It’s your choice

“Every person, all the events of your life
are there because you have drawn them here.
What you choose to do with them Is up to you.”
Richard Bach

Life’s greatest gift is free will to choose from the myriad of possibilities presented to us. Believe it or not, but it’s always been you who made all the choices. Whether you do it consciously or unconsciously is also your choice.
What stops you from accepting this overt, irrefutable fact?
FEAR of taking RESPONSIBILTY of your life. You give all kinds of justifications, “My parents are so dominating that I don’t have any choice except to follow their decisions. My boss won’t listen. Society doesn’t allow this or that.” Some go to the extent of putting the entire onus on GOD saying, “That’s my destiny.” Stop giving lame excuses for the apathy towards yourself. Get out of this stupor; hold the reins of your life by consciously and blithely making choices.
Stop sleepwalking through your lives! Believe it, it’s always been you who made all the choices. You chose not to be responsible for your own life. You chose to let others make decision for your life. Nobody in this universe can dictate you to make choices. You were born with free will. Accept the fact that you are responsible for all your circumstances.
“Nobody in this universe has the power to stop
you from getting what you truly deserve”
Swami Vivekananda
You deserve the best!
Then why do we give excuses?
Not again! Let me put it this way. The reason is DOUBT. You doubt your capabilities and DOUBT always concludes in FEAR. Fear of failure. Fear of making mistakes. Fear of being ridiculed. Therefore, stop doubting .How can you fail when you have been programmed only to succeed. Truly speaking, there is nothing like failure or success. These words have been created by your MIND for the sake of ‘I’. Nothing that is comparative exists in reality. All comparative terms have been coined by your mind for the sake of ‘Ego’.
That means there is nothing like Good or Bad, Right or Wrong.
YES, you are learning fast.
You make a CHOICE and you get a RESULT. What name you give to the RESULT is your choice. You are free to make a CHOICE. You can call it failure or success, good or bad, right or wrong.
On one hand, you say there is nothing like good or bad, right or wrong, success or failure and then you say that we are programmed to succeed.
I said it’s your choice; you can name the result or the choice as good, right and, successful or wrong, bad and failure.
I choose to call each and every choice as ‘right’ and every result as ‘success’.
This reminds me of a story about a minister who made a choice that ‘Everything happens for Good’
The story is about a king in India who had a wise minister. The minister had a habit of looking at every situation in life positively and remarking “Everything happens for the good!”
One day the king and his minister were getting ready to go for hunting. Before leaving for the forest, the king fired the gun to make sure it was properly working. There was something wrong with the gun and his thumb was blown off. The minister remarked as usual, “Everything happens for the good!” The king was furious and ordered to send the minister to jail. The minister again said, “Everything happens for the good!”
After few months, when the king went for hunting, he was captured by wild people who believed in human sacrifice. When they were getting him ready for the sacrifice, they noticed that one of the king’s thumbs was missing. Being superstitious, they never sacrificed anyone who was less than whole. Therefore, they let the king go.
When the king returned home, he was reminded of the event when he lost his thumb and felt remorse for sending his minister to jail. He immediately went to the jail and told his minister. "You were right; because I lost my thumb that day my life was saved. But how could it be good that I sent you to jail?" The minister replied,” If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you. Those people would have definitely killed me.”
Life is all about perception, how you perceive the various events and circumstances of your life. If you choose to believe in the perfection of life, you are sure that everything happens for a reason and the reason is to provide you an opportunity to learn and progress towards the truth.
The truth is that it is your choice how you live your life. You can choose to be contended with what you have got. However, if you are dissatisfied with your circumstances that’s also your choice. You have free will (choice) to edit, modify your circumstances according to your aspirations. It’s your journey. You are free to choose your destination and the path. You can choose to follow the easier path, followed by most but then you miss the excitement of learning new things. You miss out on the opportunities to recognize your strengths. You don’t give yourself a chance to realize your true potential. On the other hand, you can choose to follow the path that your heart desires to pursue. It may appear difficult and lonely in the beginning but it would be full of excitement and adventure and soon you will realize there would be many following you. It is always easier to go downhill than to travel uphill but remember that the later also takes you to the top. Only from the top, you can see the whole view. It is your choice whether you want to ascend or descend.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
Always remember that no one but you are privileged to make choices for your life. Therefore, acknowledge the responsibility for your present circumstances only then you will have the power to change them.
What do you exactly mean by free will?
Free will means nobody else has the power to adjudicate and dictate you to make choices. Your choices are not to be guided or influenced by any other factor or person except your true self. Your choices are not be made under the influence of any other emotion except love for the choice itself. Choices made under the influence of fear, greed, anger, pleasure, will result in dissatisfaction. All such choices are made by ‘I’ not the real you. It’s as simple as choosing what you love to do, what your heart desires.
You make it sound as if it’s a cakewalk. How can one be free of all these emotions?
Who asked you to be free of these emotions? I said choose not to let them influence you while making choices.
How can you do that?
Realize the truth. Have faith in all because there is none in the universe except you/me/us/god. These words may have different meanings in English language but they are synonyms of the real self. The difference between GOD and you is that he is always aware of the fact that there are no two but only one. You get glimpses of this fact now and then.
If you know that there is only one, you don’t have to be scared of anything or anyone. Whom will you envy? Whom are you scared of? Who can harm you? Who can stop your progress? People who try to scare you or harm you are themselves scared. People who envy you are unable to love themselves. People who judge you are judging themselves. There is nobody else but you. This universe is for you, by you and of you. Get rid of your small ‘I’, tell it to move over. You are fearless having indomitable courage, indefatigable energy and a source of inexhaustible love and happiness. Develop unwavering faith in your real self and you will be free of all futile thoughts and emotions.
Treat Others the Way YOU Want to Be Treated Back? Do you know how it works?
When you treat others with hate, disrespect, anger, fear, ridicule you are doing that to yourself, so you have already got it back. It means you are angry with yourself .You don’t respect yourself. You hate yourself. Sounds awful! That’s the truth.
If you love yourself unconditionally and respect yourself, it would be impossible for you to hate others or be angry with them.
Be happy when so called others (by your ‘I’) are happy, feel their pain, empathize with them. In short, feel connected to everyone around you. When you love others, their energies join your energy and you become more powerful.
HE (GOD) is the summation of all the living beings and non-living things on this universe. He is GOD because he knows there is nothing in this universe but only and only HIM. He knows you are in HIM and HE is in you. If you acknowledge and remember this truth, you have free will. You can do whatever you want.
In the previous chapter, you said that the real self knows the past and the future that means our future is predetermined. If something is predestined then how can you say that we are free to make choices?
I agree that I said that our real self knows our future but I never said that there is only one future. It’s again because of the limitations of the physical self that we cannot visualize the possibility of many futures existing simultaneously at this very moment.
How does one know that he/she has made the right choice?
When will you learn there is nothing wrong or right, good or bad? It all depends on what you want the most.
Choose that which make you incredibly jubilant and triumphant. That is the best choice.
Just remember when you experience joy and love you are closer to your real self.
Actually, it is of no consequence what choice you make. You are programmed to attain your ultimate goal i.e. to realize your real self. Nothing can stop you from achieving it. It’s only a matter of time.