Are terrorist attacks the result of destiny?

Question: Dear Jesus, today I received a question from my 17 year old daughter. It concerned the terrorist attack in Madrid and how some people got saved by Destiny, by missing the train and so on. She asked me if that was an act of Destiny and I answered that it was.
In that case, would being on that train and getting mutilated for life or die also be an act of Destiny? I answered that it probably was.
She then concluded that the bomb attacks must also be the workings of Destiny and maybe we could not blame the terrorists for carrying out that part of Destiny. I found it hard to agree with that but her reasoning was not lacking logic. I explained the dark forces and the consequences of free will but it did not really convince her. Could you please shed some Light on this issue.
Marite, Spain

Answer from Jesus:

A very important question, which I wish I could have discussed in a context that did not involve such a horrendous loss of life.

I admit that your daughter’s reasoning has a certain logic, and it is understandable that she feels this way. In fact, throughout the ages many people have accepted this form of logic. Yet I must tell you that it is not the highest understanding of the issue.

Let us first define what we mean, when we say destiny. The normal meaning of the word is that there is some force in the universe which predetermines certain events. In one of my discourses, I explain that there is a certain progression in the spiritual life of humankind. We of the Ascended Host will release certain spiritual energies in order to gently force people to come up higher in consciousness. So one might say that there is a force of destiny which is seeking to help humankind rise to a higher level of consciousness. As part of that growth process, certain old patterns and beliefs must be shattered. Nevertheless, this force of destiny deals with the overall picture of what is happening in society. It does not in any way predestine people’s behavior or their responses to the situations they encounter in life. In other words, within the big picture of this form of destiny, there is much room for the free-will choices made by individuals.

As I explain on this website, every aspect of life on this planet is influenced by people's choices, and therefore in one sense one might say that nothing is predetermined. However, people's choices can be influenced by various factors. You cannot correctly understand the concept of predestination without considering the reality of karma and reincarnation, as I explain elsewhere. When you do understand karma, you realize that many of the situations that happen in life are the results of the choices people made in past lifetimes. These choices created an energy impulse that was sent out into the universe, and when that impulse comes back to people in a future lifetime, it can cause various calamities.

There is no question that in a situation like these terrorist bombings, karma is a very important factor. There are people who escaped these bombings because it was not their karma to be killed or maimed in this incident. There are people who did not escape because it was their karma from a past life to experience what they experienced in this incident. It is also true that karma is a strong influence on the terrorists who decided to commit these acts. They were conditioned to commit these acts through the karma they have created in past lives. However, it is very important to understand that karma does not predestine everything.

One of the reasons karma and reincarnation has been rejected by many people in the West is that most Western people correctly realize that not everything in life is predetermined. In the East, most people do believe in karma and reincarnation but many of them have taken these teachings into an unfortunate extreme. Many Eastern people do indeed believe that anything that happens to you is predetermined by your karma from past lives. The unfortunate effect of this is that it is very easy to adopt a fatalistic attitude toward life. What is the point in trying to improve life if everything is predetermined by past karma? This is precisely the attitude many Western people cannot accept, because they feel deeply that it is possible for people to improve life and change their destiny. Therefore, they feel that it does matter what you do in this life. This is a correct feeling but unfortunately it causes many Western people to throw the baby out with the bath water and reject the entire concept of karma and reincarnation.

The reality is that karma will never override a person's free will. Your karma from a past life will create certain conditions that will predispose you to make certain choices. For example, the terrorists who plotted these bombings have for many lifetimes been enveloped in the consciousness that the ends can justify the means. This has made it likely that they would be attracted to an extremist cause in this lifetime and that they would use that cause as an excuse for carrying on the patterns and momentums that they have been following for many lifetimes. Yet there is no guarantee that people will choose to continue such momentums. It is always possible that people can choose to break the pattern and take their life in a new direction. The determination to break old patterns is indeed the hope for any improvement in people’s personal lives and in society.

As I explain throughout this website, everything in this world revolves around the free will of human beings. God has given people free will, and therefore he has given up the control of every little detail that happens on Earth. In other words, God had no control over the situation that led up to the terrorist bombings in Madrid. He did not want this to happen, and such attacks serve no purpose in God’s overall plan.

This situation was the outplaying of a combination of karma from past lives and the free-will choices made by people in this life. As I said, the karma from past lives can predispose a person to make certain choices. Yet the choices are not predetermined. People will always make a choice, and therefore they always have the option to break past momentums and take their life in a new, positive direction. They can always chose the high road over the low road. However, if people do not break past momentums, then karmic situations will inevitably outplay themselves, and this is what you saw in Madrid.

Obviously, this situation was precipitated by the choices made by the terrorists. Yet you cannot ignore the fact that the Spanish people also made certain choices that led to this situation. One choice is to allow themselves to be in a state of consciousness where they feel that they do not have to change their way of life in order to create a more just situation on a planetary scale. This is the same state of consciousness that led to the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, as I comment on elsewhere.

In terms of the situation in Spain, let me say that there was indeed a national karma that contributed to this situation and made the nation vulnerable. That karma was built over many centuries through such events as the Inquisition, the treatment of Muslims in Spain, the conquest of the Americas and other violent events. However, this terrorist attack has in no way done away with the nation's karma. There is indeed much more to come, and therefore it is extremely important that spiritual people in Spain make an effort to mitigate the return of karma that will still come upon their nation. The Violet Flame and Mother Mary’s rosaries are the most efficient tools for accomplishing this task.

Even though karma can be very exact, down to minute details, it is important to remember that karma does not predetermine everything. In every situation in life, there is room to change the outcome of events. For example, people always have the choice to raise their consciousness and tune in to their Christ selves. There were indeed people in Madrid who received inner warnings that caused them to miss the trains. There were also people who made the choice to go through life sleepwalking and without seeking to attune to their Christ selves. Such people did not receive warnings, and therefore they were killed or maimed in the attacks. In some cases, it was not people’s karma that they should be killed. However, because they did not make the choice to attune to their Christ selves they could not be warned. In other words, the fact that they were killed in this attack was not the result of choices made in a past lifetime. It was the result of choices made in this lifetime.

My point here is to help you understand that nothing is set in stone, nothing is predetermined. There is a certain force in the universe which seeks to help people grow. This force sets certain parameters for what happens on planet Earth. There is also the force of karma, which sets much more detailed parameters of what is likely to happen in a person's life. Yet even the law of karma does not predetermine every aspect of a person's life. There is still plenty of room for free-will decisions that can change the course of a person’s life and thereby avoid or mitigate certain karmic conditions. In other words, people's choices can either mitigate calamities or bring such calamities upon themselves.

If everything was predetermined by your karma from past lives, there would be no room to make new karma or to mitigate karma. In that case, how could a person ever escape the wheel of rebirth? My point is that it is extremely important for people not to fall into a fatalistic state of mind. It is not correct to reason that nothing really matters because everything is predetermined, so there is no point in even trying to change your life or your society.

Everything is subject to the free will of human beings, and therefore everything matters. Every choice you make will either improve your life or make it worse. Doing nothing is likely to make life worse. I can assure you that it is quite possible for people to escape the calamities that are mandated by karmic conditions. God truly has no desire to punish human beings. So if people will learn their lessons and raise their state of consciousness, God will often hold back certain karmic conditions that could have caused various calamities.

In fact, had God not done so, humankind would long ago have destroyed itself through the use of nuclear weapons. So the very fact that you are alive today proves that God is quite willing to remove people's karma—if they are willing to raise their consciousness. That is indeed one of the most important messages I seek to get across on this website. One might say that destiny is an unstoppable force that drives life to be forever moving. However, people's choices can determine the direction of the force of destiny, both on an individual and on a planetary scale.

So you might explain to your daughter that there was a certain force of karma that set up the situation that lead to the terrorist bombings. Yet if the Spanish people had made better choices, the bombings would have been averted. Therefore, the worst possible response to this situation would be to become passive or pacifistic and do nothing to prevent future calamities. For evil to triumph, it only takes that good people do nothing. Another unfortunate reaction would be to become militant and seek to fight fire with fire. The best possible response would be to become militant in a spiritual way and use spiritual fire to consume the karmic conditions that make the nation vulnerable to future calamities. Another important tool would be to enlighten people to the need to change course and become a more spiritual nation. This would include moving out of the Spanish nation’s Catholic past.

See further comments on the bombings in Madrid.

Back to Main Page.

Copyright © 2008 by Kim Michaels