The truth is not in the books and the chants, the myriad religons and unlimited gyaan. The only truth is in this moment and how you lived it. Everything else , no matter how believable, if it hasnt added to it, is only a concept till then...

It is still a mystery to me ...specially since I dont believe a lot of what its interpretation is said to state
Reasons:
1. I dont think that there is anybody out there (or even my soul)that keeps track of good and bad karmas ...with each karma eventually deciding my destiny.
2. How is good karma and bad karma decided anyways? What is good under some societies may be bad in another...or what may have been good karma in one lifetime may be bad in another...e.g Killing may be justified as good karma in the Ashoka empire since one was protecting ones homeland and loved ones while killing in any form in current days may still not be acceptable at all.
Then,is karma defined as the action or the motive behind the action or both?
Even then I would not be convinced..since even motive could be a gray area for the person, not completely good or bad..
3. I dont belive that the soul chooses his/her experience prior to being born; helped by his accumulated good/bad karmas. Who would want to experience being a murderer. And does that experience really help understand god in the larger and complete context?

So what does define destiny if not karma?

What I do believe in is that
1. The soul may carry an experience (not good or bad events; just the essence of the experience), if at all, from one life time to another.
2. You do define/shape a large part of your destiny in this lifetime itself.[ How do I explain babies becoming infant or born to underpoverished families etc? - I don't because I dont think of them as bad karmas providing you a bad life. If ones thinks from the start ? what is bad with being born with one leg etc? Who made that bad and why? The social acceptance of it defines that not the actual fact itself.]
3. A soul may choose to be reborn..it may even choose its environment but nothing defines the experience than when the soul is faced with it in the reality. How the soul choses to respond to it may be defined by his earlier experiences (that bit I agree). Destiny is then a real time response. [ How do I explain people being able to read the future ? - I belive some people can see some things to a large extent .How? Well, if I could see myself from 10 - 100 feet above me. I could see the road I had taken so far, the choices I have made, the direction I am pointing and where that road may take me.Many a times, if the road ahead is straight , it may be possible to detail exactly all the milestones that are coming up and the destination that I will reach. That's it! If I were to constantly make aware decisions,understand my choices well and not be governed by a particluar flow of experiences, I may choose different paths at differnt junctures, therby altering my own so-called destiny. Which is also why they say that meditation helps with karma's? Not because they literally do but beacause they help you break your experience pattern and make you mindful of the present; allowing you to make better choices.
4. As Swami Pramahansa says through Swami Kriyanada in his book 'the Essence of the Bhagwat Gita': Eventually we have to transcend our understanding of both good and bad karmas to be really enlightened'. This I completely believe in.
I understand that from a social and moral discipline perspective, it is imperative that people a) learn to accept their life as a cumulative sum of their good and bad deeds, sometimes within and sometimes out of their control b) fear making bad choices again in lieu of spoiling their current or future lifetimes.
However, I dont have to necessarily live it. For one, I am and can be in control..qs to ask then is a)who is that 'I' b) what does it take to be in continous control? possible ans is : I is when I am merged with the consciousness. To be in continous control I need to be in contnous awareness of my real self and hence my choices.
Accepted that it is a long shot for most of us, but it is the truth, and which is what should be stated ...In the interim, if the law of karma is what helps the non spiritual, that is fine but is still a blind path and needs to be understood as such. We happily accept the law of karma because we dont want to believe we can ever be in control completely maybe because it takes a lot of work to get there?
Meanwhile , we are happy using our limited understanding to sort good from bad karmas, run after ways to reduce bad karmas (if that was really possible, I wonder why masters like drona or gods like Krishna, suffered from them? Apparently Krishna was killed accidentally by a poisoned arrow since he had done something similiar in his previous avatar).
All that we are really doing is
1. Loosing control of our life , happily following blind patterns and blaming it on karma
2. Fearing life and attempting to be good.

When what is really , probably meant to happen with this law is:
a) Understand that it will take time and dedictation to get control of our life. It may not be easy but it is possible.
b) Eventually your entire life is about perception. If you can accept any circumstance and treat is as an experience, then nothing is really good or bad.
c) Strive to be aware .

It was a reasonably hot day most of yesterday afternoon. All of a sudden, sometime in the evening, the weather got cooler and strong cool winds started blowing . I was engrossed in work but the cool wind on my face caught my attention. I was eager to go out, face the full blast of the incoming storm. I hurried down to the nearest park. Another family had come down to share the cool weather.
Suddenly it started pouring.There was thunder and lightening. I perched myself on one of the covered swings , delighted like a baby.There was rain all around me and I was in the middle of it without getting wet. I wanted to go out and get drenched but resisted.
The other family got cover too. We waited it out for some time. As suddenly as the downpour had started, it ended too. The family used that opportunity to head back home.
After a while,the downpour started again. It was so beautiful to sit there amidst the clapter and thunder. The sound of thunder was therapuetic. The brightness had increased compared to the early half of the day; but without the glare. It was almost as if, this would be the right moment god would choose to descend....bright as the sun yet cool ; sky clear from the rain and refreshing winds awakening every pore of your being...
I could resist no longer and walked around the garden in the rain...by that time, it had slowed to a drizzle...
Some things came to mind amid all this experience:
-It is understandable that there will be hot days in life and one always finds a way to adjust to them; but dont let them kill the need or the desire to recognize and enjoy the cool days when they do spurt.
- The family that came down to enjoy the weather, eventually ended up waiting for the rain to end and walked away as soon as it did. They were so disapointed with the rain ; they forgot to stay back a little while longer and enjoy the time after the rain ended intermittently, which is what they had come for. People get so short sighted/ disappointed if they do not get what they want immediately when they are prepared to get it, they do not realize that they could still have it if they just waited a little while longer. They are so blinded by the disappointment that they are willing to spend the time to wait the bad times out but now not recognize the good time when it is fianlly around!
- ALWAYS rethink your version of what is good and bad...a downpour on day to the office may not be ideal but a downpour when you can afford to be wet is not so bad
- Be flexible to try and test your definitions. take a few risks...actually live...

Hope that taught me something I can remember always! :)

The smallest weed
The largest whale
A gale of wind to a pollen grain

A tiny beetle
A large mammoth
A crackling burst to a sesame seed

A baby tadpole
A swathering dinosaur
A soft cushion to the turtle's beneath

A growing bud
A banyan tree
A sense of direction to a growing weed

A sunlit ocean
A starlit night
A streak of white across the dark

A dancing aurolis
A single tweet
The flow of music in a hollow reed

What my existence
to question your love,
When exists not a moment
that isnt born in it.

I have seen you!
I have loved and embraced you!
I have even asked you from you!

Tears of joy
Tears of years of separation
Both coming together

An experience
An revelation even
A quenched hearts sigh
A blissful existence

The truth still remains.
Says my soul,
A long journey still, my friend, from 'I' to 'None'

Looked around begging
Hoping to find you standing,
Right beside me.
I have died every second I have lived sometime.

Part of a never ending ocean
a small droplet, bobbing in its waves
I have realized my existence

Found not a way yet,
to quench my heart,
that thirsts for you,
even when water surrounds.

This whole duality,
A well covered deceit ,
Yet I bound.
Exist in it if I must,
Could you just show your face.

Will willingly walk the wordly fire
While one self is born and dies..
As long as all I can ever see
Is your knowing smile and loving eyes.

What defines a lifetime? The death of a body? How can something so material define the existence of something so divine.

In this lifetime (if I may still calibrate), I have definitely lived many lives.

My existence as a child , as a teenager is so different from my existence today. Each phase I have lived, I have lived completely . Almost like a life time in itself. A vague memory of the phase trailing in my mind .I can relate it to but dont remember many details.

Like other births, each phase in this lifetime has added to who I have become today and what I may be tommorrow.

So why this obsession with deaths and births. One lifetime itself has shown me that death is transient. I am still the child and the teenager but that phase has died.I am an adult, I have moved on . I dont regret it, it still lives in me and I have learnt much from it.

So with life. I may fear death now but fear will only hold me to it. Now is beautiful and it wouldnt have been so had I not left my earlier selves behind.

I have much to see, experience, give and get love....one body cannot contain me.

It is so joyful to like something and then watch yourslef fall in love with it!

This music that I am hearing almost everyday...( sometimes even when it is not really playing!), every time I hear it I am transported to some place else..every time I hear some detail I havent heard before and I am even deeper in love with it and my real self ; grateful to the universe for bringing it into my life!

Our senses are really not only for an experience of the outside . They can be used to take us deeper inside . (something more is required to sustain one there ) . So maybe they are not as bad as a lot of writings make them out to be.

There is no harm in admiring the painting as long as it is leading us to a better understanding of the artist and a deeper love for him. the problem is if we are only letting our eyes do the seeing, observing the painting and paying to acquire and hang in our homes, satisfying our senses only.

If we can eat and love each taste for what it is ...see and understand the love that went into the details ....hear and get transported into a joy and love state...then we have understood why we were born and gifted with these senses!

The best way to bring good luck into your life is to have a happy good heart!

When you start viewing your life with one of those, you will always feel extremenly lucky.

There is so much to feel happy about, in just one meter of oneself including the sun rays, the light wind, the new sapling, the view of the world....

What colour lenses one wears on one'e eyes will define how one percieves the world.

try and put whatever negative you think of the world in one basket...and then throw it away...replace each incident with a happier version bit by bit...let it settle into the depths of your heart one by one ...

once you have completely replaced all the negativity...you will start seeing all that you havent for a long time ..there is so much beauty and love around ....

Seek and you shall find' - It cant be truer than that...what we all seek is omnipresent (literally)...we just need to start actually looking at it not through it as we may have been doing..

Have you noticed how a sapling pushes itself from its bulb, right through all that mud to come out into the sunlight ...its unbelievably miraculous!! Just watching it is pure joy and love filling...

With such love and joy around, where else do we need to look for him?

Just replace your lenses!

Dont feel guilty. If you did hurt me, thats because I had an ego left to hurt. And that is MY problem!

Dont feel regret. There's nothing you did that was not meant to teach me something. And for that learning, I am grateful.