Ravi,
Thank you for your post.
To start off, I wish you well in your quest.
As you can see, from my several notes here in the forum, partly due to ignorance and mostly due to circumstances, my life has been formed for me, without the benefit of consultations of either horoscopes or the guidance of gurus or sasthras.
So, in many an instance, my guide has been my mother, who more than anything else, had a unsurpassable capacity to judge character and see through situations, and come out uncannily correct 100%.
It was indeed a little frightening to challenge mom, but in the end, she always proved right.
Hence in critical life decisions, like marriage, career or children, my mother was always a source of ideas, support and sometime critique.
My mother did not believe in horoscopes, and treated many of the life guide rules as prescribed either by the kanchi mutt or the shastras, with scepticism. Mainly it was her life experience, I think, lead her to that path. The mores of those times, did not permit her to study further than high school, seek employment or assert herself in the world, outside of her home.
So, while paying lip service many a times to the mores, so as not to rattle the society in which she lived, and ever aware of the marriage needs of her children, she maintained that noble attitude of inaction against formalism as dictated by our shastras.
All in all, I cannot complain about my lot. It had had its ups and downs, but ultimately tolerable.
Now, with your views on how you want to handle your future, within the confines of scriptures and well laid out stages of life, how do you hope to accept disappointments.
I have found, that many a folks, follow the scriptures, with the ardent belief that their prayers will be answered. Now it so happens, that bad things happen even to good people. It is a difficult situation, for these inherently religious folks, to see the irreligious getting ahead in life, while they, the true believers, literally get shafted by fates.
Interestingly, those few I know who changed religions, were such ardent hindus, who when faced with hardships, they interpreted this as proof, that our God was not good or did not have the wherewithal to deliver, and hence swapped to some other religion.
Whereas, I, comfortably on the borderline of a low percentage Brahmin, (thanks to krs for this %ism definition J) have never felt any need to question my God. Always have accepted my identity, and have gone about in what I felt was the best way for me to handle life, irrespective of what was prescribed in the scriptures.
I tried your method. Found it confining and also, myself a very insincere in trying to behave something that I was not.
Hope this explains, where I was coming from, and some underlying reasons for my view of life.
Thank you.
