Does Everything Happen for a Reason? Some Thoughts on the Law of Fate and the Law of Accident

Yes,everything happens for a reason, says cartoon character Maxine. Usually, she adds, it's because somebody screwed up!

I can relate to that because, if I'm honest, I can see that in many trying situations the person who screwed up was - me.

The idea that "everything happens for a reason" - call it EHFAR for short - has become so ingrained into contemporary thinking that people use it as an excuse for all kinds of avoidable mishaps.

"There are no coincidences" is a similar idea, with New Age overtones. Both, in my view, can be sloppy and even dangerous ways of looking at life for those of us trying to follow a spiritual path. Of course there are coincidences! It isn't always God's way of staying anonymous. Sometimes it is, often it isn't.

Synchronicity is different, and occurs only when we're in a higher state of consciousness, able to attract our Fate.

At the simplest level, EHFAR can merely be the response of an habitual optimist, always trying to look for the good in each situation. And that is fine. The more positive we can keep our attitudes in life, the better the outcome will be.

And it's certainly true that, as St Paul says, "all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord". But note, the second part of that sentence is just as important as the first. God can certainly bring good out of apparent evil, and make everything that happens to us work for our benefit, but only as long as we are following a spiritual path. Otherwise, we are simply living heedlessly, submerged by life, where accidents happen and entropy increases all the time.

The Work teaches that we are living either under the Law of Fate or the Law of Accident. If we're striving to become more conscious, then we will be brought increasingly under the Law of Fate. Conscious Humanity will ensure that our circumstances, the people around us, and the events that happen to us will be such as can increase our awareness, help our Work efforts.

Similarly, St Paul points out, God - sometimes interpreted in Twelve Step Programmes as an acronym for "Good Orderly Direction" - will help us to overcome our obstacles and bring good out of the mess we've made of our lives.  For this to occur, we have to invite Him to take over. God doesn't gatecrash our lives, but, like a true gentleman, waits to be asked.

But when we're living mindlessly, we expose ourselves to every accidental event that comes along. There's no guidance, no overall direction. We may like to calm ourselves by repeating the EHFAR mantra, and trying to justify our own mechanicalness, but in more conscious moments we know this is just not true. And seeing how we have behaved can be very painful indeed. It's part of the real suffering we must undergo for our own development, and to begin with we all try to avoid it. Hence the popularity of EHFAR.

In counselling, it's the client's ability to be truly honest that will enable them to be "cured" of seemingly intractable conditions. Honesty about their own codependence, their laziness, their willed helplessness. Their mechanicalness. And so it is for all of us, without exception.

The only "reason" for many things is the simple Law of Cause of Effect. And that alone won't help us to become more conscious.

While the Law of Accident tends downwards, deeper into matter and entropy, and away from consciousness, the Law of Fate will attract to us exactly what we need for our own development.

But the difference between the two can be very hard to see.

Take a road accident, for example, like the one I describe in my book "A Raging Thirst". Looked at from the outside, it seems merely the result of mechanical behaviour, a random event. But looked at from the viewpoint of the Work, it is clear that it truly did belong to my Fate.

How do I know this? And how can we see the marks of Fate in our lives, in general?

First, there will be obvious benefits to the situation, even one as dark as an accident that leaves someone disabled and in pain. The outcome gave me much more material to work on, and enabled me to turn back to the Work with all my being; without this spur, perhaps I would simply have drifted away from the Work, or at least abandoned it for so long that it grew cold in me, and I lost the ability to make real efforts.  And my present condition helps me to help others, in a very special way, by example. What'smore, I rediscovered my Christian faith, which has been a tremendous support in my personal Work and in my relationships, and I believe that in no other way could this have happened. God had to grab me by the scruff of my neck. Then I paid attention.

Second, the event could be clearly seen in my astrological chart. Everything pertaining to our Fate will be in our birthchart, from the map of our Essence to the sequence of Fated events that will be presented to us in our lives. For a long time, I couldn't see how my car accident manifested in my chart, but when the planet Chiron was discovered and its orbit mapped, it was immediately obvious. Chiron had formed an exact opposition to my native Sun and Mars on the day of my accident. At the same time, Mars and Venus had recently conjoined in my seventh house, foreshadowing the "spiritual marriage", the ultimate blessing,  that would be made possible if I truly worked on myself and avoided sinking into self-pity and denial.

Third, there will be hints and types of the Fated event in our earlier lives, although we may not understand them at the time. A spiritual guide such as a Work teacher is very helpful - indeed, absolutely vital - in encouraging our discernment of what is Fate and what is Accident. In my case, as a very young child I was always, inexplicably, frightened of the sight of people on crutches or with walking sticks, and even of women with bandages or plasters on their legs. I would cry and run from them, and sometimes have nightmares about them. Nobody understood why this happened, but with hindsight it's clear to me that my Essence recognized the Fate which was waiting for me, yet because it was still undeveloped it was unable to cope with this knowledge and tried to flee from it.

Even with these glimpses, the difference between Fate and Accident is usually very, very hard to see. Was that relationship with an addict, that caused us so much despair and wretchedness, our Fate? Was the very disease of addiction, if we are among those who, like me, suffer from it, our Fate? In the latter case, I would yes, definitely, because it must be at least partly manifested in our genetic inheritance, which is included in our Essence.

But what about the plane we missed because we were rushing around looking for our toiletries? The job we failed to get because the interviewer happened to favour a relative for the post? The ornery neighbour we find ourselves living next to, who complains every time we play music, even quietly? All these events and circumstances could be seen as either Fate or Accident. We must be very careful in trying to decide which is which. The difference is tremendous.

Still, we can trust that, even though we don't know exactly what our Fate may be, when we are truly working on ourselves, or working a Step, or obeying the spiritual demands of
our religion or our conscience, then our Higher Power will orchestrate our lives  so that we can use every person, every situation, for good.

This is the true alchemy, the gold which can be refined only from the base metal of our lives.