There ain't no such thing as a free lunch

To drive is to become one with the car, i.e. me with a better voice or better ideas (on the CD), faster and with less effort. I have a donkey of a car - unsexy and reliable! The sad truth in this situation is that it makes me unhealthy and it is bad for the environment. The best thing is that I get to hear my CDs basically uninterrupted and with a regularity that is comforting. The latest CD that I have been listening to is by Swami Tejomayanada on the Upanishads. (Among many other things and assuming that I understood and remember correctly) he says that humans are born with 3 defects of the mind, firstly, mal (impurities), secondly, vikshep (agitations) and finally agyana aavarna (veiling due to ignorance.)

By mal or impurities are meant the likes and dislikes in the mind. These likes and dislikes superimpose your ideas of preference on what you see and hence you can no longer see how things really are. If Truth is of any importance, then these likes and dislikes are like impurities that pollute your vision of the Truth.

By vikshep are meant agitations: the incorrect vision causes agitations in the mind. When we superimpose incorrect values on the world due to mal, then we are driven  to act upon our incorrect conviction. (At least my vision is incorrect because if it wasn't then life would make complete sense - which it doesn't - and I am unable to decide because i do not know how to place value on different choices.)

and finally agayana avarna by which is meant veiling due ignorance, ie, just because you do not know, you believe something to be something it actually isn't. For example, it is a dark night and you are walking down a path when you see something long and winding on the ground before you. in the darkness you look at it and it is a snake till someone points a torch on it and you see it is actually a rope.

i.e. because we do not know what we are or what the world is, we assume them to be something other than what they are. Thus, we believe somethings will bring us happiness and we like them and others will bring us unhappiness and we dislike them. Finally, we spend our lives running away from what we do not like, and chasing those that we do like. But because we assume incorrectly, all our running away and chasing does not take us to the place we want to be.

All of which is complete theory for me, for i wonder about the meaning of the events in my life. Or as i put it to wonderful and wise friend:

Now, what I would really like to know is if there is any method to the madness of our lives? Is there any direction to the random occurrences in our lives? Does everything happen for a reason, i.e., no matter what happens, it is because it was NECESSARY for something, to lead us somewhere? An example that comes to mind is of modern art, whether there is any MEANING to it, or is it just blobs of colour in which we find meaning, just because we want to? 

To which I got the wonderful answer:

In short, nothing has meaning and everything has meaning.  It depends on what your goal is.  Kicking a ball into a net has no meaning really speaking, but the goal is to win and so it has a very significant meaning.  We need to find a goal of life to dedicate ourselves to, and then alone everything in our life gains meaning.  Higher the goal, greater the meaning of every act.  if the goal is Moksha, every breath has a meaning!

i.e. if moksha is the goal, then everything is only to purify the mind and every experience will only show more clearly the difference between what is real and what isn't; and only cast a light on our strong likes and dislikes and hence every experience has a meaning.