Is marriage predestined? Is my spouse, where we are going to meet, how we will meet, already predestined by God? If yes, then why do we need matrimony sites etc., wherein I only get to know surface level information about someone? My heart does not have trust when I look out for someone on these sites. What should I do?
—Anu, India
Dear Anu,
Life is partly predestined, not so much by God, but by our karma. God gives us free choice, free will, discrimination. Free will, Yogananda writes in his Autobiography of a Yogi, is given to us “simultaneous with a soul, and revocable never.”
The good thing is, the more highly we advance spiritually, the less we are puppets of our karma.
In general, I wouldn’t think of life, of your spouse, and of everything else in your life, as being predestined. Think rather of your free will, of creating your future, of tuning your free will to the will of God.
I wouldn’t go to these matrimony sites, except you feel a definite guidance to do so. It is indeed too superficial as a method. I believe your heart is telling you the correct advice not to have trust in these sites. Rather pray sincerely to God, “Let me meet the right person with whom I can grow.”
If you do that, the chance of meeting the right person is much higher.
God bless you,
Jayadev
