How Our Thoughts Shape Our Destiny?

All of us long for a better life. A life filled with success, happiness, peace, and satisfaction.

The life that we also refer to as our destiny.

But do we know what is the core building block of our destiny?

It’s our thoughts. The quality of our thoughts determines our destiny, and the quality of our lives.

Let’s see how.

To understand this, we have to understand a very simple concept of how our thoughts are related to our destiny. It’s a process that flows like this.

Thoughts — Feelings — Attitude — Actions — Habits/Sanskaras — Personality — Destiny

Let us understand this entire process flow so that we have the tools to change our destiny the way we want.

• Thoughts

Everything starts with a thought. Whenever we are faced with any situation in life, the first response is always a thought. That thought can be positive or negative based on our thinking patterns.

Note that our thoughts have nothing to do with the situation itself. It’s always a result of our default thinking process. Situations don’t define our response, it’s us who have the power to decide how we think and respond to the given situation.

For example, if someone has betrayed you, your mind may create negative thoughts of hatred and anger for that person.

On the other hand, if we are in the habit of pausing and carefully analyzing our every thought, our mind may consider the underlying reasons behind that person’s actions.

There might be a reason why that person has acted in such a manner. Maybe the person was too insecure that he chose the path of betrayal. Maybe he himself was in deep pain because he had chosen a negative Karma.

In that case, rather than creating thoughts of hatred and anger, our mind will create thoughts of compassion and understanding for that person.

Not that we are in any way justifying the act of betrayal. A betrayal is a betrayal and it’s a negative karma. But the point is to find the reasons for not letting it affect our own emotional health by creating negative thoughts.

As we will see further in this article the first thought we create towards any situation goes a long way to decide our ultimate destiny. Therefore, we are not changing our thought patterns for the other person, but we are changing it for our own benefit.

So from the above example, we have clearly understood that we have the power to create different quality of thoughts for the same situation. It’s us, not the situation, that has the power to decide our thoughts.

Now, once the thought gets created, it gives rise to a series of similar thoughts. So if we have started with negative thoughts, it is inevitably going to proliferate into multiple negative thoughts. This takes us to the second step of this process, our feelings.

• Feelings

A series of thoughts eventually gives rise to our feelings. That’s the second step of this process.

In the same example above, if we have started with a negative thought, we will experience negative feelings such as disappointment, hurt, anger, and so on.

However, if we start with a positive thought of understanding and compassion, we will experience positive feelings in the same situation.

We will be able to see the pain that the other person is going through, otherwise, why would he commit a negative karma of betrayal? We may even feel love and care towards that person knowing he has ignorantly created a bad Karma which will come back to him as his destiny. That would give rise to a feeling of compassion for that person.

Are we seeing the difference?

How our first thought can change the way we feel, given the same situation?

As we know, these positive emotions of love, compassion, and care are good for both our emotional and physical health, we have already started reaping its benefits and we are only in the second step of this process. Think about the benefits that we are going to accrue in all seven steps of this process as we move forward.

One very important point to note here is that we can often experience our feelings, but not our thoughts. Thoughts are subtle. They generally go unnoticed.

For example, we might say that I am feeling worried, stressed, happy, optimistic, etc. But the underlying seed of those feelings is always a thought that we don’t pay attention to.

Therefore, to change our feelings, we have to pause and change our thoughts.

• Attitude

How we feel about situations and people over a long time gives rise to our attitude. Attitude is a mental lens through which we see things. It can be positive or negative.

If we get into a habit of feeling negative about situations and people, with time we will develop a negative attitude. And always remember we carry this attitude with us everywhere. It’s never specific to a person or situation. Once we have developed a positive or negative attitude, it will be visible in our every act and behavior.

And it all starts with a thought.

Now this takes us to the fourth stage of this process, our actions.

• Actions

Our attitude defines our actions which we take through our words and behaviors. A positive attitude will always give rise to positive action and vice-versa.

For example, if we have a respectful attitude toward every person, which we have consciously developed by creating thoughts and feelings of respect for everyone. After some time it will automatically start reflecting in our words and behaviors without any effort from our side.

Even if the situation or the person is not favorable, our words and behaviors will always be that of respect and love, because we have consciously chosen to make it an attitude that is now reflected in our every action.

• Habits/Sanskaras

Any action repeated over time will become our habit/sanskar.

Habits are tangible such as waking up early, exercising, eating healthy, meditation, etc; whereas sanskars are intangible such as being respectful, compassionate, honest, etc.

Both are equally important.

Therefore, whatever actions we take through our words and behaviors over time become our habits and sanskars.

We have no control over people and situations. They will be like that. Both positive and negative. However, we cannot let the situations define our habits and sanskars. After all, it’s like giving the key to our destiny into the hands of outside factors.

It’s up to us to take ownership of creating the right thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and actions so that we can successfully create positive habits and sanskaras.

• Personality

We build habits and sanskars through repeated actions and the entire bundle of our habits and sanskars make our personality.

For example, being humble can be one of our sanskaras. Being grateful can be our other sanskar.

Eating healthy can be our one habit. Waking up early, exercising, and meditating every morning can be our other habit.

Like this, we have built several positive and negative habits and sanskaras through repeated actions. This entire bundle of both positive and negative habits and sanskaras put together make our personality.

• Destiny

If our personality contains more positive traits (habits and sanskaras) such as compassion, love, humility, gratitude, optimism, etc, we will always send out more positive energy to every situation in life.

However, if there are more negative traits in our personality, such as those of pessimism, comparison, jealousy, envy, lust, anger, stress, worry, etc, we will inevitably send out more negative energy to every situation in life.

And as the ‘Law of Karma’ says, ‘we receive the energy we send out’. And the energy we receive is our destiny.

Therefore, it is important to take charge of the energy we are emitting into the world because that will ultimately come back to us as our destiny.

And it all starts with a thought.

Therefore, if we get into the practice of creating the right thoughts in every situation, that will give rise to positive feelings, which over time become our attitude. Our attitude defines our actions in the form of words and behaviors. Any action taken over time becomes our habit and sanskar. The entire bundle of our habits and sanskaras makes our personality. And our personality decides the energy we send out in every situation. Ultimately, the energy we send out decides the energy we receive, our destiny.

Therefore, let us take charge of our destiny by consciously creating the right thoughts in every situation.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on the above.

If you’d like to read more about this topic, please get a copy of the book ‘The Power of One Thought’ written by a profound spiritual teacher, ‘Sister BK Shivani’.

Thank you.