By Marcia Bender
The choices we make today can limit, or free, our tomorrow. Our lives are filled with choices. From our first breath to our last, we are making decisions that will profoundly affect us.
A young child begins the choice process by deciding which toy to select for playtime or which flavor of juice he or she would prefer for a snack. As the child advances, the choices may include which shirt to wear to school or which movie to select from the choices offered by the parent. These seem like very elementary decisions to an adult, but to the child they are just as important as many of the future life decisions to be made. As the child matures, the decisions become more complicated: Who to invite to the birthday party, who to invite for a sleep over, which homework assignment to begin first, etc. The childhood decisions are not what we would consider life-changing, but as children progress into the teen years and beyond, the decisions really do affect their futures in profound ways.
The majority of people do not really think beyond the moment of choice to the future consequences of their decisions.
This is normal, but a mistake. It is possible to train ourselves to look beyond the choice of the moment, to envision how the current choice may directly impact our future and the future of those whose lives are connected to our own.
The Buddha said, “It’s better to take one step in the right direction than 10,000 in the wrong direction.” The Buddhist masters tell us, “Be careful. What you think is so, and what seems to be so, may not be so.” If we can consider those two statements before making our choices, we can free ourselves from the world of illusion and begin to make the choices that will give us the freedom to live happier and more productive lives.
The Fool in the Tarot Deck (Major Arcana Key 0) talks to us of choices. His number is 0 and “zero” can contain all things or nothing. We all enter a new incarnation with the ability to attain Cosmic Consciousness, to fill our lives with all things or nothing. This is why our choices are so important. As you think, so you are.
As humans, it is common for us to allow other people to make our choices. From the day of our birth we go through a conditioning process that consists of other people’s rules, regulations, and choices that are made for us. It is easy to just drift along and let others do the thinking and selecting for us. We are then rewarded by the parents, the teachers, the religious leaders, the government authorities, etc., who tell us what good and well-behaved children/followers we are. Many of us are brought up to believe that it is wrong to enjoy life too much. In general, religions and governments have a tendency to control their followers.
While the purpose of religious teachings may be to get “all the cows in the barn,” the purpose of metaphysical teachings it to get “all the cows out in the pasture.” The barn is not a creative place and the entire idea of metaphysics is to encourage creativity and self-expression. Instead of starting out with the idea that we are all sinners, begin with knowing that we are glorious, wonderful, excellent, and intelligent beings. One must realize the greatness of Self before that greatness can be expressed. In reality, we can be emancipated. We can choose to analyze and overcome this conditioning and learn to think for ourselves. However, we must choose to make that decision. Yet another choice.
Metaphysical study states that people are able to create their own realities.
We are taught that we enter a new incarnation with many lessons that must be learned—lessons that we may have failed to learn in past lifetimes and have chosen to work with in the current one. This is called “karma.”
My students often ask me how they can have free choice when karma and destiny are affecting an entire lifetime. There are many situations in life when we find ourselves at a fork in the road where there are two or more directions we can choose to take and still fulfill our karmic lessons. When we find ourselves facing these decisions we must try to select the path that will lead us to the best possible outcome.
Our destiny may lie before us, but we have the free will to make our own decisions.
We must learn to think of what effect our actions will have on others, before we act, knowing that we do have responsibilities to others in our lives, as well as ourselves. We also must try to understand “what comes around goes around,” and our choices will come back to us in this lifetime or in a lifetime to come.
The Bible says, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” An example of how we can choose to fulfill a karmic lesson would be the following. A woman meets a man, in business or socially, and feels an immediate attraction to this person. As student of metaphysics would know that this feeling of “knowing” a perfect stranger is a result of having known and interacted with this individual in one or more past incarnations. The friendship continues to grow and the need to interact becomes stronger and stronger. This would be an ideal situation except for one thing—the man is married! The woman now has a choices including to attempt to break up the marriage, to become a close friend, or to take it as a lesson and end the friendship. Any choice would fulfill the karma in this relationship. Destiny has brought the two together once again, but they have the free will to decide how to fulfill the karma.
One of our major goals in life is to discover as much as we can about ourselves. When we begin to know ourselves, we can improve the quality of our lives. The more we know about ourselves, the better we can deal with any life situation that comes along. As we get to know ourselves better, we can begin to accept responsibility for the decisions and choices, positive or negative, that we have made up to this point in our lives and free ourselves from the past.
The universe is vast and strange, and no one individual can control what happens in it. We can take responsibility for our own actions and decision and realize that, like it or not, whatever we do, whatever we experience, whatever we choose, contributes to our development. Life demands that we respond to many things, but the way we respond is our choice.
The choices you make will directly affect your future. Choose wisely.
And remember, Knowledge is the Greatest Power, so Walk in the Light.
Marcia began her career as a school teacher, working with preschool through inner city high school students. She has worked with all aspects of Metaphysics for over 40 years and specializes in Tarot and Numerology. Marcia’s clients and students are in every state and throughout Europe. Marcia has taught over 400 students to “read” the Tarot for the purpose of self-guidance and to use the powerful symbolism of the Tarot to reach higher levels of spirituality. Her column, Spiritually Speaking, originally ran for 8 years in Attitudes Magazine. Email marlou2000@aol.com