The Stars and Us.
In a recent conversation, I heard about a person’s struggle with life, and having the ‘it never rains but it pours’ experience. “What did I do to deserve this?” he mused.
“Something”, I replied.
That was almost as painful for him to hear as his present situation. And he couldn’t accept it. “Are you telling me,” he ventured, “that I have caused as much pain to another that I am experiencing now?”
Yes, no one makes our bad karma that causes us pain. It may appear that others are doing it to us, or life itself is doing it and I’m just an innocent player. Such innocence is not true.
The stars, destiny, others – they all play a part in the unfolding drama of our lives, but we wrote the script. We brought it all down upon ourselves. Yep. That is a hard pill to swallow. It is not the fault in our stars, it is our fault. We own it.
We are conditioned to blame others. We like to play the victim. And externally it may be so – we are a victim. But not by chance, not by some arbitrary choice of God, not by some mean spirited universe or unfairness game.
We have to step back, take a deep breath, and say to ourselves: yes, how I lived then is how I live now. And how I live now determines my future. I make my own destiny, literally.
That’s a lot of power and control in our hands. We would be wise to consider it a reality and if so we can turn our life around in seconds. We can at once free ourselves from suffering, forgive those around us, let go, let God. We can say, yes, there is no one to blame but myself. Once we hold it, we can let it go.
Once we take the responsibility on ourselves, suddenly everything gets lighter. It’s not the world against me, out to get me. It’s just me being me! I can forgive myself, face the future, and change everything for the better.
Which begs the final question: Even if we live a great life and create a great karmic destiny, we still have to die. How can we stop death? That, my dear readers, is a question for you to contemplate.
Ananda Vrindavanesvari Dasi