Destiny's A Game Of Poker

A swami gave a talk recently on destiny, free will and karma at the Integral Yoga Institute of Princeton.

Anyone who could explain to me why things are as they are was someone I wanted to meet.

Srila Dhanurdhara Swami explained that destiny is like the hand you’re dealt in poker; free will is the way you play the hand. We all have a destiny, but we have a say in how the situations we’re dealt are handled.

This makes sense, I thought.

He also said what happens to us in this life is based on karma from past lives.

That hardly seems fair …I wasn’t sure I was buying that.

The swami explained a past life is like a dream. You have all these images from the dream and when you wake up, those images are still in your consciousness. That’s what it’s like when we come into this life. The images from our past life are still in there, and we need to work them out.

That both sucks and blows, I told the swami. Karma’s complicated, he said.

The swami gave us an exercise to do to explain that we are the creators of the situations we face.

Close your eyes …but how will you read this …? First read the whole way through, then do it. I’m telling you – do it – it works!

Close your eyes. Visualize someone who’s causing issues in your life. See and hear them saying the things to you that bother you. Now place your face over their face.

Does it make sense? What we bring into our lives is a reflection of something we have in ourselves.

This is why it’s important to respond appropriately in all situations. Appropriately means according to our true nature, without selfishness.

It helps me to think of appropriate response in terms of the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz:

1. Be impeccable with your words – say what you mean.

2. Don’t take anything personally.

3. Don’t make assumptions.

4. Always do your best.

If we can act from the four agreements in every situation, and karma is straight up for real, it should follow that we’ll get less of what we don’t want and more of what we do.

The goal is, when we visualize someone in our life saying the things they say to us and we replace their face with ours, we’ll like what we’re hearing. Why just like? We’ll love it.

The ultimate goal of course, is to see all karma as neutral, neither good nor bad, and to be able to be happy no matter what cards we’re dealt.

I’m nowhere near that level, so for now my strategy is the four agreements and keeping my fingers crossed.

Bottom line, destiny is a moral force meant to help us grow and become better people, the swami said. It is absolute and good, and moving for our growth.

So if destiny means we reap what we sow, let’s get busy with those four agreements and be good to each other. We are each other!