

delta, so you believe that the fate of some people are killing other or suffer all life? i don't believe in it.

I have no problem with the concept of fate, predestination, as long as it is understood that we each create our own fate, and it is dynamic, meaning we each change our fate moment to moment by each choice we make.  Each choice we make factors into future events in our experience, our fate or destiny, and interacts with the choices others make.

In my view since it often takes considerable time for each of our choice to have an effect, we often don't see the connection between our choice and the resulting "fate."  Freeway driving makes it easier to see, things happen faster and often dramatically.

I make the choice to divert my attention from traffic in front of me, maybe look down at the radio to change the station.  That choice results in me not seeing that cars are stopping in my lane in front of me.  I get to test the airbags in my vehicle.

The choice I made to move into that lane two miles back now has led to an unintended result, the air bag test.  The choice I made to leave the house and drive on the freeway ten minutes ago, led to the lane change, etc., etc.

So was it predestined that I be in an air-bag-testing car wreck on the freeway that day.  Yes, by virtue of the dynamic, interactive nature of the reality we exist in.  Could I have changed my "fate?"  Yes, by making a different choice anywhere along the path of my fate.

Our choices are fit together with those of our fellow travelers, sometimes you make choices that test your air bags.

Then there is the question of who is making all the choices that affect our experience.  Most folks tend to believe that they only exist in one place, in a body, in physical reality.  What happens to this whole concept of fate or predestination if we consider that we are "more than as physical body" as Robert Monroe use to say?  What if we are a multi-dimensional being and I/There (I as the Disk) also makes choices that affect my experience Here?

What would that imply about this whole "Is fate real" question?  Whose fate is it anyway?

Bruce

Thanks for that reply, Bruce - I understand.  One can add a series of events together linearly and wonder about fate.  For example, when I was only eight or so, I visited my grandfather's house in Brooklyn.  It was raining, an ugly day.  He asked what my brother and I wanted to eat, and I said hotdogs.  My parents pointed out that it was raining pretty hard, and there were none to be found anywhere nearby.  He ended up going out in the rain for us, and dropped on the street and had a heart attack.  He died within a few days.

I always thought, as children will do "what if I hadn't asked him to go and get that hotdog?"  Would he have still collapsed, as he did on the street?  A lot of questions, and guilt for a young boy.  Of course, the blockages in his coronary arteries were ready.  Of course that one trip didn't give him a chronic disease.  But if I could go back in time, I would have told him not to go, I would have pleaded not to, no matter what.

If linear time is only present here, then the concept of fate may be more moot for our consciousness/soul.  If past, present and future are coexistent in one "everpresent" state, then with intention and free will we are constantly making decisions and in charge of the ultimate outcome.  I have seen studies from Princeton's PEAR laboratory where conscious decisions and intent have an outcome on past events (I gave an example of this in the PEAR thread I started about a ticker tape of "heads and tails" already printed then given to a person to try to alter toward more heads than tails). 

So, in essence I agree with you Bruce.  There may be such a thing as fate, but our conscious minds are very much involved in the decisions that lead toward it. (we are of the same mind on this).  I do not, however accept the fact that we are helpless puppets in any way in this area.  This is a myth, that we are acted upon by the universe instead of the one pulling the strings.

Our conscious minds and presence are, by nature creative forces capable of wonderous and powerful manifestations here in C1, if we only realize it.

Great thread,

Matthew

I feel that it's this way.

To begin, our awareness is free.

It is provided with a field of thought energy to work with.

If it looks into the field of thought energy and overly focuses on certain parts, this causes belief systems to be formed, and emotional attachments to be created. As a result, it can no longer look with freedom and a comprehensive view.

Even when awareness can look with freedom and a comprehensive view, it isn't free to do whatever it wants, because the inspiration of pure unconditional love and an understanding of the "big picture," would cause it to be responsible to the whole. Especially since such a way of viewing things would enable it to see how everything is connected, and the best way in which the happiness of all can be obtained.